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

Friday Night In Person At The Blackhawk, San Francisco - Volume I

1961 · Columbia CL 1669 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	CL 1669
Year	1961
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop / Post-Bop (Live)
Producer	Irving Townsend
Musicians	Miles Davis (trumpet), Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  XLP 53548-1C BH 1
Side B:  XLP 53549-1A BH 11

Condition

Cover: EX
Vinyl: VG+

Variant chronology

1961 - US Columbia six-eye red label, mono, flat ledge label (no deep groove)  <- this copy
1961 - US Columbia six-eye, stereo companion issue (CS 8469)
1961 - UK Fontana pressing (TFL 5163 / STFL 580)
1964 - UK CBS reissue (BPG/SBPG 62306)
1962-79 - Japanese Columbia/CBS-Sony pressings (SL-1089, SOPJ 17, 20AP 1402, 32DP 514)
1971/1973 - US Columbia 2-LP reissue with Vol. II (C2S 820 / Limited Edition LE 10018)
1988 - US Columbia remastered reissue (CJT 44257)

This Pressing

1st-era pressing (mono, 1961) - Columbia six-eye red label, CL 1669, flat "ledge" label with no deep groove, consistent with the late-1961 six-eye die changeover rather than the earlier deep-groove run.

The Album

Recorded live over a Friday and Saturday night residency in April 1961 at the Blackhawk club in San Francisco, this album captures Miles Davis's working quintet with Hank Mobley on tenor in place of the departed John Coltrane, backed by the redoubtable rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. Columbia split the sprawling club tapes into two companion LPs, "Friday Night" (Volume I) and "Saturday Night" (Volume II), giving listeners an unusually intimate, in-the-room document of Davis on the bandstand rather than in the studio. The set leans on staples from his repertoire - "Walkin'," "Bye Bye Blackbird," "All Of You" - alongside the originals "No Blues" and the closing theme "Bye Bye," played with the loose, extended-solo freedom of a working club date. Mobley's presence has often been overshadowed by Coltrane's tenure, but the Blackhawk tapes are among the best surviving evidence of his stint with Davis and of a quintet quietly transitioning toward the more exploratory band Davis would assemble later in the decade. Critically, the album has long been regarded as a solid if secondary entry in Davis's vast Columbia discography - valued less for innovation than for its relaxed documentation of a great small group at work. It remains a touchstone for collectors of Davis's early-1960s Columbia period and of live hard-bop recording in general.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Walkin'
2. Bye Bye Blackbird

Side 2

1. All Of You
2. No Blues
3. Bye Bye (Theme)
4. Love, I've Found You (piano solo by Wynton Kelly)

The Label

The label area has no deep groove - it is a flat ("ledge") six-eye label. Columbia's pressing plants phased out the deep-groove die in favor of a shallow "ledge" beginning in late 1961, with old and new dies sometimes used side by side while stock was used up; CL 1669 was first issued in August/September 1961, squarely inside that changeover window, so a flat-label six-eye copy is fully consistent with an original-era six-eye pressing rather than proof of a later pressing. This places the copy within the same six-eye, pre-"CBS"-overprint production era as a deep-groove copy of the same catalogue number, but from the later side of the 1961 die changeover rather than the earliest deep-groove run.

Fidelity

The original 1961 Columbia mono cut was mastered from the Blackhawk club tapes recorded under producer Irving Townsend; as a live nightclub recording it has inherent room noise, imperfect balance and a warmer but narrower dynamic range than a studio date. Collectors on the forums generally favor the mono mix for cohesion on this title, though the stereo CS 8469 spreads the horns and rhythm section more distinctly. Six-eye era Columbia pressings are typically well-cut and reasonably quiet for the period, but this title has since been surpassed in fidelity by the expanded, newly-mastered 2003 Columbia/Legacy "Complete" box (engineered by Mark Wilder from the original tapes) and by the audiophile-grade 2021 Mosaic/Craft vinyl box of the complete Blackhawk sessions, both of which offer cleaner transfers and fuller unedited performances than the original single LP.

Notes

1961 Columbia CL 1669 mono - six-eye red label places this copy inside Columbia's 1955-62 label design window, consistent with an original-era pressing rather than the later two-eye or 360 Sound reissue labels. Mono CL-prefix catalog number and "NONBREAKABLE" text (no STEREO banner) confirm this is the mono edition, distinct from the parallel CS 8469 stereo issue. Matrix suffixes (1C/1A) indicate stamper-generation codes rather than a re-mastered cut; the label does not indicate deep-groove presence.

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