The Magnificent Goldberg Posted April 24, 2014 Report Posted April 24, 2014 A little while back, in the three or four sixties favourites thread, there was some conversation about the length of time between the recording of jazz albums and their release. I volunteered to do a bit of research on the 125 identifiable albums mentioned in the thread. Well, Ive done it.I used the Lord discography to identify recording dates, and to reject those that were dug out of the archives, or first issued on European labels, which got the 125 down to 107. For albums recorded at different dates, I used the last date. Then I used Schwann catalogues from July 1967, April 1969 and July 1981 (not terribly useful even for Bitches brew), to identify the release dates. Schwann only gave release dates if the notification to them of release included a track listing Prestige seems to have been particularly bad at providing track listings, so relatively few of that companys albums are included also many Prestige albums on the thread were on NJ, a budget label, included in a separate Schwann publication. These dates are, therefore, references to the catalogue edition in which the track listings can be found, not actual release dates, but good enough, I think. In addition, some albums had clearly been released and deleted by the 1967 or 1981 editions I have.All of this, in the end, brought the list down to 68 albums. Ive tried to organise this list so you can see whats going on. From the left is the number of months between recording and issue; the label; and the artist & title.Delay Label Album6 Atlantic Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz To Come9 Atlantic Ornette Coleman, This Is Our Music14 Atlantic Ornette Coleman - Ornette!2 Blue Note Freddie Redd Music from The Connection'4 Blue Note Stanley Turrentine and The Three Sounds, Blue Hour4 Blue Note Horace Silver - Song For my Father4 Blue Note Ornette Coleman Trio: Golden Circle Vol. 15 Blue Note Sam Rivers - Fuchsia Swing Song5 Blue Note Horace Silver - Cape Verdean Blues6 Blue Note Andrew Hill - Black fire6 Blue Note Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer7 Blue Note Hank Mobley, Soul Station7 Blue Note The Three Sounds, Moods7 Blue Note Dexter Gordon - Our Man in Paris7 Blue Note Eric Dolphy - Out to lunch7 Blue Note Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles7 Blue Note Don Cherry - Complete Communion8 Blue Note Sonny Clark - Leapin' and Lopin'9 Blue Note Hank Mobley - Roll Call10 Blue Note Jackie McLean - Jackie's Bag10 Blue Note Donald Byrd - At The Half Note Café Vols. 1 & 212 Blue Note Hank Mobley: Workout12 Blue Note Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage14 Blue Note Jackie McLean "destination out"14 Blue Note Andrew Hill - Point of Departure20 Blue Note Jimmy Smith - Midnight special23 Blue Note Wayne Shorter - Adam's Apple10 Cadet Illinois Jacquet - Go power5 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Filles De Kilimanjaro6 Columbia (A) Thelonious Monk: Criss Cross6 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Miles smiles6 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Sorceror9 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - E.S.P9 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Nefertiti2 Contemporary Hampton Hawes - The Green Leaves of Summer4 Contemporary Teddy Edwards / Howard McGhee - Together Again6 Contemporary Vince Guaraldi - Jazz Impressions Of Black Orpheus3 Delmark Roscoe Mitchell Sound11 ESP Albert Ayler - Spirits Rejoice35 ESP Ornette Coleman "Town Hall 1962"2 Impulse Archie Shepp - Four for Trane2 Impulse Sonny Rollins - On Impulse3 Impulse Gil Evans -- Out of the Cool3 Impulse John Coltrane "Coltrane"3 Impulse John Coltrane, Crescent3 Impulse John Coltrane - A love supreme4 Impulse John Coltrane - Plays Chim Chim....5 Impulse John Coltrane "Africa Brass"5 Impulse Benny Carter: Further Definitions5 Impulse John Coltrane -- Live at the Village Vanguard5 Impulse John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman6 Impulse Oliver Nelson: Blues and the Abstract Truth9 Impulse Sonny Rollins: Alfie11 Impulse J J Johnson - Proof positive13 Impulse John Coltrane: First Meditations3 Mercury Sarah Vaughan - Sassy Swings The Tivoli4 Nessa Roscoe Mitchell Congliptious4 Pacific Jazz Roy Haynes - People7 Prestige Lucky Thompson------Lucky Strikes7 Prestige Richard "Groove" Holmes - Soul Message7 RCA Victor Sonny Rollins - Our Man in Jazz8 RCA Victor Paul Desmond - Bossa Antigua18 Savoy Paul Bley - Footloose !12 Smash James Brown - Grits & soul4 Solid State Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra - Presenting3 Verve Stan Getz - Jazz Samba5 Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band, Live at the Village Vanguard7 Verve Wynton Kelly: Smokin' at the Half Note(Hope this stays as reasonable as it looks now )One thing that's very clear from the list is that managing a record company is pretty much like managing any other piece of business; you have to balance the available resources and their cost against the likely rewards to their use and determine priorities accordingly. The amount of other material by an artist awaiting issue or still selling very well indeed will be very pertinent to this issue.Evidently, all the firms in the list had resources to enable them to get albums out quickly if they wanted to. Blue Notes two months for Freddie Redds Connection was obviously caused by the need to keep up with the theatre opening. And you can hear the cash registers tinkling for Blue hour and Song for my father; and also for the Coleman set, the first time BN had got their hands on his material. Sam Rivers, Andrew Hills and Wayne Shorters first releases were done pretty quickly, too.You can see that principle working even on the two Chuck Nessa productions of Roscoe Mitchell. In Chucks cases, there was no competing material bidding for resources. And its very clear at Impulse. The first albums by Shepp and Rollins were pushed out quickly. Gil Evans was hot in 1961, as a result of his collaborations with Miles Davis. And Trane was always commercially successful.The sames true for Hamp Hawes Green leaves; his first recording after getting out of prison.At the other end of the scale, Jimmy Smith had loads of material in the can when he recorded Back at the Chicken Shack and Midnight special (I used the latter as it was issued first (and I dont anyway have an issue date for Chicken Shack)). Was Midnight special, Smiths first hit LP, so obviously more of a hit than House party, The sermon or Home cookin? I hardly think so. Im less familiar with Wayne Shorter, but he, too, had a lot of material out, which I suspect explains the delay for Adams apple.One of the odd men out is Ornettes Town Hall concert which I understand Ornette was trying to flog to one company or other for a long time before ESP took it on.The other is James Browns Grits and soul. You wouldnt expect that album to have been sat on for a year. But it was experimental; his first jazz album. It also needed considerable editing, not because it was bad I have the original length tracks and theyre as good as the cut down versions. I suspect the editing gave rise to much argument between Brown and Mercury. There was, at about the same time I think, the legal wrangle between King and Mercury over Browns contract. So perhaps the issue of the LP had to await the outcome of two sets of wrangles.The labels heavily involved in the popular music markets (Atlantic, Cadet and the majors) look as if they had much more competing material than the indies not a notion to cause anyone brain damage.So thats it; no general rule; no norm; just the balancing of resources and benefits.MG Quote
clifford_thornton Posted April 24, 2014 Report Posted April 24, 2014 Wow, thanks for this. Though First Meditations for Quartet came out in 1977, so more like a dozen years after recording... Quote
medjuck Posted April 24, 2014 Report Posted April 24, 2014 (edited) It was worse in the late '50s. Prestige sat on some the Miles material from 1956 for 5 years. RCA didn't release Tijuana Moods for several years also. I"ve been trying to find out the release dates of all the Prestige Miles for a long time but it's difficult. There is a Wikipedia page devoted to Miles release dates but I know it to be inaccurate in at least a couple of cases so I'm a bit dubious. Edited April 25, 2014 by medjuck Quote
GA Russell Posted April 25, 2014 Report Posted April 25, 2014 Thanks for all that work, MG! I find that nowadays ECM routinely releases a new issue twelve months after it was recorded. Quote
The Magnificent Goldberg Posted April 25, 2014 Author Report Posted April 25, 2014 Wow, thanks for this.Though First Meditations for Quartet came out in 1977, so more like a dozen years after recording...Ah, I thought first meditations meant the first edition of 'Meditations'. You should always get someone who knows something about the subject to do this sort of stuff MG Quote
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