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 yesterday at 04:27 AM 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.

[Big Beat Steve]

2 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

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.

Judging from my (mostly) German-pressing black-and-white-cover Black Lion LPs (predating the CD-only reissues, of course), DA Music (Deutsche Austrophon) already was on board when Alan Bates produced reissues for Black Lion. Including those from George Wein's Storyville label of the 50s.
So later on (in the CD era) DA Music above all had a "corporate identity" of their own (i.e. those black-and-white covers) that additional takeovers apparently had to fit in with. Personally, apart from those ill-fitting 70s/80s photographs combined with music from the 50s (or even before), I don't find these covers that horrible. Yes, they are fairly nondescript but there have been lots worse in the reissue field, including by the majors/corporates. And which smaller reissue label would have kept the original artwork throughout anyway if they had sourced their music from multiple different original labels?
Disregarding exceptions to the rule such as Fresh Sound, can you imagine one and the same reissue label (such as Black Lion here) reissuing on the one hand (for example) Storyville material inside the original cover artwork with their classic Burt Goldblatt photographs and on the other those "brain-sectioned" semi-naive artist head drawings  on the Fontana covers (such as in the case of the Ted Curson LP above)? And whatever other labels' original artwork in between ... Not likely to happen - understandably so IMO. Years and decades after the original releases they wanted their records to be seen as "Black Lions" in the shops, not a mess of various replica repros of long-defunct original labels. For better or worse for the collectors ... 

Edited yesterday at 03:27 PM by Big Beat Steve

[felser]

Random notes:

1 - The Muzak reissue of the Cowell has much bettet SQ than the DA/Black Lion.  Also true for other Black Lion titles, and they use the original artwork.

2 - DA was onboard for the early CD era Black Lion reissues.

3 - I love the Freedom artwork, hate the Fontana drawing covers,find the Black Lion covers to be in-between.  All personal taste.  For instance, I consider Patrick Roques to have done even better Reid Miles covers than Reid Miles did.

[Rooster_Ties]

50 minutes ago, felser said:

Random notes:

1 - The Muzak reissue of the Cowell has much better SQ than the DA/Black Lion.  Also true for other Black Lion titles, and they use the original artwork.

Yes, BUT… the two bonus alternate takes still have the missing channel problem — as if it was maybe(?) recorded to 4 tracks, and the track with Tyrone is not audible, except his playing is vaguely audible from having been picked up from other non-tenor mics on the date.

But the main album sounds “relatively-phenomenal” by comparison to the previous Black Lion issue — where Tyrone was barely audible on the entire album (not just the alternates).

Not thrilled the alts are a bust — but it was amazing to finally hear the main album clearly for the first time in almost a couple decades (I think I picked up the Black Lion of the Cowell back in the early, early 00’s).

Edited 19 hours ago by Rooster_Ties

[JSngry]

Get the Arista/Freedom LP. It's got the best cover and sounds good enough 

[Holy Ghost]

24 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Get the Arista/Freedom LP. It's got the best cover and sounds good enough 

This one:

Over this one?

Haven't compared, but the sound on the Freedom/Polydor is quite good. 

[JSngry]

Too bad they dropped this label:

 

[JSngry]

The Arista Freedom is what was in the stores, so that's what I bought. Still happy with it!

 

[Holy Ghost]

15 minutes ago, JSngry said:

The Arista Freedom is what was in the stores, so that's what I bought. Still happy with it!

 

Get that, and probably you bought it at Peaches? The big record store in the '70's. I was still a kid in Florida, but loved that store including the record crates.

 

So was Andrew Hill, Archie Shepp new Freedom label signs?

Was this origianally on Freedom?

 

How about this one?

[JSngry]

If they were on Arista/Freedom, they were on Freedom elsewhere. 

Didn't have access to Peaches in this area until the mid-1970s. Had to go to Stan's in Shreveport. They had promo copies.

Andrew Hill also had a solo piano album on Freedom 

[Holy Ghost]

3 -... For instance, I consider Patrick Roques to have done even better Reid Miles covers than Reid Miles did.

Huge Patrick Roques fan, so in the spirit of Reid Miles, but wow did he treat the Connoisseur series album artwork right. Patterns, Jackknife, Minor Move, gorgeous sleeves. 

Another favorite sleeve. Don't even know what Patrick Roques looks like.

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

1 hour ago, Holy Ghost said:

3 -... For instance, I consider Patrick Roques to have done even better Reid Miles covers than Reid Miles did.

Huge Patrick Roques fan, so in the spirit of Reid Miles, but wow did he treat the Connoisseur series album artwork right. Patterns, Jackknife, Minor Move, gorgeous sleeves. 

Another favorite sleeve. Don't even know what Patrick Roques looks like.

 

For some reason, Blue Note is not using many of Roques' covers for LP reissues. They've redesigned almost every one, including "Third Season"... and not for the better, in my opinion.

[JSngry]

That's just a different photo. That's all.

[clifford_thornton]

11 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Judging from my (mostly) German-pressing black-and-white-cover Black Lion LPs (predating the CD-only reissues, of course), DA Music (Deutsche Austrophon) already was on board when Alan Bates produced reissues for Black Lion. Including those from George Wein's Storyville label of the 50s.
 

Ah, okay, thanks. Most of the Bates productions I have are a bit earlier, and therefore I wasn't aware of the DA Music name beyond the CD reissues.

Edited 15 hours ago by clifford_thornton

[Holy Ghost]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

That's just a different photo. That's all.

Okay. Then who's redesigning these sleeves??? Someone taking Patrick Roques's designs with no credit to him? 

2 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

For some reason, Blue Note is not using many of Roques' covers for LP reissues. They've redesigned almost every one, including "Third Season"... and not for the better, in my opinion.

This is an excellent pic, but Third Season was cut in '67, so Patrick Roques chose the right photo. 

[JSngry]

It doesn't matter. Neither is the original cover.

[Holy Ghost]

3 hours ago, JSngry said:

If they were on Arista/Freedom, they were on Freedom elsewhere. 

Didn't have access to Peaches in this area until the mid-1970s. Had to go to Stan's in Shreveport. They had promo copies.

Andrew Hill also had a solo piano album on Freedom 

That means that Freedom was an active label not just reissuing sessions?

 

[clifford_thornton]

For what it's worth, and back to the OP, there are a lot of non-Bates Polydor jazz records as well. 

1 minute ago, Holy Ghost said:

That means that Freedom was an active label not just reissuing sessions?

 

yes.

[Holy Ghost]

11 minutes ago, clifford_thornton said:

For what it's worth, and back to the OP, there are a lot of non-Bates Polydor jazz records as well. 

yes.

Okay, why does the Shepp set look so different from the Hill jacket, Spiral? Like the Freedoms have a style, but the Shepp's don't look like the typical Freedoms. 

LIke the Hill does look like a typical Freedom:

What's up with the weird inconsistencies?

Like the Hemphill:

Is this an original Freedom release? Love the music. I know that Dogan AD is not, is this another oddity Alan Bates label pick up?

Edited 13 hours ago by Holy Ghost

[JSngry]

Arista gave the series a "consistent look".

Freedom dances around a bit.

Sometimes there was some cross-referencing.

Sometimes, as with the Cowell, not.

[Holy Ghost]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Arista gave the series a "consistent look".

Freedom dances around a bit.

Sometimes there was some cross-referencing.

Sometimes, as with the Cowell, not.

But wasn't the Cowell originally a Polydor release? Then got a "Black Lion/Freedom" redo?

Isn't this the original sleeve as it gets?

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Arista gave the series a "consistent look".

Freedom dances around a bit.

Sometimes there was some cross-referencing.

Sometimes, as with the Cowell, not.

Right, I keep on overlooking your point, Arista. Later Freedoms, right, and that art direction was consistent. Clive Davis ran Arista then, right? Makes sense now. 

[JSngry]

That's the first cover, but it's a Freedom record released by Polydor.

In the fine print down there, it only mentions Freedom. Nothing about Polydor. But that's a wild cover, only roughly in line with the series.

My guess is that the covers of the newer recordings were more in line with what Arista did than the older ones (or vice-versa).

You see what they did there?

But at some point, everybody got on the same page:

[clifford_thornton]

yeah, that's all pretty accurate.

The Hemphill LP cover looks like this:

I assume Cuscuna licensed this, Dogon A.D., the Lakes, and the HAE LPs from their prospective owners. Both HAE records came out on Universal Justice originally, while Dogon was on Hemphill's Mbari imprint.

I will admit it's all very murky.

[Holy Ghost]

5 minutes ago, JSngry said:

That's the first cover, but it's a Freedom record released by Polydor.

In the fine print down there, it only mentions Freedom. Nothing about Polydor. But that's a wild cover, only roughly in line with the series.

My guess is that the covers of the newer recordings were more in line with what Arista did than the older ones (or vice-versa).

You see what they did there?

But at some point, everybody got on the same page:

Lols, well yeah, the storm looked a whole lot nastier in the first Freedom sleeve, then the second Arista/Freedom sleeve. Cecil photo looks right for the time.