Impulse label question - cover/vinyl mismatch?

[Big Beat Steve]

Admittedly the following question may be redundant to those who enthuse about Impulse just as much as they do about Blue Note and know all the finer points, so my excuses beforehand if I may be stating the obvious ...
I'm not only no Impulse expert but also have bought very few Impulse vinyls through the years, but now there is one detail that has me wondering ...

About 25 years ago I privately bought a small collection of Count Basie vinyls that included a near-pristine copy of "Count Basie & The Kansas CIty 7" on Impulse (Mono A-15). Inside the typical thick cardboard gatefold cover (marked "Printed in USA - A Product of ABC-Paramount Records, Inc." on the back), however, sat an LP with the light-blue rainbow MCA label (US pressing, Universal City, CA 91608 address in the fine print, and release no. MCA-29003 with (AS-15-A) underneath and a small Impulse! logo above the MCA Records logo).
As Impulse as part of ABC-Paramount must have been a thing of the past when MCA took control of them all there seemed to be mismatch between the age of the cover and the record. So I attributed this to someone having put a more recent vinyl pressing inside the original sleeve (was the original record shot, maybe?). Not that I would have minded but it was odd ...

But then last week I bought a copy of "Americans in Europe Vol. 1" on Impulse (Stereo A-36, same type of gatefold cover again). And inside this one there is a vinyl on the Dutch Philips label (841974 BY) of the kind that was current in the 60s. No mention of Impulse (contrary to the above Basie LP) on the label.

So I am wondering if these mismatches are just coincidences or not ...

A search on Discogs did not yield anything totally conclusive (for lack of photographs) on the Basie LP, but the "Americans in Europe" LP combination/mismatch I have looks like the one described here (which would make it a Dutch 1963 pressing):

https://www.discogs.com/de/release/10844694-Various-Americans-In-Europe-Vol-1

Now my question to those in the know:

Is this kind of mismatch between the cover and the vinyl a common occurrence with older Impulses? Did they have that massive quantities of "surplus" gatefold sleeves from the ABC-Paramount era that they were able to ship the sleeves abroad for local pressings (with just the vinyl being pressed in the respective country) or even use them up much later (as in the case of the Basie KC 7 MCA-Impulse LP)?

I seem to remember that such "mismatches" occurred with Blue Notes from the Liberty era too (i.e. European-pressed vinyl, e.g. from Germany - with German copyright text on the BN label, inside a U.S. "Liberty" cardboard sleeve). But the mismatches of these two Impulses are much more "radical" so I am wondering ...

Thanks beforehand to whomever may have some evidence on this ...

 

[Teasing the Korean]

Labels frequently used older leftover covers with newer LP pressings, or newer covers with older pressings. If the catalog number changed, they may have slapped a sticker with the new number on there someplace. Labels sometimes used leftover mono covers for stereo records and slapped a stereo sticker on the cover. They used what was available.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Teasing the Korean

[clifford_thornton]

Yes and yes.

[Chuck Nessa]

More economical to print larger quantities of paper to save for later - print 2500, press 1000 is/was a common practice. You can up the numbers for the "majors".

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks everyone.

Of course I've seen Stereo stickers stuck on Mono covers or covers with labels with new catalog no. stuck over superseded catalog no. on covers. Relatively often.

But what baffles me here is that they should have kept clearly outdated label addresses and affiliations (such as in the case of Impulse as part of ABC Paramount in the case of an MCA-era record inside) without sticking an update label on. (I've seen such stickers elsewhere) I should have thought that label owners would be a wee bit touchy about getting this right. Or were jazz pressings that much of a niche market even back then that they just could not be bothered?

According to this site ...
https://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/7-impulse/impulse-us-labels/
... my Basie KC7 LP has a 1963-66 cover with a post-1979 record inside. So I do wonder if they actually still were using up 60s cover stocks in 1979?

And putting records inside that have not only a different label but a totally different catalog no. and NO reference to the original catalog no. (such as in the case of the Dutch Philips vinyl inside the US Impulse cover, which according to Discogs was no isolated case) is rather odd too.

All this IMO is a far cry from using up (or using in the first place) domestic (U.S.) covers for export pressings, such as in the case of my copies of Art Blakey's Orgy In Rhythm Vol.1 and 2 which have a German vinyl (with the copyright small print in German on the Blue Note label which otherwise resembles the US label, and "Made in Germany" in the dead wax) inside what clearly is a U.S. cardboard Liberty-era cover.

So ... as an ongoing question for those who read this topic later on, have any of you come across similarly mismatched Impulse pressings?

[Gheorghe]

Sincerly I can´t say what pressings from what country was. I´m sure this is important for collectors, but I can only speak for the music. So I´m quite sure a lot of pressings I have is not an original source but made otherwhere, but I was not really aware of this. If the music was ok, everything was ok. 

"Americans in Europe" was quite a strange output for me when I first saw it. 

But I couldn´t have my enjoyment of jazz without the Impulse! label, that´s almost a whole decade of jazz, of essential records of 60´s jazz. All them Coltrane albums (I don´t have all), the other formost musicians of then avantgarde jazz, like a lot of Trane followers like Pharoah Sanders, Shepp, NY Contemporary Five, Albert Ayler , the Ornette Coleman stuff on Impulse is also wonderful, and last not least "Black Saint and Sinner Lady" by Mingus. And if I´m really exhausted I might spin "Trane with Johnny Hartman".....oh boy when it starts with "They say it´s wonderful ..." beautiful ! 

You are right, they have covers with whatdoyoucallit  "gatefold cover".....oh yeah, I remember when I bought my first, which most possibly was a Trane album, I thought it´s a double LP and tried to scratch the cover since I thought there might be the second LP hidden in it, and was pissed off that it´s just one LP, since it´s natural i wanted much music for less money....

I also remember that since my first Trane LP was "At Village Vanguard Again" I had thought that this is the name of the club "Village Vanguard Again", and when I mentioned that if I was not underage I would fly to NY right the the "Village Vanguard Again". And the guy said "why, you allready was there ?" 😀

[sidewinder]

The one significant Impulse cover/label mismatch I can recall are the UK Impulse reissues put out by Anchor Records (I think) here in the mid-70s. These had non-laminated US covers but with UK vinyl and labels. I bought a number of them.

[jazzcorner]

On 4/11/2023 at 2:55 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

Admittedly the following question may be redundant to those who enthuse about Impulse just as much as they do about Blue Note and know all the finer points, so my excuses beforehand if I may be stating the obvious ...
I'm not only no Impulse expert but also have bought very few Impulse vinyls through the years, but now there is one detail that has me wondering ...

About 25 years ago I privately bought a small collection of Count Basie vinyls that included a near-pristine copy of "Count Basie & The Kansas CIty 7" on Impulse (Mono A-15). Inside the typical thick cardboard gatefold cover (marked "Printed in USA - A Product of ABC-Paramount Records, Inc." on the back), however, sat an LP with the light-blue rainbow MCA label (US pressing, Universal City, CA 91608 address in the fine print, and release no. MCA-29003 with (AS-15-A) underneath and a small Impulse! logo above the MCA Records logo).
As Impulse as part of ABC-Paramount must have been a thing of the past when MCA took control of them all there seemed to be mismatch between the age of the cover and the record. So I attributed this to someone having put a more recent vinyl pressing inside the original sleeve (was the original record shot, maybe?). Not that I would have minded but it was odd ...

But then last week I bought a copy of "Americans in Europe Vol. 1" on Impulse (Stereo A-36, same type of gatefold cover again). And inside this one there is a vinyl on the Dutch Philips label (841974 BY) of the kind that was current in the 60s. No mention of Impulse (contrary to the above Basie LP) on the label.

So I am wondering if these mismatches are just coincidences or not ...

A search on Discogs did not yield anything totally conclusive (for lack of photographs) on the Basie LP, but the "Americans in Europe" LP combination/mismatch I have looks like the one described here (which would make it a Dutch 1963 pressing):

https://www.discogs.com/de/release/10844694-Various-Americans-In-Europe-Vol-1

Now my question to those in the know:

Is this kind of mismatch between the cover and the vinyl a common occurrence with older Impulses? Did they have that massive quantities of "surplus" gatefold sleeves from the ABC-Paramount era that they were able to ship the sleeves abroad for local pressings (with just the vinyl being pressed in the respective country) or even use them up much later (as in the case of the Basie KC 7 MCA-Impulse LP)?

.....................

Thanks beforehand to whomever may have some evidence on this ...

 

Stumbled over this thread and have the two above mentiond Items in my stock

a) My copy  of Americans in Europe Impulse A-36 Stereo seems to be a regular Impulse 1972 pressing with the label Impulse/abc as printed label logo

b) My copy of  Count Basie and the Kansas City 7  has the normal gatefold Impulse cover but on the backside a print "MCA Records - licensed by" and that described "rainbow MCA label" inside.

As London Jazz Collector shows there were a lot of label changes inc. the MCA version over the years.

Will check  my complete  Impulse Stock and come back if there are more differences between the frontcover and the labe inside.

[Dmitry]

On 4/12/2023 at 6:19 AM, Big Beat Steve said:

But what baffles me here is that they should have kept clearly outdated label addresses and affiliations (such as in the case of Impulse as part of ABC Paramount in the case of an MCA-era record inside) without sticking an update label on. (I've seen such stickers elsewhere) I should have thought that label owners would be a wee bit touchy about getting this right.

It baffles you because you are a German. Order, common sense and accountability aren’t as widespread in most other places around the world. 

As to the Impulse! question, yes, like the others, I see the 1970s MCA records in the earlier gatefolds fairly often. It’s kind of a brief nuisance when you think you just scored a nice OP, and then fish out a 120 g. MCA lp.

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks everyone. So I see that my mismatches are no isolated cases but did happen back then. At any rate, I am not unduly worried about this, and in the case of the Basie KC7 LP it wasn't even a brief nuisance because the price for the lot that this LP was part of was really "right".
These mismatches just appeared odd to me as I wasn't sure how they came about. Not least of all because I myself have been known to put more recently pressed vinyl inside an older cover when dictated by the vinyl condition. E.g. in the case of the Mulligan/Desmond "Blues In Time" Verve LP of which I had found a copy of the original French pressing on Bel-Air a couple of years ago at a fleamarket at the measly sum of 1 EUR. I bought it just for the nicely preserved cover because side 1 of the vinyl was more than totally shot (and side 2 not pristine either). Some time ago I found a reissue of this on some budget label, so this clean budget vinyl now resides inside the Bel-Air jacket (though along with the original in P+ condition. )

[gmonahan]

It is also possible that an owner would change out the old LP for a newer one if s/he had played the hell out of it. I remember doing that with my old 2-LP "Best of Count Basie" on Decca. I played that album so much I think needles nearly went through it. Got a new set and put the new rainbow MCA LPs in the old gatefold album because it had cooler photos and better liners and just because I'd developed an affection for it!

[Teasing the Korean]

8 minutes ago, gmonahan said:

It is also possible that an owner would change out the old LP for a newer one if s/he had played the hell out of it. I remember doing that with my old 2-LP "Best of Count Basie" on Decca. I played that album so much I think needles nearly went through it. Got a new set and put the new rainbow MCA LPs in the old gatefold album because it had cooler photos and better liners and just because I'd developed an affection for it!

I have also found pristine vintage covers with a trashed LP inside, and placed a clean reissue LP inside of the vintage cover.  Some record collectors bristle at the thought of this, but I don't care.

[Big Beat Steve]

8 hours ago, gmonahan said:

It is also possible that an owner would change out the old LP for a newer one if s/he had played the hell out of it. I remember doing that with my old 2-LP "Best of Count Basie" on Decca. I played that album so much I think needles nearly went through it. Got a new set and put the new rainbow MCA LPs in the old gatefold album because it had cooler photos and better liners and just because I'd developed an affection for it!

Yes, that's not impossible - see the following statement I made in my original post:

"So I attributed this to someone having put a more recent vinyl pressing inside the original sleeve (was the original record shot, maybe?)."

As I explained in a later post I did this myself in the case of the Mulligan/DEsmond LP on Verve. But in the case of the Impulse LPs evidence mentioned by others in this thread (and on Discogs) makes me believe this mismatch wasn't due to this reason but part of the sales practices, with an apparent (intentional or accidental?) overflow of covers printed beforehand and used up over time. A bit like in the case of other labels such as Blue Note and Capitol where it seems that during the 60s and possibly later U.S. covers were printed and shipped worldwide and then used with LPs pressed in the respective country. So you ended up with an LP that clearly had a comparatively thick U.S. cardboard cover but a vinyl marked "manufactured in West Germany", for example.