Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the
pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead
wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep
with the record.
— Paul, Vinyl Curator
Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Clark Terry
Jam Session
1955 · EmArcy Records MG 36002 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM
Pressing details
| Label | EmArcy Records |
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| Catalogue number | MG 36002 |
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| Year | 1955 |
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| Mono / Stereo | Mono |
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| Country | US |
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| Format | LP |
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| Speed | 33 1/3 RPM |
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| Genre | Jazz - Hard Bop / Bop (jam session) |
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| Producer | Bob Shad |
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| Musicians | Clifford Brown (trumpet), Maynard Ferguson (trumpet), Clark Terry (trumpet), Harold Land (tenor sax), Herb Geller (alto sax), Richie Powell (piano), Junior Mance (piano), Keter Betts (bass), George Morrow (bass), Max Roach (drums), Dinah Washington (vocal on "Darn That Dream") |
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Matrix / Runout
Side A: YMG 36002A M1
Side B: YMG 36002B 2 M1
Condition
- Cover
- VG+
- Vinyl
- NM-
Variant chronology
1955 - US EmArcy original mono, blue drummer label, deep groove, blue-printed back cover <- this copy
c. 1956-57 - US EmArcy mono second issue, black-printed back cover
1975 - US Trip Jazz reissue
1980s - EmArcy/Polygram (US/Japan) reissue series
This Pressing
1st press (mono, 1955) - US EmArcy MG 36002, blue drummer label, deep groove, blue-printed back cover; YMG36002A/B hand-etched matrix with stamped letters.
The Album
On August 14, 1954, EmArcy A&R chief Bob Shad staged a public jam-session concert in Hollywood, drawing on musicians already in town for a Clifford Brown/Max Roach recording date, and rolled tape on an ad-hoc all-star band for a free-admission crowd. Three of the era's most exciting trumpeters - the meteoric young Clifford Brown, high-note specialist Maynard Ferguson, and the soon-to-be Ellington sideman Clark Terry - traded extended choruses over a rhythm section led by Max Roach, joined by reedmen Harold Land and Herb Geller; Dinah Washington, whose own portion of the concert became the companion LP "Dinah Jams," contributes a luminous guest vocal on "Darn That Dream." The record captures Brown at the very start of his ascent, only two years before he would be recognized as the most influential trumpet voice since Dizzy Gillespie, and less than two years before his death at 25 in a car accident in June 1956 cut short a career already reshaping the instrument. "Move" stands as one of the great trumpet-battle performances in the jam-session idiom, while the closing ballad medley shows Brown, Terry, Geller and pianist Richie Powell at their most lyrical and unguarded. The album was praised on release in early 1955 as a showcase for its trumpet section, and it has since been championed by critics as an essential and unusually well-realized document of the informal jam-session format. It remains a landmark in Brown's brief discography and a touchstone recording of 1950s West Coast-adjacent hard bop.
Tracklist
Side 1
1. What Is This Thing Called Love
2. Darn That Dream
Side 2
1. Move
2. My Funny Valentine
3. Don't Worry 'Bout Me
4. Bess, You Is My Woman Now
5. It Might As Well Be Spring
The Label
This copy carries the original 'blue EmArcy type A' label: bright royal-blue field, one white oval 'EmArcy' script logo top-left, one drummer-boy illustration top-right, 'LONG PLAYING HIGH FIDELITY' curving around the rim, and 'Mercury Record Corporation / Made in U.S.A.' at the bottom, all sitting over a visible deep groove. The back jacket is printed in blue ink rather than black. Per EmArcy pressing chronology, this founding drummer-boy design and blue-ink back cover mark the label's earliest 36000-series issues (1954-c.1956), before Mercury switched the back-cover printing to black around 1956-57 for second issues and later moved to the double-oval EmArcy design. The blue label, deep groove, and blue back cover together place this copy firmly in the original February 1955 first-issue pressing window, ahead of any subsequent black-back or reissue pressing.
Fidelity
Recorded live-to-mono in Hollywood in 1954 under Mercury/EmArcy's 'Fine-Fairchild Margin Control' process and mastered/pressed through Mercury's Chicago operation; original deep-groove blue-label pressings like this one are considered the sonic benchmark for the title, with vivid, upfront brass and audible room ambience typical of a well-run live-to-tape jazz date. The 1975 Trip Jazz reissue is a thin, budget-grade cut, and the 1980s EmArcy/Polygram reissue series, while competently mastered, sounds noticeably cooler and more compressed than the original. No modern audiophile remaster (Tone Poet/Analogue Productions/Music Matters-class) of this title exists, so a clean original mono deep-groove pressing such as this one remains the best-sounding option available to collectors.
Notes
1955 EmArcy MG 36002 mono is the original US first pressing of this title. The blue 'drummer' EmArcy labels with deep groove, paired with the blue-printed back cover (which switched to black on c. 1956-57 second issues), place this copy in the earliest pressing window. The runouts read YMG 36002A / YMG 36002B 2, M1, hand-etched with stamped letters, consistent with the original matrix style for this catalog number. Released February 1955, drawn from the August 14, 1954 Hollywood concert, with Dinah Washington's guest vocal on "Darn That Dream."
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