Disques Vogue – The Flinterman Collection

Notes

Why starting off a Vogue p.i.p. display with two US productions? Well, because
it illustrates perfectly how things worked in the fifties. Vogue recorded US
musicians in Paris and American labels, Blue Note and Contemporary, issued the
results for the US market (globalisation avant la lettre!).
Note the wonderful cover art of Gil Mellé on the Blue Note.

Next we have a GNP record issued in France in the Jazz Sélection series,
dedicated to US recordings only. Although Jazz Sélection had a distinct
label, GNP and Contemporary kept their original labels, with a small Vogue logo
though.
Next we have a Gil Mellé Blue Note on Jazz Sélection, with the greenish J.S.
label and with a clear reference to Blue Note. Eight 10″ Blue Notes were thus
issued in the Jazz Sélection series.

With Jimmy Deuchar we come in the heart of Eurojazz. French Vogue issued a
recording by Vogue records in London and makes a clear reference to that on the
label. On the rear of the cover we can distinguish the other Vogue issues at
that time(1953/54).

Vogue 10″ LP’s LD 166-168 furnished the material for the Blue Note and the
Contemporary shown at the beginning of this display. The issue shown is a second
pressing: soft flip over cover and the new Vogue logo on the back. This new logo
is the standard on the Vogue 10th Anniversary series, which started in 1959. See
Buck Clayton.

Blue Note 5013 gives us the chance to elaborate on how things went in the early
fifties: we see the original Blue Note cover by Burt Goldblatt with individual
pictures of the musicians. Then we see the French Vogue issue of same with an
assemblage of the individual pictures into a new cover. The French designer
Danest signed for it in 1953. On the French label we see Vogue’s reference to
Blue Note records. The English Vogue issue took the French cover as a basis, but
had notes added by the infatiguable Alun Morgan, whereas the French on the rear
make publicity for the other albums in their catalogue. The English give no
reference on the label to Blue Note records, but mark BN 5013 instead (for
insiders only!).

The Swing label existed since 1937. In 1957 the 20th anniversary series was
launched with a new label design. Swing issued new Vogue recordings and issued
material from Pacific Jazz. Shown here a French issue of JWC 501. We show the
rear of the corresponding US JWC 501 because tracks n° 2 on side one are not
iodentical. The French issued a hitherto unknown Chet Baker Sextet track with
Pepper, the Americans a quartet track taken from French Barclay.
(see explanation in the P.S. to my Vogue study at LJC).

At the end of the diarama we see two examples of the original orange / black
Swing labels which lasted until LDM 30.065. Origin of the material Pacific Jazz.

An illustrated inner sleeve of the 12″ Vogue 10th anniversary series closes the
diarama.

Rudolf Flinterman
March, 2013

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