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

Miles Davis

Bags' Groove

1957 · Prestige PRLP 7109 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Prestige
Catalogue number	PRLP 7109
Year	1957
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop
Producer	Bob Weinstock
Musicians	Miles Davis (trumpet), Sonny Rollins (tenor sax, side 2), Milt Jackson (vibraphone, side 1), Thelonious Monk (piano, side 1), Horace Silver (piano, side 2), Percy Heath (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PRLP-7109-A RVG A AB
Side B:  PRLP-7109-B RVG A AB

Condition

Cover: EX/EX-
Vinyl: VG+ DEEP GROOVE/VG+ DEEP GROOVE

Variant chronology

1957 - Yellow/black label, 446 W. 50th St. NYC address, deep groove, hand-etched RVG  <- this copy
1958 - Yellow/black label, Bergenfield NJ address, no deep groove
1965-71 - Blue/silver-print "Prestige" label (later logo)
c. 1970s - Prestige/Fantasy reissue, Berkeley CA address
1980s-90s - OJC (Original Jazz Classics) reissue
2010s-present - Analogue Productions / Craft audiophile reissues

This Pressing

1st pressing (mono, 1957) - Prestige yellow/black label, 446 W. 50th St. NYC address, deep groove, hand-etched RVG in the runout.

The Album

Bags' Groove compiles two Miles Davis sessions from 1954: a December 24 date with vibraphonist Milt Jackson, pianist Thelonious Monk, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke, and an earlier June 29 session with Sonny Rollins on tenor and Horace Silver on piano. The December date has become one of the most mythologized in jazz history, fueled by later accounts (some embellished by Davis himself) of tension between Davis and Monk over how the pianist should comp behind his trumpet solos. Whatever the truth of the friction, the results - two contrasting takes of Jackson's title tune - capture the loose, blues-soaked interplay that defined the era's small-group jazz. The June session, essentially an early Rollins showcase, produced three Rollins originals (

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Bags' Groove (take 1)
2. Bags' Groove (take 2)

Side 2

1. Airegin
2. Oleo
3. But Not for Me (take 2)
4. Doxy
5. But Not for Me (take 1)

The Label

This copy carries the original yellow-and-black Prestige label with the "PRESTIGE RECORDS INC. \u2022 446 W. 50th ST., N.Y.C." address and pronounced deep groove on both sides, the design and address Prestige used from the label's launch through its 1958 move to Bergenfield, New Jersey (per bsnpubs.com's Prestige label-history timeline). The hand-etched "RVG" in the runout (per the collector's transcription) plus the "AB" suffix identifying Abbey Record Manufacturing as the pressing plant are both consistent with Prestige's earliest custom-pressed runs of this catalog number. Placement of the 446 W. 50th St. address is the single clearest marker separating this first-pressing labeling from the visually similar but later Bergenfield-address second pressing, which also changed the side-1 title justification.

Fidelity

Mastered from Rudy Van Gelder's original Hackensack tapes and lacquers, with his hand-etched RVG stamp confirming a Van Gelder-cut original pressing rather than a later re-cut. Collectors on forums.stevehoffman.tv generally regard these mid-1950s Prestige/Van Gelder mono originals as warm but somewhat narrow-band by modern standards, a function of the era's mastering chain rather than pressing quality, with Abbey's pressings considered solid if unspectacular. Within the album's fidelity hierarchy this RVG/deep-groove 446 W. 50th St. original sits at the top for vintage collectors, ahead of the later Bergenfield-address repress and the 1960s-70s blue-label reissues, and ahead of the OJC reissue; the more recent Analogue Productions/Craft audiophile remaster from the original tapes is generally rated the most refined-sounding cut but is prized for different reasons (surface quiet, extended top end) rather than vintage authenticity.

Notes

1957 Prestige PRLP 7109 mono - original first pressing. The 446 W. 50th St. NYC label address (pre-1958 Bergenfield move) combined with deep-groove labels and hand-etched RVG runouts (PRLP-7109-A/B RVG A AB) is the canonical marker of this variant. The "AB" suffix confirms Abbey Record Manufacturing as the pressing plant, consistent with Prestige's own custom pressing arrangement of the period. VG+ vinyl grade with deep groove intact supports the first-pressing attribution.

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