Polydor Records

[Holy Ghost]

19 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

A bit OT, because because I cannot add more about the Polydor connection of Freedom ...
But as for the black-and-white (predominantly black) Black Lion covers that you mention, they were very typical of Black Lion LPs, and these very often came on reissues of music not just a few years old, but decades-old, sometimes dating back to the 78 rpm era. In fact, Black Lion has always seemed like a reissue label to me (maybe my tastes dictated where I came across Black Lion LPs). Earlier Black Lions (released in the 70s and distributed by Intercord here, by Audiofidelity in the USA and by RCA (!) in France) had white covers and differently-styled artwork (reissuing music from Eddie Laguna's label and from the SwingTime label, for example). The typical black covers must have come along in the 80s (typically with LP catalog numbers in the 60000s). Those black ones reissued a lot from the Storyville label of the 50s (Ruby Braff, Zoot Sims/Bob Brookmeyer, Lee Konitz, Jackie and Roy, a.o.), but also some extremely early Miles Davis.
Not sure what you mean with "inferior-looking" covers, but to me the main snag with these was that they almost always used MODERN (very recent) photographs of the artists, which was extremely out of tune with the musical contents inside. 

Woah, wow, thank you for this insight, and I mean that (not being a dick at all).... what I meant by "inferior-looking" eg., 

Fontana:

Shitty Black Lion/Freedom Sleeves:

Who owns what? And the downgrade in art qualitly. Rather have an orginal Ploydor than a Freedom or Black Lion. Albiet, if it wasn't for Alan Bates, maybe we wouldn't have any of these titles. Guess I should be grateful.  

 

Edited 9 hours ago by Holy Ghost

[clifford_thornton]

Bates kept the masters when his deal with Fontana/Philips &  Polydor was finished and subsequently licensed material to Arista in the US, Nippon Phonogram and King Records in Japan, and other imprints. DA Music (Germany) bought much of his holdings in the 90s apparently as part of a debt liquidation situation. I am sure they weren’t as interested in higher budget artwork as they were in moving product, though from my recollection the CDs sounded pretty decent.