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1970s BN Rainbow cover LPs vs. Japanese King LPs


Dmitry

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For instance -

250106121040_yvP7u.jpg

vs.

cool.gif

"Rainbow cover" LPs are the first issues of the previously unreleased material; the Japanese King label reissued them latr a later tame. Do the corresponding LPs sound the same? Reason I'm asking is because the "rainbow" Lps can be had for $10, whereas the King Lps are creeping up into the $40 and higher territory.

The cover on my King issue of the Cool Blue says that Tony Sestanovich was the re-mix engineer; he's the guy who re-mixed many of the US "Rainbow" Lps.

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... i prefer the japanese king mono pressings

because of the sound and even more for the cover artwork

I'll second that. The 'Rainbow' LPs are OK but they can seem a bit one-dimensional. The Kings, on the other hand, sound superb and with very low noise.

I have the 'Sonic Boom' on the King and the Rainbow and prefer the King by a long way.

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Don't know for the sound, but IMO those "rainbow cover" are among the ugliest covers ever. I suppose they were made in order to PREVENT the record from selling. :D

Funny how things change but back in the late 70s I thought those Rainbow covers were the coolest thing ever (apart from Ike Quebec's 'Congo Lament' with it's yetti in earmuffs though. :g )

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Nothing wrong with the rainbow cover or audio. I was glad to see them when they were released. They brought a lot of unisssued gems from the BN vaults.

Bill Burks, the art director for the series, had a taste of his own which I did not really go for but at least the covers did have a design of their own which made them instantly recognizable.

If I remember well, the King vinyls came shortly after. These got my seal of approval - and still have - as far as audio was concerned.

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The Kings were also in very limited quantities I believe, which accounts for their high price today.

This thread also reminds me that the first batch or two of the 'Rainbows' came out also in UK pressings and were widely available. The later batches (by which time I think Michael Cuscuna must have been getting them issued in the States by near-subterfuge thanks to the bean-counters) were only available here as US imports and copies of 'Mother Ship', 'Medina' etc. were for many years frustratingly rare.

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I remember buying a lot of those Kings at Mole Jazz whenever I traveled to London. They seemed to have plenty of those at the time!

And didn't BN England (or whoever was distributing the label) issued those Rainbows in Made in England replica LPs? I must have a couple of those somewhere!

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I remember buying a lot of those Kings at Mole Jazz whenever I traveled to London. They seemed to have plenty of those at the time!

So it was you who bought them all Brownie ! :D

Ah, the legendary Mole Jazz 'Japanese Import' rack. Spent many an afternoon salivating over that lot but I was just a poor student then and could only afford cutouts !

The UK issued Rainbows look just like the US ones but with lighter-grade covers. I suspect it might have been Transatlantic who issued those (they also did a couple of 'non-Rainbow' batches from 1977 onwards - I have a Don Cherry 'Where Is Brooklyn' from this issue and quite a few others).

Edited by sidewinder
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I got a lot of the Kings from Mole too. Lovely sound and great pressings. But I didn't turn my nose up at the 'Rainbow' pressings which I didn't find to bad sonically. If I remember correctly the Rainbow issues were released in advance of the Kings.

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I have no opinion re the sound issue, but I think the LT (rainbow) series is overly-maligned in terms of the cover art. Most of the King covers are great, but not all, imo. Some of the LT covers are less than appealing, but again, not all, imo. Ironically enough, the Jimmy Smith covers in the first post illustrate an example of how I feel. I love that LT "Cool Blues" cover, and although the photo of J.S. on the King is okay, I don't like the pale, washed-out sepia effect at all. Anyway, as some of us have said before on this subject, there's also a sentimentality factor when it comes to the LT's. That's the series where some of us first got our hands on these recordings, and it was damned exciting- even if we got those unique (and yes, at times somewhat odd) photographic covers that didn't feature images of the artists. I guess the first issue of anything has a certain appeal for some, also.

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I got almost all my Kings from Mole - by mail order. I luvvem! It wasn't just the artwork; the pressings seemed to be very good quality - kind of like real LPs, you know?

The British equivalent of the LT series was the LBR series. They had different numbers. My copy of "Sonic boom" (LT987) is LBR1020. The tiny print at the bottom says it was issued by Liberty/United Records (UK) Ltd, under authorisation. The reverse of the sleeves is the same as the US issues, but the front is different. The pic is the same but the series is called "The jazz file" and is made out to look like a filing system. Now in 1979 THAT was naff and then some! The British and US pressings seem quite a bit thinner than the Kings.

But when this stuff started coming out, starting with the twofers with the brown paper bag look, it was bloomin' wonderful! I mean, you just didn't care which versions you got! As soon as I saw one I bought it (a slight exaggeration - there were a few I didn't want). We had no idea in the late '70s that there were all these gems that had never been issued.

MG

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I'm a fan of the LT covers. They scream low-budget cool. Some of those photos are really appropriate. Most are, actually. Dance With Death is a favorite, as is Thinking Of Home.

The King covers, however, look kinda cheap to me.

I’m surprised at that. I can’t find all the King sleeves I was looking for on the web. But these two are pretty good, I think.

matador.jpg

REMEMBERING_GRANT_GREEN.jpg

Just as good are the sleeves for “Oleo” and “Gooden’s corner”, by the same artist.

MG

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Sorry, but Patrick Roques usally does it a lot better, imo. Those King covers lack the unified design of the real deals, especially in the colors. Sorta seems like a rock band doing a Duke Ellington song, or something like that.

Personal preference/taste, however, is all it is. But I still maintain that althought the full covers of the LT series were "quaint", no doubt due to budget constraints, the actual photos used were usually very good, appropriate, and, often enough, provocative.

But maybe you had to be there.

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Personal preference/taste, however, is all it is. But I still maintain that althought the full covers of the LT series were "quaint", no doubt due to budget constraints, the actual photos used were usually very good, appropriate, and, often enough, provocative.

But maybe you had to be there.

Be where?

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The King covers, however, look kinda cheap to me.

I see what you're saying, but I got to disagree, big guy. King's art directors were no Reid Miles, but I think they tried to do their best to keep the "feel" -

c0_1.JPG

Help me out here... what is that Sonny Clark cover "keeping the feel" of?

be where?

Presumably, at the record stores when the LT's were released.

Edited by Jim R
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