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22nd October UPDATE! V2.1
Now contains 50% more added Bob Djukic! Banished are those pesky UK editions of the xxxVille labels; new - the extraordinary 16rpm black and white Fireworks label I had never heard of; but the damned Frenchie is still there, until I can find a label to put in its place, room for twenty labels only, he stays for now.
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A number of posters have been encouraging me to do more research into the Prestige Records label, lamenting the lack of a quality labelography, though there are some good efforts around. I have already created a Blue Note “Cheat Sheet”, but realised I hadn’t attempted this for Prestige until now. Part of that was down to a lack of confidence, as Prestige was distributed in Europe by licensees, with local pressing and sometimes local re-mastering. What do we Brits know about American Prestige?
This persuaded me to update and re-evaluate my old label guide to Prestige, updated with recent discoveries and more research. I realised I have added a lot knowledge since the original page a few years back. As it took shape, it showed up the chaotic influence of the new discovery “Stereo” in the early Sixties, and the lack of a proper documentation. Yes, the wonderful enthusiasts at jazzDisco produce these great discographies, words words words, but nowhere are there pictures of the artefacts, what you find as you battle the sellers hype and blurred photos on Ebay.
So I thought it timely to go public with Prestige 2.0 - The LJC label Guide – it’s incomplete, it’s probably still wrong in places, opinionated as always, but I have found there are collectors out there with their own little piece of the jigsaw, posters Albert and Carlos have kindly sent me stuff, I thought maybe some of my 600 visitors daily might want to add a little of their knowledge.
The full Prestige Pages with hi-res pictures and controversial opinion on audio quality, go here:
http://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/prestige/4-prestige/
I’ve done the best I can, and its been an education which in itself has sharpened my understanding of that great rival to Blue Note, Prestige. The floor is yours. WikiJazz.
Thanks a lot for putting this together, it’s a very useful guide.
What I was wondering though: many Prestige releases were pressed in many different countries in Europe, often with alternative artwork: UK (Esquire), Sweden, Denmark (Metronome), Germany (Saba), France, Holland, etc. But this is not the case for Blue Note releases, of which I don’t believe there are European pressings (except for 45s and EPs. And LPs starting in the mid to late 60s). Why this difference in foreign marketing? Why was Blue Note imported into Europe and Prestige (re)pressed locally?
In life, I have found there are many more good questions than there are good answers.
Why did Blue Note go through trademark registration and incorporation as late as 1960, when Prestige had always been “Inc” and “R” ten years previously in 1950? Business sense. Weinstock was a business man first, Lion was jazz lover first, businessmen reluctantly second. Everything Weinstock did focussed on generating revenue – new labels, 16rpm innovation, recycled vinyl, European distribution – he understood licensing to increase sales through new markets. (btw I used to be in Business Development, mea culpa)
God Bless Lion and Blue Note, who were shocked when Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder made the Billboard Charts. It just funded greater adventurousness.
Weinstock retired to Florida. An aged Lion went to Japan for the 50th Anniversary of Blue Note, so I read, and when the stage filled with still living Blue Note musicians, the opening music bought the audience to its feet cheering and Lion to tears, the opening bars of Cool Struttin’.
That is why it was all worth it.
Super update, thanks. One thing that has always struck me is the physical difference between the blue label trident pressing. Some I have exceed 160 or even 180 grams and are delightfully weighty. Others, presumably from later runs, have the same label, but are on noticeably lighter (140 gm) vinyl. The “thinner” vinyl is not hissy, and the overall sound is not too different; the earlier, weightier pressings are just more enjoyably hefty.
Hi Joe, interesting topic vinyl weight. Like most people I guess I started from the “heavy is good” maxim. It wasn’t until I put my King japan pressings on the scales and had to triple check: 115gm? What gives here? They sure sound bass- weighty.
I already have year of pressing and label in my collection database. Slowly I am adding vinyl weight Where I am headed is a timeline of vinyl weight for each main label between 1956 and 1970. It will take a little while, but be done in the next month or two. .
Too early to be definitive but I think the confounding factor is age and weight (nothing personal you understand) Older is heavier, but for different reasons, older pressings are better – analogue end to end, tape fidelity etc . So it happens heavier pressings sound better, but for reasons other than weight. Just a theory for now. Interesting stuff.
Agree re that it appears that age equals better sound, and the heavier weight is just a by-product of “better” (?) recording, processing, and pressing methods in the earlier time period. Very interesting issue, and am looking forward to your discoveries in this regard, professor.
…say was that really… uh…
Another interesting aspect I’ve notice with Prestige labels is that some of them have a Philips-esque nickel-sized (apologies to non-U.S.ians) indentation around the spindle hole. I just got a Prestige NJ/Fireworks label pressing today that has it on one side and not the other (both sides are DG, of course). I’m sure you could find these on some of your pressings as well. I’ve never really taken the time to notice when or where they occur.
Another mystery to me is the employment of HI FI vs HIGH FIDELITY on the label. I had initially believed that HI FI was used with the NYC label and HIGH FIDELITY was used on the NJ labels, but I don’t believe this is always the case. Has anyone bothered to figure this one out, perchance?
Then there’s the ever-mysterious dead wax: I have noticed that many pressings (including the one I have today) also feature an early letter of the alphabet (A,B,C,D) in the deadwax along with the usual RVG and catalog number. Is this perhaps a mother indicator? This leads me to the next mystery: the infamous AB etching.
I’ve noticed that this comes in many distinct flavors. For example the pressing I got today has the AB etched in very tiny letters that end up being right on the edge of the label. I’ve seen this before, even to the extent that the AB etching ends up in the label area. I’ve also seen AB etched very, very lightly in thin script to the extent it could be easily missed. There are a few other styles of seen more than once.
If someone were very ambitious and owned a lot of Prestige pressings, it would be interesting to catalog how many different versions there are, where they are located and perhaps even establish a chronology of some sort. It’s possible that this would allow for much more accurate dating of Prestige LPs in general.
Finally, it would be really cool to create a matrix of the (mostly) blue/purple label era 60s re-releases of earlier 50s titles. For instance, “Miles Davis and Horns” (PRLP 7025) was reissued as “Early Miles 1951 & 1953″ (PRLP 7168). However, a look at the deadwax will inform you that they were pressed from the same master; PRLP 7025 has been crossed out and supplanted by the new catalog number. Of course, “Miles Davis and Horns” is itself a reissue of two earlier 10-inches, (PRLP 154 “Miles Davis Plays the Compositions of Al Cohn”) and PRLP 140 (“Blue Period”), so if you wanted to get really thorough…
Likewise with “Dig” (PRLP 7012) and “Diggin’ with the Miles Davis Sextet” (PRLP 7281) etc. I find this information especially interesting, as the original Yellow Fireworks label pressings of these titles usually go for 10 times or more what the Blue label issues go for even though the Blue Trident pressings are usually pressed from the same original RVG masters. Also, the Blue Label pressings, having been sold in the era after the dominance of groove-scarring mono record players, are usually in far superior condition (although occasionally and tragically pressed on poor quality vinyl).
However, perhaps that’s a project better suited for the jazzdisco.org boys.
Anyway, thanks again LJC for all the hard work, great information and high quality photos!
Yes, that was really an…uh…
Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be an,,,uh…um…er…?
Most of my Prestige recordings are via UK releases, so I just dont have enough original copies to attempt an answer, other than to agree this is very interesting and needs more work!
I see now that some of these topics have been discussed recently on your main Prestige page, which I hadn’t visited in a while.
I find dottorjazz’s list of marks in his 7000 series collections particularly interesting.
It seems he has many pressings with A,B,C, etc. in the deadwax as well. It seems to me these almost have to be a record of the mother sequence ala Columbia. It would be interesting to get an idea of how many copies were pressed of the various titles to get some insight into how many mother’s might have been required for the complete run.
What do you think, LJC?
Holy grail! How many copies pressed of particular records, if only!
My limited understanding is that the lower end of production runs for jazz LPs at this time was near 1,000 (Mobley 1568), and the upper end around 200,000 (for a handful of records over many years eg Blue Train).
The stamper sequence depends on the decision as to how many acceptable pressings off one stamper, how many stampers off one mother, and how many mothers off one master.
I have articles that claim (HiFi News July 2010) that each original lacquer master could produce (rule of thumb) four acceptable positive mothers, and each mother could produce five acceptable negative stampers, which in turn could each press 3,000 records suitable for normal commercial release – a theoretical capacity of 72,000 LPs before remastering from the original tapes was indicated.
If these figures are right – and I have no reason to doubt them, most jazz releases would only ever have seen the first few letters of the alphabet on the first or second mother.
Not bad for an ignoramus eh?
Awesome cheat-sheet for the Prestige label; my complements on a great piece of work.
A few comments.
- The bottom left image (bottom row, first image from the left) is clearly and unequivocally a French prestige label and it does not belong here (no offense to our French friends).
- The gold prestige ‘trident’ label (fourth row from the top, third from the left) is almost certainly a short-lived promotional version of the regular (blue) trident label, although nothing on the label specifically signifies a promotional nature of the pressing, and I have no way of proving my assertion. This label can only be found on a handful of 1964-65 releases, some of which were actually reissues of the old Prestige and/or New Jazz titles (Eric Dolphy’s ‘Outward Bound’ reissue on Prestige label (red and black cover), not on New Jazz (green cover) comes to mind here). An interesting tidbit : I have NEVER seen a stereo pressing on this gold label (either true or rechannelled), just as I have never seen a mono released on black and silver ‘trident” label (the next image). I am almost certain that these two labels were color-coded for appropriate format (gold for mono, black for stereo). I would welcome any corrections here.
- Two blue “trident” labels (fourth row from the top, first and second images from the left, respectively) are for all practical purposes the same label. The only difference in this particular instance is the format (mono label first, stereo second, with a matching stereo banner). The mono label shown here is highly atypical “trident” label, because it reissues a title previously available on New Jazz subsidiary, hence a New Jazz catalog prefix (NJLP); typically, these would all have New Jazz matrix numbers hand-etched in the trail-off vinyl. Otherwise, all blue Prestige ‘trident’ labels of this vintage would either have a PRLP (mono) or PRST (stereo) prefix.
- Yes, Status was definitely a budget label. What price books and collectors will not tell you, though, is that New Jazz was ALSO – for all practical purposes and intents – a budget subsidiary of Prestige (certainly it was in terms of the quality – or lack thereof – of their pressings). The only difference between the two is that New Jazz did, in fact, release original, new titles (Status rarely did so, although it did on a few prominent occasions). Status mostly focused on reissuing old titles which were deleted from the Prestige catalog and were no longer significant sellers. I believe close to 100% of all Status releases came out between 1964 and late 1965. By early 1966, Status was no longer in existence.
The line separating Prestige / New Jazz (and other Prestige subsidiaries) and Status is a thin and blurry one. Sometimes the original titles were released on the ‘proper’ Prestige label with other subsidiaries covers and catalog numbers (case in point: Dorothy Ashby’s ‘In a minor groove’ which was released on yellow ‘fireworks’ Prestige label with Bergenfield address BUT with the New Jazz catalog number, only to be reissued on New Jazz label); other times, the titles would be released on Prestige (The Sound of Yusef Lateef) only to be reissued on New Jazz, and then later on Status.
Find more at:
http://www.bsnpubs.com/new/status.pdf
You are missing eight more important Prestige and Prestige-affiliated labels, only a few of which have any Jazz corollaries .
(1) Prestige International, which released mostly folk, and mostly international, artists (if memory serves, the label was orange with black print, similar to appearance and layout to Bluesville/Swingsville/Moodsville cluster of labels)
(2) Prestige Folklore, which typically released folk and blues titles, mostly white blues revival and black acoustic (and country) blues (for specimen, see: http://www.bsnpubs.com/fantasy/folklore/folklabel.jpg )
(3) Prestige Near East (which issued just what the name suggests – most notably a few Oudi Hrant titles – and closed after only a handful of titles) . It was a yellow label with black “Omega” logo.
(4) Tru-Sound (yes, Tru-Sound was a ‘proper’ Prestige subsidiary every bit as much as, say, New Jazz or Swingsville. Tru-Sound focused mostly on R&B titles, and then mostly on those with a pronounced instrumental- and jazz “tinge”, such as King Curtis.
(5) You are also missing Prestige’s short-lived white label promo, which was introduced at some point between 1969 and 1970 (purple label) and lasted through mid-life of the green label (circa 1973 or so). Virtually all Prestige white label promos were Soul-Jazz and Funk-Jazz releases (artists such as Melvin Sparks, Funk Inc., Houston Person, etc).
(6 & 7) Prestige Lively Arts (30000 series) and Prestige irish (35000 series) labels.
(8) Finally, you are missing Prestige’s 16 RPM label, which was identical to the 50th Street NYC “fireworks” label, except that it was black & white (black artwork and print on the white background) instead of black and yellow. Contrary to popular belief, these were NOT promotional releases. Only four or five of these exist (all Jazz titles), and they are rarer than chicken’s teeth. They show 16. 2/3 RPM on the right side of the label and catalog prefix PRES- (,,,) on the left-hand side.
You are also missing original US versions of Bluesville and Swingville labels, which are near-identical to the UK versions shown on your cheat-sheet (I don’t think it is a good idea to mix various international label variants on a single sheet).
Why did Bob Weinstock go through such an agonizing and staggering maze of different labels and releases? We may never know for sure, but I strongly suspect that taxes were the main reason. By operating a whole array of seemingly independent labels, with each one doing a separate tax reporting, the parent’s company’s gross tax liability most likely was lesser than the sum of its integral parts. But this is merely my conjecture.
Hope this helps.
Keep up the good work!.
Thanks for taking time out to add all these comments, Bob, much appreciated. Seems some way to go for the release of Prestige 3.0!
One problem, I am trying to work with only decent quality photographs to a “reference standard” on which you can read the important detail. Mostly these are where I own a copy of the label myself, or where someone has done a reasonable job of photographing it at an acceptable resolution, so I don’t have a number of the “candidates” you mention. A lot of the pictures on Popsike and the like are not up to much – usually just tiny snap of the cover with a bit of the label poking out of the sleeve, just a few blurred pixels. The folk, funk and blues labels can be for someone else to collect, but I can see there are quite a few gaps to fill for the jazz collector. Way to go then, I’ll get busy, cheers!
Oh, I hear you. I cringe every time I see images on popsike (which, really, are nothing but mirror images of phots originally posted in eBay). If you contact me through eBay (or via my registered LJC email) I would be more than happy to share some of the label specimens I mentioned. I am not sure I have all of them in my archive anymore (more esoteric variants and subsiriaries such as Lively Arts and Near East I most certainly do not, but the remaining five or six should be an easy find). Although I am far from being a pro photographer, for the rest of eBay population, I am somewhere between Ansel Adams and Man Ray (please pardon the fake modesty
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