Release was at best three months and in some cases several years after the session date. The label on a record is a useful guide to provenance but is by no means definitive. Actual timing of release was dictated by Alfred Lion’s commercial judgement, and vinyl was pressed shortly before the release date, using those labels. Labels were printed generally a few months after recording session, part of the process to prepare each album for release. A label indicates the Blue Note design and address at the time the label was printed. Note: The years in which labels were in use are approximate.

These labels were used for repressing popular titles, prior to the major Capitol EMI reissue initiative, which was launched in the mid-80s under the banner “The Finest In Jazz Since 1939” Updated November 7, 2022, to incorporate two early 1980s Capitol-EMI “interim labels”, blue label white note design similar to United Artists, but text now includes manufactured by Liberty Records Inc, and subsequently, by Capitol Records Inc. LondonJazzCollector Blue Note Cheat Sheet Unlicensed bootleg copies also appear Licensed genuine Blue Note reissues today for Europe are manufactured mostly in Germany. Counterfeit Blue Notes were manufactured in parts of South East Asia. The first titles manufactured overseas were in the Liberty, United Artists and EMI period, which are covered in separate pages, for Japan and Europe. In the golden era up to 1966, the Blue Note label had no overseas licensing agreements, and original US pressings were simply exported. However quality all-analogue reissues from original tapes just get better and better. It concludes with DJ Frankenstein remixing Blue Note recordings with hip-hop beats, and the spectre of cheap Public Domain reissues from undocumented low quality sources. It covers the period of the original Blue Note Records company in the decade up to 1966, and then through the hands of subsequent owners Liberty Records, United Artists and EMI, through the DJ compilation decade, up to the modern “audiophile” editions of the present day. This Collector’s Guide commences in 1956, with the 12″ 1500 series microgroove vinyl LP, which I consider the beginning of modern “high fidelity” and which coincides with the beginning of use of the new condenser/valve microphone.

The earliest Blue Note recordings were issued on 78 rpm shellac and then 10″ microgroove, largely the domain of the purist collector, as many of these recording (though not all) went on to be republished in various permutations on 12″ LP. The Blue Note label, from the ’50s to the present day – the definitive guide for the audiophile record collector. New knowledge is added as it is found, errors are corrected, not to say there isn’t room for more improvement, further discovery welcomed. Welcome to the m ost frequently viewed page at LondonJazzCollector! This guide has been over 10 years in the making.

Shaw piano company serial number