Mercury label reissues (made in Japan) with Cat# suffix EXPR

[jazzcorner]

On Discogs there is a hot thread going trying to verify that this reissue series from 1982 is a special series for the US market only.

EXPR ---> Export

I bought many of those from the former Elektro Egger (Munich) and some single Items from Saturn Cologne  here in Germany.

For those who are also members at Discogs I want to point out that the "Guidelines" there are a bit strange in interpreting the prints on the record covers.

They see it like the Koran for the Muslims ---> the one and only truth?????

Has anybody knowledge about this reissue series?

Thanks

 

Edited March 26 by jazzcorner
typo

[Big Beat Steve]

Can you provide a direct link to the discussion going on at Discogs?

[jazzcorner]

On 3/4/2024 at 7:00 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

Can you provide a direct link to the discussion going on at Discogs?

https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/1051144?message_id=10873180#10873180

The result is still  ridiculous for me. Noone of the "yes" voters had supplied any proof for that crazy theoy except me.

So I wish you happy reading. A few "big egos" do dominate Discogs and the owners are busy to make money.

Thanks for your Interest.

Edited March 26 by jazzcorner
text edition

[Big Beat Steve]

Thanks for the link. Haven't read (and absorbed) it all yet but this is a very fiddly subject, it seems. At any rate, there seem several contributors who are heavily into the details. But piecing all these snippets of info together is bound to be difficult and will lead to conflicting assessments of what the results are all about.
I have nothing to contribute to this question but the follownig sentence "For Imports, the country they are imported from is the country of release" seems to be the decisive one IMHO.

BTW, since Elektro Egger was mentioned several times (some of my older "Bielefelder Katalog" volumes were handed out by them), I am surprised that someone came up with the idea of contacting them about these reissues and their importing policies. As far as I know (and as was confirmed in the obit of Manfred Scheffner in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" online issue) the Elektro Egger shop is long gone.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/nachruf-der-jazz-verkaeufer-1.4595638

 

 

[jazzcorner]

On 3/26/2024 at 1:49 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

......................
I have nothing to contribute to this question but the follownig sentence "For Imports, the country they are imported from is the country of release" seems to be the decisive one IMHO.

BTW, since Elektro Egger was mentioned several times (some of my older "Bielefelder Katalog" volumes were handed out by them), I am surprised that someone came up with the idea of contacting them about these reissues and their importing policies. As far as I know (and as was confirmed in the obit of Manfred Scheffner in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" online issue) the Elektro Egger shop is long gone.
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/nachruf-der-jazz-verkaeufer-1.4595638

 

Thanks for your reply. Discogs is a 'closed shop' with its own amateurmade rules. The real world outside Discogs looks in many situations different. The main philosophy here is at the moment that in the forum discussions the result is found by majority decisions. If a little majority decides black = white the it is valid until a new decision comes to a different result. I was in and out two times  because of this 'Kindergarten' behaviour and everytime I did leave I lost all my contributions (listed record collection, ranking a.o features) because the account will be closed then and you can start only with a new username and a new membership.

Main rule is "to submit whats printed on a official release" and not whats inside (= music). Valid is every kind of noise on the medium. Important is whats printed on the envelope/cover or what else.

The main question in the thread was are these japanese made Mercury vinyls a product for the market there or for the US. It is a fakt that I bought a great part of this EXPR series at Egger and  Saturn (Cologne). Cant imagine these big retailers did reimport from the US. The Import lists from Scheffner show clearly (have linked them in the thread)   these vinyl are Japan made  and Imports to the US and other countries. But some 'knowalls' know it better so my arguments were not seen correctly and the speculation where Egger got his merchandise did win.

Important for me is I have the music on the discs. These forum decisions are highly questionable and mostly private opinions how the guidelines have to be interpreted.

 

 

 

Edited June 3 by jazzcorner
typo

[Big Beat Steve]

I guess this problem of "reliabilty" exists with any such discussion platforms. When I read the Mercury discussion I was under the impression everything they stated boiled down to "educated guesses". But like I said, I know too little about this specific series to judge it at all. At any rate and on a more general level, my impression is that whatever the Japanese released and reissued beyond their own country certainly was aimed at the USA in the very first place. And all other target coutnries were afterthoughts. At least from the Japanese point of view.
So, looking at them from over here, I've understood Japanese pressings always as being typical "imports" (that found their way here more or less haphazardly and strictly on the initiative of individual importers).

But I'd bet ther always are exceptions to any rule anyone comes up with about pressings, releases, exports/imports, etc., so in the end it all remains "educated guesses". I am not worried too much about ths kind of "fuzziness" in these discussions anymore. I've come across the same kind of discussions on other forums in different hobby areas where you get involved once you have gathered substantial knowledge on the subject matter. But it almost always turns out that the more you learn the more you realize that there are things you don't know 100% for sure. So in most cases I'm past working myself into a temper ... 😁

At any rate, I think, beyond my use of Discogs for checks on specific releases I think I might check the discussion sites a bit more often too. Might be fun ... Although (judging by these Mercury discussions) I guess they remain more civilized than on the Hoffman forum ... 😁

[Gheorghe]

Mercury is a forrunner of Verve ? I never was clear about it, it seems it was like that as Bird on some live performances while talking to the MC mentions the "Mercury Label". And those string stuff was on Verve. 

I remember very well I was at Saturn in Cologna in the late 70´s . Found a lotta stuff I didn´t find in Viena. 

Japanese pressings of Verve.....well I think I had the Bird on Verve albums, all those "Strings" Cole Porter Songbooks, and South of the Border stuff as I remember, and I think the Bud Powell albums, all those "The Lonely One", "Blues in the Closet" also was japanese pressing......I don´t listen to them anymore, get no thrill out of ´em. 

[JSngry]

Mercury was its own label. Norman Granz released his product through them for a few years. After he separated from them, he formed both Clef and Norgran, both of which he folded into Verve once he started that label.

Mercury did quite well on it's own both before and after the Granz association.

[Gheorghe]

On 4/5/2024 at 10:14 PM, JSngry said:

Mercury was its own label. Norman Granz released his product through them for a few years. After he separated from them, he formed both Clef and Norgran, both of which he folded into Verve once he started that label.

Mercury did quite well on it's own both before and after the Granz association.

Great info, thx man ! 

[Daniel A]

On 3/27/2024 at 11:40 AM, jazzcorner said:

Thanks for your reply. Discogs is a 'closed shop' with its own amateurmade rules. The real world outside Discogs looks in many situations different. 

I sympathize fully with the observation that Discogs is not always a friendly or even "reasonable" place. And I would expect that the owners would like to make a profit, and that any usefulness for music lovers and collectors will sort of come as a side effect of that.

But at the same time I would like to acknowledge the fact that the place would be less useful to me without all of those people obsessively adding every tiny matrix number variation or misplaced comma on a label. I expect some of them to be perhaps less interested in the music, but more in the "archeological" aspects of record collecting or in the database perspective of Discogs. I want to listen to music as well, and would not have (or want to spend) time to make 100.000 edits or thousands of additions. For this reason, the types of Discogs users mentioned above will have a greater impact on much of the discussion around and actual addition of content than the casual - or even many a dedicated - music fan.

However, without them, some of the facts and details which are interesting and of value to me would be missing from Discogs.

[jazzcorner]

On 4/30/2024 at 4:44 PM, Daniel A said:

I sympathize fully with the observation that Discogs is not always a friendly or even "reasonable" place. And I would expect that the owners would like to make a profit, and that any usefulness for music lovers and collectors will sort of come as a side effect of that.

But at the same time I would like to acknowledge the fact that the place would be less useful to me without all of those people obsessively adding every tiny matrix number variation or misplaced comma on a label. I expect some of them to be perhaps less interested in the music, but more in the "archeological" aspects of record collecting or in the database perspective of Discogs. I want to listen to music as well, and would not have (or want to spend) time to make 100.000 edits or thousands of additions. For this reason, the types of Discogs users mentioned above will have a greater impact on much of the discussion around and actual addition of content than the casual - or even many a dedicated - music fan.

However, without them, some of the facts and details which are interesting and of value to me would be missing from Discogs.

Ah yes I can follow that. The history of Discogs at the beginning had another purpose. If you start such a database its simply an empty skeleton without any  use for collectors. The most important feature and need   was to fill it with data. So every member was invited to add as much as possible. The second period they started then later with the  real business Idea to make money charging a percentage of provision on the new created 'market' section for those who want to sell something.

For us as jazzfans one most important data is missing in the system. Its the rec. date. Discogs never cared for this. For the collector however ist important to learn  and see how an artists improves his position within the music to reach a 'top' position.

Discogs is in my opinion NOT a music database (any noise in any form is submitted) but a decription of physical individual characteristics which is not what a musicfan is looking for. You did mention it above. 

So I use Discogs the way you do and not the way those "crumbhunters" & bureaucrats  see as most important.

Thanks for you insights.

Edited June 3 by jazzcorner
typo

[Big Beat Steve]

On 4/30/2024 at 4:44 PM, Daniel A said:

I sympathize fully with the observation that Discogs is not always a friendly or even "reasonable" place. And I would expect that the owners would like to make a profit, and that any usefulness for music lovers and collectors will sort of come as a side effect of that.

But at the same time I would like to acknowledge the fact that the place would be less useful to me without all of those people obsessively adding every tiny matrix number variation or misplaced comma on a label. I expect some of them to be perhaps less interested in the music, but more in the "archeological" aspects of record collecting or in the database perspective of Discogs. I want to listen to music as well, and would not have (or want to spend) time to make 100.000 edits or thousands of additions. For this reason, the types of Discogs users mentioned above will have a greater impact on much of the discussion around and actual addition of content than the casual - or even many a dedicated - music fan.

However, without them, some of the facts and details which are interesting and of value to me would be missing from Discogs.

I came to using Discogs regularly (and even buying there) relatively late (only a couple of years ago) but do appreciate the outline of an artist's output this site provides. The "crumbhunters" ' input to indicate even minor differences in releases, pressings, etc., is useful to me and has helped me in identifying pressings (at least approximately, as I realize you never know where an uncorrected mistake or omission might hide). I dont expect session details there but am glad when they ARE there (they sometimes are).

So I take it above all as a database of the physical items that the music was released on to the public. Not as a discography in the stricter sense.

One thing I find annoying is the huge amount of multiple entries. When you look for a particular record there you often find one and the same item (not different pressing runs or reissues) has been entered several times - by different people at differnt times - but never consolidated into ONE entry. They really ought to work on that ...