This great album,
Thelonious Monk Brilliant Corners Riverside
has an interesting reissue history in Japan.
Brilliant Corners was released by Riverside US in 1957 and the 1st Japanese reissue of this album was released in 1958. Very quick release! The company reissuing this 1st Japanese reissue is King Record. Interesing, right? They did not use the Riverside master in the US to press this reissue, but they used the London Records master in the UK!
You can recall that I talked about the 1st Japanese reissue of Sonny Rollins Way Out West. It is the King Record that reissued it for the 1st time in Japan in 1957, the same year as the original was released. They used the same London Records master. Why London Records? The myth remains...
King Record reissued Brilliant Corners using the same master but different Serials in the early 60's. Thereafter the license was transferred to Polydor and they reissued this title with MW Series in the early 70's. They also reissued the other great titles of Riverside like Bill Evans Portrait in Jazz, Waltz for Debby and so on. After that, the license was moved to Victor Music Japan and they reissued Brilliant Corners with SMJ series in the mid 70's. In the early 80's, they reissued it again with VIJ Series.
With the SMJ of Brilliant Corners, in the short preriod of time, they used a Green OBI (basicaly they were using orange OBI). This Green OBI version is really really RARE. If you are a OBI lover, you need to look into this version. I love this classy green OBI!
