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

Blue Haze

1956 · Prestige PRLP 7054 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Prestige
Catalogue number	PRLP 7054
Year	1956
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop/Bebop
Producer	Bob Weinstock (supervision, tracks A1-A3, B1), Ira Gitler (supervision, tracks A4, B2-B4)
Musicians	Miles Davis (trumpet); John Lewis (piano, tracks B2-B4); Charles Mingus (piano, track A4 "Smooch" only); Percy Heath (bass, tracks A1-A4, B2-B4); Max Roach (drums, tracks A4, B2-B4); Horace Silver (piano, tracks A2-A3, B1); Art Blakey (drums, tracks A2-A3, B1); Davey Schildkraut (alto sax, track A1 "I'll Remember April"); Kenny Clarke (drums, track A1)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PRLP-7054-A D RVG AB
Side B:  PRLP-7054-B A RVG 1

Condition

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

Variant chronology

1956 - Yellow/black "fireworks" label, 446 W. 50th St. N.Y.C. address, "HI FI" text, deep groove, RVG hand-etched in deadwax  <- this copy
1958 - Yellow/black "fireworks" label, Bergenfield NJ address, "HIGH FIDELITY" (egg-yolk color) text, no deep groove
1965-71 - Prestige blue/black or blue/silver "logo" label (Bergenfield, later Fantasy-era)
1972+ - Prestige/Fantasy "maroon" or later reissue labels
1980s-2000s - OJC (Original Jazz Classics) reissue

This Pressing

1st pressing (mono, 1956) - Prestige yellow/black fireworks label, 446 W. 50th St. NYC address, "HI FI" text, deep groove; hand-etched RVG in the deadwax with AB/1 stamper codes.

The Album

Blue Haze compiles three separate Prestige sessions Miles Davis led in 1953-54, a period when heroin addiction had made him, in annotator Ira Gitler's own contemporaneous phrase, close to jazz's "forgotten man of 1955." The earliest material, a May 1953 quartet date with John Lewis, Percy Heath and Max Roach, is joined by a March 1954 session featuring Horace Silver and Art Blakey and an April 1954 quintet date with alto saxophonist Davey Schildkraut that produced the album's most celebrated track, "I'll Remember April." Musically the record captures Davis honing the lyrical, harmonically searching trumpet voice that would soon anchor hard bop, moving through standards like "That Ole Devil Moon" and "When Lights Are Low" alongside originals such as "Tune Up," "Miles Ahead," and the brooding title cut "Blue Haze," co-credited to bassist-composer Charles Mingus. The sessions predate Davis's galvanizing comeback appearance at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, so the album effectively documents the raw talent critics had begun to overlook amid his personal struggles. It is prized less as a unified artistic statement than as an essential window into Davis's early-to-mid-1950s Prestige period, pairing him with musicians - Silver and Blakey, Lewis and Roach - who would become architects of the emerging hard-bop idiom. Decades on, Blue Haze remains a steady fixture in critical surveys of Davis's formative Prestige years, valued for capturing the trumpeter mid-transformation, not long before his move to Columbia Records would redefine modern jazz.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. I'll Remember April
2. Four
3. That Ole Devil Moon
4. Smooch

Side 2

1. Blue Haze
2. When Lights Are Low
3. Tune Up
4. Miles Ahead

The Label

This copy carries the yellow-and-black "fireworks" Prestige label bearing the "PRESTIGE RECORDS INC. \u2022 446 W. 50th ST., N.Y.C." address and the abbreviated "HI FI" legend, with a deep groove stamped into the label field - the earliest 12-inch Prestige label design used while the company's office was on West 50th Street in Manhattan. Prestige relocated to Bergenfield, New Jersey in 1958, after which the identical fireworks artwork was reprinted in a slightly different "egg-yolk" yellow with the Bergenfield address and the fuller "HIGH FIDELITY" wording, marking the second-pressing label; that later label also generally lacks the deep groove. The NYC address, "HI FI" abbreviation, and deep groove on this copy together place it in the first Prestige pressing run immediately following the LP's original 1956 release (itself a 12-inch repackaging of the 1954 10-inch Prestige 161). The deadwax hand-etched "RVG" plus machine-stamped "AB"/"1" stamper codes are consistent with Van Gelder-cut lacquers from this earliest pressing era, with no further label-design changes affecting this specific NYC-address copy beyond normal stamper variation.

Fidelity

Mastered by Rudy Van Gelder directly from his Hackensack studio tapes, this deep-groove NYC-label pressing represents the earliest and most sought-after cut of Blue Haze, made when Van Gelder's lacquers were pressed close to the source without intervening tape generations. Collectors on forums.stevehoffman.tv generally regard these mid-1950s Van Gelder-mastered Prestige originals as warmer and more immediate than later Bergenfield-era repressings, though the mono masters here can sound somewhat boxy by modern standards, reflecting the limitations of 1953-54 tape and small-room recording rather than the cutting itself. There is no audiophile reissue series (Analogue Productions, Music Matters, etc.) specifically for Blue Haze, so within its own reissue lineage this NYC first pressing sits at the top, followed by the 1958 Bergenfield second pressing, and further below by 1960s Prestige/Fantasy reprints and later OJC reissues, which use further-generation tape masters and are generally considered sonically inferior.

Notes

This is the original 1956 Prestige PRLP 7054 mono first pressing. The yellow/black fireworks label reads "PRESTIGE RECORDS INC. 446 W. 50th ST., N.Y.C." with "HI FI" (not the later "HIGH FIDELITY"), and the vinyl shows a deep groove - the combination collectors use to distinguish this NYC-era issue from the 1958 Bergenfield, NJ second pressing. The deadwax transcription (RVG hand-etched, with AB and 1 machine-stamped codes) confirms Van Gelder-cut lacquers consistent with this first-pressing run; pressing was by Abbey Record Manufacturing Co. for Prestige. No later label variant elements (Bergenfield address, egg-yolk yellow, non-deep-groove pressing) are present on this copy.

Documenting collections

I do this work for other people’s collections too — documenting a collection record by record, researching individual pressings, and preparing collections for sale or for insurance. If you have a collection you would like documented, or a record you want identified properly, get in touch: email

This record’s page: https://vinylcurator.net/albums/miles-davis-blue-haze/