Track selection: All Blues, or maybe Flamenco Sketches, it’s the long first track on Side 2. I read somewhere the order is different from what the cover says.
Artists:
Miles Davis (tp) Cannonball Adderley (as) John Coltrane (ts) Wynton Kelly or Bill Evans (p) Paul Chambers (b) Jimmy Cobb (d) Columbia 30th Street Studios, NYC, March 2 and April 6, 1959
Music/ Vinyl
Yes I know I have posted this one before but this is the Six-Eye. I am not worthy. Well I am, but not to boast…it has been a long wait and I can now move on. The Six Eye has landed
Kind of Blue Citations
On October 7, 2008, Kind of Blue was certified quadruple platinum – four million in sales over fifty-odd years. So not rare then, though how many of these were the original Six Eye remains unknown. Compared with genre-defining Britney Spear’s single Baby One More Time, ten million in sales, four million is remarkable for a jazz album. What happened, America? A sudden outbreak of good taste?
Kind of Blue is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, described by reviewer Seth Jacobson as “a genre-defining moment in twentieth-century music, period.”.
It is ranked number 11 in the Rolling Stone List of the 500 best albums of all time.
On December 16, 2009, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Kind of Blue and “reaffirming jazz as a national treasure”. So they can get some things right after all.
(updated 27/2/13) Any one clued up on the Columbia matrix code numbering system can tell you the above copies derive from the 1st tape or mix of Kind of Blue, the 19th lacquer cut for side 1, and 26th lacquer cut for side 2. The master tape generated a large number of lacquers, one assumes of “identical” quality being from the same tape and cutting lathe. Each lacquer in turn generated perhaps 10 mothers, and each mother perhaps 10 stampers – the numbers vary in differing accounts of the process. The mother or stamper number is sometimes seen faintly in the runout. Each stamper was good for pressing perhaps 2,000 or more discs, and this was the main point at which the quality of the pressing is determined – each repetition of the press applied 100 tons of pressure from the stamper to the hot vinyl biscuit, progressively deforming the grooves of the stamper. First off the stamper = nirvana, last off…worse. No way of knowing except listening.
Collector’s Corner, at the Kind of Blue Cafe
And how would sir like his Kind of Blue: – Rare?
Rare? I like mine medium rare, thanks, no, make that just medium, is there less than medium, not at all rare, just as it comes…ordinary, any which way … Does it come with fries?
The other week I walked into a record store in West London which I rarely visit nowadays, after a copy of Blakey’s Roots and Herbs on Blue-black Liberty/UA they had listed online. Nice pressings, sought after by jazz-loving cheapskates.
After a long chat and catching up, bragging about the success of the blog, swapping URLs, and settling the tab for the Blakey, I was half out the door when Laurence, the owner, called me back. Might I have an interest in a copy of Kind of Blue that had just come in?
I laughed.
Kind of Blue? Thanks but I’ve already got the original UK Fontana and the CBS , I said.
Well, this is the American original six eye, just come in, he said, disappearing into the stock room and fishing it out of a shipping box. Jeez you could have knocked me over with… anything that came to hand. A truck? THE Six Eye! Stereo!!
Fairly nice condition, a few superficial scuffs, definitely VG plus, maybe plus plus. Nice cover too.
Hmm, I could be interested, I said, faking cool. The outside says maybe, the inside says (jumps over the counter, hands clutched around throat, eyes bulging, Give it to me! Its mine! I deserve it, I want it , I want it NOW!)
Depends. How much were you thinking of? He disappeared into the backroom to check Popsike.
I hate this moment. After what seemed an age he returned. And threw a figure into the air, a fishing trip, to see if I blinked. Instead, I swallowed…
That seems a.. a.. a fair price, yes, umm.. I can live with that. We agreed a very fair price and I took it home, more excited than in a long time.
After dinner I retired to the listening room, with a bottle of Cote du Rhone and the Six Eye. Powering up the Avid, I mounted the Six Eye on the turntable (eat your hearts out playlist peckers), lowered the arm, and sank back into the sofa as the needle bit the vinyl. Moment of truth.
A few clicks you often find where the needle drops, and then…
Wow. It is sublime. It lives. It breathes. I have never heard Kind of Blue sound like this, a whole different record. Amazing. It was not like listening to a record, it was like being present during the performance in the presence of greatness. Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, all playing in my humble living room. This is what it is all about. Brings tears to your eyes.
Every word they say about it is true about the original, to my ears any way. The vinyl is not perfect,a few clicks, but who can pay the price of perfect?
Waiter, is service included? This bill looks rather too small.
This site is DEEP! Always finding amazing old posts on here…what a great story!
And yes, from what I understand the time in the life of the stamper that a copy was pressed is the number one differentiator in the fidelity of various vintage pressings of a particular title.
Reblogged this on pinknoyze and commented:
The light hasn’t been nice for photos lately, so I’m posting this raving vinyl maniac’s recent find, which I think is quite lovely.
Diana
Does this mean LJC may be going viral? How exciting.
For a “crazy”, I confess I do consider myself “borderline”. On the wrong side.
I love your kind of crazy, LJC ♪
If I ever get to London…. I want to hear that in your listening room. I never heard the whole album until sometime in ’05. Stopped me in my tracks at work (hunched over trays in the darkroom), said to self “I know Bill Evans when I hear him !!!” (Cause I grew up under my father’s baby grand, listening to Bill). And I certainly know how amazing vinyl can be. Congratulations on your purchase, and maintain your cool in the store.
Diana
Hello Lucky Jazzcollector. Just read your story ’bout Miles’ album…. “I am just a jealous guy” sang John Lennon. And he’s right! I got this album in three different vinyl-versions and several cd-outfits. But NOT th original, you got now. Congratulations! I wish I was in London @ the right place and right time. This album is for my jazzanthem and the start for a wonderfull jazzlife. When I heard ‘So What” for the first time I was “turned around”. Since then (1990) I’m collecting every vinyl of him and a huge Miles fan. Even called my jazzradioshow So What! I’ll keep reading your albumstories: they are firstclass! jazzy greetz from Dordrecht, Holland Ben Korzelius http://www.atosrtv.nl ________________________________
I just laughed out loud when I read, quote: “jumps over the counter, hands clutched around throat, eyes bulging…” My Monday morning blues immediately faded away. Congrats, LJC, a superb find. Maybe the next challenge would be to secure a mono copy of this gem
Quincy Jones once said: “It will always be my music, man. I play Kind of Blue every day – it’s my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday.”
I know we’ve seen some hot fired debates here lately about whether ‘certain details’ can or cannot confirm a 1st pressing, etc. but still: any comments on the stamped numbers in the trail off to confirm, well, ehrrr… its ‘firstness’?
(Spelling corrected Matty, all part of the service)
With so many copies sold, this is one candidate for remastering, and I wouldnt be suprised if there is a smart alec somewhere with a Phd in KOB, just bursting to let me know mine is an Indiana plant fifth remaster from mother 9 stamper 9, pretty well bottom of the pecking order… dont know why I bothered.
You know I am a mono-by-preference guy but the stereo here lends it a kind of presence in the room that feels quite natural.
Not to be the aforementioned smart alec, but:
Looks like ’1AJ’ for side 1 and ’1BD’ for side 2.
As far as I understand the Columbia system, the ’1′ indicates the number is the master number and the letters the mother sequence, so this is a first pressing (depending on your definition).
As for the mother sequence, I believe the letters translate to digits. A=1, B=2, etc. I don’t recall ever having seen letters after ‘J’ in a Columbia matrix so that seems pretty plausible. If that is correct, then your pressing would have been made from the 19th mother for side 1 and the 24th mother for side 2.
I also believe that you can determine which Columbia pressing plant (as well as stamper info) by whether there is a single letter used to indicate stamper sequence or tally marks (I can’t make out either on your photos).
I have both a six-eye and two-eye stereo pressing. I can check the runout info and report back if anyone is curious.
Not so much Smart Alec as Smart Felix. Different thing entirely. Good boy.
More information is good. Fetch, boy, fetch!
What defeats me is the number of mothers – 19 and 24th?
This is a quote from a (paper) article from 2010
“the single metal master copy of the original lacquer could safely produce three or four positive mother copies, and each should produce five negative stampers before quality starts to fall of….around 3,000 LPs could be pressed from each stamper for a normal commercial release. ……Teldec engineers eventually learned to pull between 30-40 high quality stampers from each mother.”
(Secrets from the Groove, making vinyl in the 1970′s)
Barry Fox, HiFi News July 2010
Elsewhere I have read of a maximum 8 or 9 mothers from one master. I know nothing ,but 24 seems a big number for 1959 technology but perhaps its true.
I did a fair amount of listening, examining and note taking last night.
Here’s the goods:
6-eye:
Side 1 – 1A (1 score mark)
Side 2 – 1AE (2 score marks)
Side one also label has a very tiny (maybe 3.5mm), faint ‘JM’ embossed into the label. Very weird. I’ve seen similar marks on other 6-eye stereo labels as well (yours doesn’t seem to have this).
2-eye:
Side 1 – 1CD (also dotted inverted ‘V’ and ’3′)
Side 2 – 1CH
Side one features a very faint sideways oval before the ‘XSM’ in the matrix. Side two has a very strange mark, something like a stylized, open backwards ‘P’.
As for the issue with the high (presumed) mother sequence numbers, I agree: it’s very confusing. Unfortunately, I don’t really have any hard evidence to back up my notions. I would really like to find some hard information about the LP manufacturing process, particularly how metal part degradation is addressed during extremely large production runs.
For example, with EMI’s production run of Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” (not one of your favorites, I realize), the ‘mother’ indicators of the first master (2) go into triple ‘digits’:
http://pinkfloydarchives.com/DUKLPPF.htm#DSOTM2
All of this (especially the ’1A/1AE’ on my 6-eye KOB) leads me to suspect that mothers were created from mothers (there’s a joke here somewhere). That is, perhaps the ‘AE’ mother was created from the ‘A’ mother. In this scenario, Columbia anticipated a very large production run for KOB and therefore created a large number of mothers at the very outset (16, for example). This would explain how these two seemingly widely spaced matrix numbers ended up on the same LP.
Likewise with EMI’s DSotM production run this process could have extended even further with 3rd generation mothers indicated by three letter matrices.
The implications for this are interesting. Presumably, you might expect superior sound quality from LPs featuring single letter matrices (1st generation) than double letter matrices (2nd generation).
I can say that the 1A side of my 6-eye version sounds much better than the 1AE side (side 2). There is unmistakably something amiss in the left channel on side 2. The piano sounds very nasal- almost as if it had been run through a filter. While this is the most noticable aspect of the problem, I think it’s indicative of general reduced sound quality with the L channel and perhaps the side as a whole.
The LP itself is quiet and almost completely free from damage and although it has clearly been played a fair amount, though not to the extent where there is any hiss or distortion from groove wear. It’s possible that the audio anomaly on side 2 is due to condition, but that seems very doubtful.
All of this leads to the the most surprising aspect of this situation to me: my NM 2-eye copy puts the VG++ 6-eye copy to shame (!) even with it’s high matrix numbers. The pressing is almost dead silent and the sound is exactly as you have described with your 6-eye pressing: stunningly detailed and vibrant. The 6-eye sounds very nice (on side 1 anyway), but the 2-eye is unsurpassable. Go figure.
Anyway, sorry to use up so much space on your blog once again. With amazing LPs like Kind of Blue, sometimes I can’t stop once I get started.
I’m very interested to hear your perspectives on all of this.
Thanks for the homework Felix, this earns five stars towards my Poster of the Year award. All progress is through knowledge based on measurement and observation, not through thought. I think.
I am constantly suprised by the unexpected variation in audio quality between different pressings. I find this more and more as I upgrade my audio. As a result of recent changes I have had to rethink my opinion of lots of what I have described as “rubbish” The more fine-tuned your turntable/arm/cartridge the more you can extract goodness out of what seemed rubbish pressings with lesser gear. I play my records both on my own kit and that of a friend with a monster valve system and they could not sound more different. Your gear is one of the biggest variables.
In order of magnitude, there is apparently a large variation in quality between first and last off each stamper. I have seen 3,000, 6,000, 9,000 and 12,000 quoted as the maximum number of pressings per stamper. I have also seen quoted 3, 6 , 9, and 24 as the number of stampers that can be pulled from one mother and the same sums go for the number of mothers that can be pulled from one master. But if the biggest degradation in sound occurs during pressing from groove wear in the stamper, then that is what determines what you hear more than whether the stamper originated from mother 1, 6 13, or 24.
This is my working hypothesis.The only guarantee of maximum fidelity is the test pressing, then the promo. After that, it is a lottery.No-one knows which pressing iteration their record is at stamper level, all other information is a distraction. Last off the stamper of a six eye may be worse than first off the stamper of a two eye.
First off stamper ten of mother 18 may be better than last off stamper 3 from mother 8. We have no way of predicting in advancethe comparative quality of sound, Its a fools errand.
Not a very satisfactory conclusion I fear
“Not to be the aforementioned smart alec, but:
Looks like ’1AJ’ for side 1 and ’1BD’ for side 2.
As far as I understand the Columbia system, the ’1′ indicates the number is the master number and the letters the mother sequence, so this is a first pressing (depending on your definition).
As for the mother sequence, I believe the letters translate to digits. A=1, B=2, etc. I don’t recall ever having seen letters after ‘J’ in a Columbia matrix so that seems pretty plausible. If that is correct, then your pressing would have been made from the 19th mother for side 1 and the 24th mother for side 2.”
Hi guys,
the matrix numbers have absolutely nothing to do with mothers. Those numbers are all stamped into the lacquer by the mastering engineer. The Columbia matrix number system is very well explained on this site. So we can determine the lacquer number, and tape number used from the matrix, but nothing about mothers or stampers. Any info like that might be etched into the metal parts at the plating facility though, although with old Columbia records I usually see nothing in this regard.
Blimey, Its the cops, everybody, run! Welcome “superfuzz” ! I have expanded on the Columbia numbering system on the Columbia label guide, if its of any help:
http://londonjazzcollector.wordpress.com/record-labels-guide/columbia-records/
“The Columbia matrix number system is very well explained on this site.”
Yes, LJC added that Columbia information (based on a post from W.B. at the SH forums) a couple of months after we had the above discussion on this page.
While I am loathe to question anything W.B. says as he is extremely knowledgable, I am not 100% convinced that the Columbia letter sequence indicates successive masters being cut.
I, like yourself, started out looking at Columbia matrix numbers under the assumption that each successive letter in the sequence indicated a new master being cut (I’ve also seen this same assertion with regard to RCA’s 1S, 2S, 3S, 4S sequence). While I concede that W.B. may very well be exactly right (I have never claimed to be certain about any of this), there are several things that simply don’t make sense to me.
While initially I believed that the letter sequence had to be present on the master lacquer because it would not be possible to add the sequence afterwords to metal parts created from the master, I later learned that this is not fact the case. Decca’s well-documented production sequence does exactly this:
http://www.stonesondecca.com/3A1_Matrix.html
Decca recorded not only the master and mother sequence but the stamper as well. All of these were added to the metal parts well after the lacquer had been silvered.
The second issue I have is with the production implications of each letter sequence representing a unique lacquer master cut from the master tape. To use one side of my two-eye KoB LP as an example: My 2-eye pressing is from about 1969 or so and side 2 has the sequence ‘CH’. Using the master-sequence hypothesis, this means that Columbia cut 41(!) different master lacquers for KoB in the space of just 10 years.
That the number/letter sequence indicates the sequence of lacquer cut from tape is well established. Decca would only allow the original cutting engineer to cut new lacquers from the master tape to ensure consistent quality.
I’ve seen Decca master numbers run as high as 16 for very large production runs. Decca, more than any other label, was known for being very conservative with regard to pressings per stamper. Columbia, on the other hand, has the opposite reputation.
If you assume Decca-like mother/stamper/pressing numbers, it seems to me the number of LPs Columbia would have created from 41 unique masters would be astronomical, not to mention the vast staff of cutting engineers that would be necessary to maintain this kind of master-lacquer production at a company churning out the gargantuan number of LPs Columbia pressed. Remember, KoB represents just a tiny sliver of LPs sold over that 10 year period.
From the information I’m aware of, EMI went through a grand total of 11 masters from the entire production run of Dark Side of the Moon, one of the largest LP production runs of all time:
http://pinkfloydarchives.com/DUKLPPF.htm#DSOTM2
Finally, while I’ve heard many people in various forums repeat the assertion that the Columbia letter sequence indicates successive masters, I have never seen anyone either claim firsthand knowledge of this or provide concrete documentation for this fact. I’m sure we are all aware of many cases of certain bits of information being repeated so often by so many people on the ‘net that they begin to be accepted as facts.
At the very least, I think we can all agree that the Decca/EMI information from sites I’ve cited does not at all jibe with this assumption. This means one of three things:
1. The Decca/EMI info I linked is erroneous (or I have completely misread it)
2. The Columbia letter sequence does not indicate new masters being cut
3. Columbia’s LP manufacturing process was radically different from Decca and EMI (who’s processes were nearly identical).
Please understand that I am not out to start, foment or win any arguments. I merely want to explain how I reached the conclusions I did and more importantly find out the actual facts of the matter. I freely acknowledge that it’s entirely possible that W.B. is 100% correct and that it may turn out I have no idea what I’m talking about. As it stands today, I remain unconvinced.
If anyone demonstrates and/or explains to me where I’ve gone wrong, I will happily and humbly admit to it.
Alright: time to admit I was wrong on this one.
In the past couple of days I found a couple of new sources of additional information about Columbia runout info that finally removed any doubts I had that W.B.’s information is absolutely correct.
It looks like #3 in my previous post was actually the correct conclusion: Columbia simply cut vast amount of master lacquers in comparison most other labels. Some of this can be accounted for by the fact that Columbia used up to four pressing plants simultaneously (as opposed to EMI and Decca’s single plants) with each utilizing different masters and the sheer number of LPs produced by Columbia is also a factor as well. But it seems to me that Columbia’s production workflows also must have differed significantly in a way that required larger number of masters to be cut.
Coming from looking at the runout info for small runs of Blue Note and Prestige issues where one master was used for a decade or even more, I simply could not wrap my head around the fact that Columbia seems to have gone through over 40 masters for “Kind of Blue” during the same timeframe that Atlantic utilized only one for “Giant Steps”.
I had managed to miss this for sometime, but Vernon Fitch’s Pink Floyd Archives (again, apologies to LJC) also has fairly detailed information regarding Columbia deadwax:
http://www.pinkfloydarchives.com/Discog/US/LP/RDI.htm#ColM
This info also explains the ‘P’ mark (Columbia’s Pitman, NJ pressing plant).
I also stumbled across this page which has a great collection of deadwax stamps:
http://fipres.com/21,.html
The oval mark indicates metal parts manufactured by Columbia’s Customatrix division.
Moreover, I think this finally explains the mysterious discrepancy between the two sides of my Kind of Blue six-eye pressing: side two (1AE) was probably a bad cut. I certainly have other records with issues with similar mastering issues, but I had never really accepted this as a possibility for this particular side due to my confusion regarding Columbia’s production process. Of course I’d be extremely interested if anyone else has a 1AE side two for the sake of comparison.
Also, this means my two-eye pressing is almost certainly a solid-state cut, which is also interesting and enlightening.
While I am none too fond of being wrong, I have to admit I’ve been going back and forth on this one for some time, so on the whole it’s well worth it in the end to have the issue finally resolved.
Thanks for this FS, nothing wrong with being wrong, right? I make mistakes every day – the first usually is getting up. This really helps bring Columbia into the knowledge frame, as I too had difficulty with the idea of cutting forty lacquers. Let us digest some of those links and thanks for doing the heavy lifting. The obsessives on these monster rock records by PF, Stones and Beatles can often teach us a thing or two about matrices -though sadly not much about music.
Felix – those links are tremendously informative, thanks.
First Press Records – amazing Polish site for deadwax-obsessives – the link doesn’t work for me but you can simply Google it
http://fipres.com/21,.html