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

Round About Midnight

1957 · Columbia CL 949 · Mono · US; runout carries an 'H'-type mark · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Columbia
Catalogue number	CL 949
Year	1957
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US; runout carries an 'H'-type mark
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop
Producer	George Avakian
Performer / Orchestra	The Miles Davis Quintet
Musicians	Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), "Philly Joe" Jones (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  XLP39109-1A
Side B:  XLP39110-1A H1

Condition

Cover: EX
Vinyl: VG+

Variant chronology

1957 - 6-eye deep-groove mono, earliest low-generation stampers (1A/1A)  <- this copy
1957-58 - 6-eye deep-groove mono, later stamper generations (1C-1K etc.)
1958-61 - 6-eye label, deep groove removed
1962-64 - 'Guaranteed High Fidelity' 2-eye red/black label mono
1963-70s - Stereo reissue (CS 8649), 360 Sound red label
1967 - 2-eye Pitman mono, no 360 Sound/nonbreakable text
1970s - Orange label Columbia reissue
2013 - Sony/Legacy 180g mono reissue, Kevin Gray mastering

This Pressing

1st press (mono, 1957) - Columbia 6-eye deep-groove label, earliest documented XLP39109-1A/XLP39110-1A stampers.

The Album

Round About Midnight was Miles Davis's debut for Columbia Records, cut at Columbia's New York studios in sessions spanning October 1955 and June and September 1956 while Davis was still technically finishing out his Prestige contract. It introduced his first great quintet - John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones - a working band whose telepathic interplay reshaped small-group jazz and set Coltrane on the path to his own landmark career. Anchored by a moody reworking of Thelonious Monk's title tune, the program mixes standards ('All of You,' 'Bye Bye Blackbird') with bebop repertoire (Charlie Parker's 'Ah-Leu-Cha,' Tadd Dameron's 'Tadd's Delight'), spotlighting Davis's newly matured, harmon-muted lyricism against Coltrane's harder-edged tenor attack. The record marked Davis's leap from Prestige's hard-bop scene to a major label's resources and promotional reach, opening the decade of landmark Columbia albums that followed. It is widely regarded as a cornerstone of hard bop and one of the defining quintet statements of the mid-1950s, later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Its blend of restraint, harmonic sophistication and controlled intensity has kept it a fixture on best-jazz-album lists and an essential document of Davis's transformation from bebop sideman to major bandleader.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. 'Round Midnight
2. Ah-Leu-Cha
3. All of You

Side 2

1. Bye Bye Blackbird
2. Tadd's Delight
3. Dear Old Stockholm

The Label

This copy carries Columbia's deep-groove 6-eye mono label (red field, black perimeter wedges each containing a small circled 'eye' logo, six in total, 'NONBREAKABLE' text, and the 'Lp' trademark ring at bottom) - the design used for CL 949 from its March 1957 release through the early 1960s before the deep groove and 6-eye rim graphic were retired in favor of the 2-eye 'Guaranteed High Fidelity' label circa 1962-63. This 6-eye deep-groove issue exists in several sub-variants distinguished mainly by stamper suffix (1A through 1K observed on side A) rather than by a differently laid-out label; this copy's stamped runout (XLP39109-1A / XLP39110-1A) is the lowest, earliest stamper pair for the catalog number. That places this disc at or very near the front of the six-eye deep-groove pressing run for CL 949, ahead of copies stamped 1C, 1G, 1H or 1K. Columbia pressed this title at its Hollywood, Bridgeport/NY, and Terre Haute plants, but the specific plant for this copy is not identified on the label.

Fidelity

This is an original 1957 Columbia mono cut sourced from Frank Laico's session tapes, not a later remaster; six-eye deep-groove Columbia pressings of this era are generally well-regarded among collectors for their warm, direct mono presentation, with early low-number stampers like this 1A/1A pair theoretically representing the freshest metal parts, though most listeners find plant-to-plant differences among Columbia's Hollywood, Bridgeport/NY, and Terre Haute pressing plants, and stamper-generation differences, subtle. Within the album's overall fidelity hierarchy this early six-eye deep-groove mono sits at or near the top, ranked above the later 2-eye 'Guaranteed High Fidelity' mono, the 1970s orange-label reissue, and the stereo/rechanneled CS 8649 pressings. It is generally considered comparable to, and by some vintage-mono purists preferred over, the 2013 Sony Legacy/Kevin Gray-mastered 180g mono reissue and the Mobile Fidelity SACD, which are praised for added clarity but not universally judged to surpass the original six-eye pressing's tonal character.

Notes

1957 Columbia CL 949 mono - early original pressing. Deep-groove 6-eye Columbia label with 'NONBREAKABLE' text matches the earliest label design used for this catalog number before the 2-eye 'Guaranteed High Fidelity' redesign of the early 1960s. Stamped runout XLP39109-1A / XLP39110-1A represents the lowest, earliest-documented stamper generation for CL 949, placing this copy at the front of the six-eye pressing run rather than a later stamper generation (1C-1K) or a post-1958 non-deep-groove pressing. No stereo, budget, or record-club markings are present, consistent with a standard first-run mono original rather than a reissue.

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