Length of delays between recording and release

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

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 Album

6 Atlantic Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz To Come

9 Atlantic Ornette Coleman, This Is Our Music

14 Atlantic Ornette Coleman - Ornette!

2 Blue Note Freddie Redd Music from The Connection'

4 Blue Note Stanley Turrentine and The Three Sounds, Blue Hour

4 Blue Note Horace Silver - Song For my Father

4 Blue Note Ornette Coleman Trio: Golden Circle Vol. 1

5 Blue Note Sam Rivers - Fuchsia Swing Song

5 Blue Note Horace Silver - Cape Verdean Blues

6 Blue Note Andrew Hill - Black fire

6 Blue Note Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer

7 Blue Note Hank Mobley, Soul Station

7 Blue Note The Three Sounds, Moods

7 Blue Note Dexter Gordon - Our Man in Paris

7 Blue Note Eric Dolphy - Out to lunch

7 Blue Note Herbie Hancock - Empyrean Isles

7 Blue Note Don Cherry - Complete Communion

8 Blue Note Sonny Clark - Leapin' and Lopin'

9 Blue Note Hank Mobley - Roll Call

10 Blue Note Jackie McLean - Jackie's Bag

10 Blue Note Donald Byrd - At The Half Note Café Vols. 1 & 2

12 Blue Note Hank Mobley: Workout

12 Blue Note Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage

14 Blue Note Jackie McLean "destination out"

14 Blue Note Andrew Hill - Point of Departure

20 Blue Note Jimmy Smith - Midnight special

23 Blue Note Wayne Shorter - Adam's Apple

10 Cadet Illinois Jacquet - Go power

5 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Filles De Kilimanjaro

6 Columbia (A) Thelonious Monk: Criss Cross

6 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Miles smiles

6 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Sorceror

9 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - E.S.P

9 Columbia (A) Miles Davis - Nefertiti

2 Contemporary Hampton Hawes - The Green Leaves of Summer

4 Contemporary Teddy Edwards / Howard McGhee - Together Again

6 Contemporary Vince Guaraldi - Jazz Impressions Of Black Orpheus

3 Delmark Roscoe Mitchell Sound

11 ESP Albert Ayler - Spirits Rejoice

35 ESP Ornette Coleman "Town Hall 1962"

2 Impulse Archie Shepp - Four for Trane

2 Impulse Sonny Rollins - On Impulse

3 Impulse Gil Evans -- Out of the Cool

3 Impulse John Coltrane "Coltrane"

3 Impulse John Coltrane, Crescent

3 Impulse John Coltrane - A love supreme

4 Impulse John Coltrane - Plays Chim Chim....

5 Impulse John Coltrane "Africa Brass"

5 Impulse Benny Carter: Further Definitions

5 Impulse John Coltrane -- Live at the Village Vanguard

5 Impulse John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman

6 Impulse Oliver Nelson: Blues and the Abstract Truth

9 Impulse Sonny Rollins: Alfie

11 Impulse J J Johnson - Proof positive

13 Impulse John Coltrane: First Meditations

3 Mercury Sarah Vaughan - Sassy Swings The Tivoli

4 Nessa Roscoe Mitchell Congliptious

4 Pacific Jazz Roy Haynes - People

7 Prestige Lucky Thompson------Lucky Strikes

7 Prestige Richard "Groove" Holmes - Soul Message

7 RCA Victor Sonny Rollins - Our Man in Jazz

8 RCA Victor Paul Desmond - Bossa Antigua

18 Savoy Paul Bley - Footloose !

12 Smash James Brown - Grits & soul

4 Solid State Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra - Presenting

3 Verve Stan Getz - Jazz Samba

5 Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band, Live at the Village Vanguard

7 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

[clifford_thornton]

Wow, thanks for this.

Though First Meditations for Quartet came out in 1977, so more like a dozen years after recording...

[medjuck]

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

[GA Russell]

Thanks for all that work, MG!

I find that nowadays ECM routinely releases a new issue twelve months after it was recorded.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

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