Funny and Mysterious Reissue of Blue Train John Coltrane by King Record
FRP 5-4
FRP 5-4
Now, the history of Riverside Reissues in Japan Revealed!You know, Riverside reissues in Japan has a little interesting story…Basically, Victor Music Japan has been the licensee for many years since the late 70’s. But…for some years in the 70’s, another company owned the license….That company is Nippon Grammophon, later the name changed to Polydor Japan….
I love Charles Mingus. He was a great Jazz musician, composer and producer. Among huge volume of albums he issued, this titile,The Clown Charles Mingus on Atlanticis one of his best.The history of Japanese reissue of this titile, The Clown is a kind of interesting.The first reissue was done by Victor Music Japan in 1957….
Kenny Drew has many great piano trio albums and some piano solo albums as you know.But these 2 albums I got recently are not trio or solo…but DUO which I think are really RARE.Kenny Drew on Piano and Wilbur Ware on BassJackets designs are great too with beautiful women half naked…1st album isKenny Drew I…
You know Nippon Columbia Japan reissued many Impulse titles in the 70’s and the pressing quality, sleeve quality and sound quality are really great.BUT!!The label design is horrible…They used the lime green ABC label and I hate that, really. In the 60’s and early 70’s, King Record SH and SR series used the original orange…
I really appreciate Tom and John for the great information concerning the previous blog post. I learned a lot! Also thank Manuel for a great comment! This Hank Mobley Blue Note BLP 1568 session was recorded in 1957. That is the time of transition from MONO only recording to STEREO recording. John shared a screenshot of the…
I think, this is one of the MOST UNDERRATED Blue Note Reissues! Yes, Here in Japan, many Jazz collectors are hunting this Premium Blue Note Reissue series by King Record for many reasons. But…outside of Japan, not many collectors know the greatness of this series! That is why I spoke up here! This series was produced by…
Hello Takashi
Yes, I do know about those rare King FRP issues! During the mid-1980’s, when I was living and working in Singapore, I used to visit Tokyo every 3 months or so in order to attend boring business meetings. On every visit, I carried with me an empty suitcase which I would bring back home full of lovely King (and, sometimes, Toshiba-EMI) Blue Note Lp’s purchased at Wave and/or Ishimaru.
On one of those trips, I came across – in Wave – a couple of Blue Note boxed sets manufactured by King Record Co., called “Blue Note Jazz Best Collection Vols. 1 and 2”. Each box held 7 Lp’s. I didn’t buy the sets because, as it happened, I already owned the Lp’s they contained – which, apart from the FRP code and not having an OBI, seemed to me to be identical to the same King GXK BN’s (most with OBI) that were on sale in that same shop. Besides, the boxes were not very attractive – plain black with a single photo on the front…
Also, why did some guy at King Record Co. choose that unique ‘one-off’ FRP code? My guess is “Famous Recorded Performances”. Maybe. Who knows?
In any case, those King FRP sets are not listed in my reference Cuscuna-Ruppli BN Discography – nor anywhere else as far as I know. However, as it happens, at the time I did list the LP titles they contained (I added the GXF, GXK and equivalent BLP code just today) so my list now reads as follows:
FRP-5, Vol. 1, Blue Note Jazz Best Collection
FRP-5-1 Cannonball Adderley, Something Else GXF-3001 (GXK-8042) (BLP1595)
FRP-5-2 Art Blakey, Moanin’ GXF-3002 (GXK-8044) (BLP4003)
FRP-5-3 Sonny Clark Trio GXF-3005 (GXK-8051) (BLP1579)
FRP-5-4 John Coltrane, Blue Train GXF-3010 (GXK-8055) (BLP1577)
FRP-5-5 Miles Davis Volume 1 GXF-3011 (GXK-8056) (BLP1501)
FRP-5-6 Horace Silver, Song for My Father GXF-3017 (GXK-8047) (BLP4185)
FRP-5-7 Wayne Shorter, Super Nova GXF-3019 (GXK-8048) (BST84332)
FRP-6, Vol.2, Blue Note Jazz Best Collection
FRP-6-1 Sonny Clark, Cool Struttin’ GXF-3004 (GXK-8043) (BLP1588)
FRP-6-2 Sonny Rollins, Live at The Village Vanguard GXF-3007 (GXK-8101) (BLP1581)
FRP-6-3 Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch, GXF-3009 (GXK-8046) (BLP4163)
FRP-6-4 Bud Powell, The Scene Changes, GXF-3013(GXK-8075) (BLP4009)
FRP-6-5 Thelonious Monk, Genius… Vol 1, GXF-3014 (GXK-8058) (BLP1510)
FRP-6-6 Lee Morgan, The Sidewinder GXF-3015 (GXK-8045) (BLP4157)
FRP-6-7 Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage GXF-3020 (GXK-8050) (BLP4195)
One question (important to us collectors at any rate) remains: were the issues in those boxes GXF or GXK? I suspect that they may be the later-issued GXK (if so, of less collector value than the earlier GXF) but I don’t know for sure… perhaps someone else does? In any case, it’s all good FUN finding out!
Kind regards, Eric
Eric
Sorry about the late response! I was blown away by the comment of yours and did a research on my side as well. But…nothing was found…really mysterious pressings, really. I just shot a video on this and really appreciate that you shared this!