History of Japanese Reissue of The Great Chales Mingus The Clown
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 Atlantic
is 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. That is the same year as the original was issued. Victor at that time used a heavy vinyl and Deep Groove. The sleeve was a flipback sleeve. In the early 60's, Victor reissued this title again with the same DG heavy vinyl and flipback sleeve. I once obtained the 57 reissue of Ornette Coleman The Shape of Jazz to Come by Victor, and the sound quality is great despite of the noise issue (scuff and scratches were distinct...).
In the early 70's, the license was trasferred to Warner Pioneer Japan and they reissued this titile. They used lime green label. In 1976, they reissued the same titile with original label, black silver letter label.
Both reissues sound great but, because of the label design, I prefer 76' reissue. Anyway, both reissues are great not only in sound quality but also in the pressing and sleeve quality.
Better for you to have it.
