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

Sam Rivers

Sizzle

1976 · ABC Impulse! ASD-9316 · Stereo · US (Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Terre Haute, Indiana, indicated by the “T” runout prefix) · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	ABC Impulse!
Catalogue number	ASD-9316
Year	1976
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US (Columbia Records Pressing Plant, Terre Haute, Indiana, indicated by the “T” runout prefix)
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Free Jazz/Avant-Garde
Producer	Esmond Edwards
Composer	Sam Rivers
Musicians	Sam Rivers (tenor & soprano saxophones, flute, piano), Ted Dunbar (guitar), Dave Holland (bass, cello), Barry Altschul (drums), Warren Smith (drums, vibes, tympani)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  ASD-9316-A  T1 ○ 2 A 3
Side B:  ASD-9316-B  T1 ○ 1 C

Condition

Cover: VG+
Vinyl: NM-

Variant chronology

1976 - US ABC Impulse ASD-9316, first pressing
c. 1976-79 - US ABC Impulse ASD-9316, later pressing  <- this copy
1976 - UK Impulse! IMPL 8025 / ASD 9316
1976 - US ABC Impulse ASD-9316, white-label promo
1976 - US ABC Impulse ASD-9316, test pressing
1976 - Japan ABC Impulse YQ-8509-AI, promo
1976 - Japan ABC Impulse YQ-8509-AI, stereo
1976 - US ABC Impulse 8027-9316 H, alternate-number pressing

This Pressing

1976 US stereo pressing - ABC Impulse green bullseye label; Terre Haute “T” runout stamp marks it as an original-era copy, not a later reissue.

The Album

Sam Rivers emerged from Boston's jazz scene and Miles Davis's mid-1960s band before becoming one of the loft-jazz era's most important multi-instrumentalists, co-running Studio Rivbea with his wife Bea as a hub for New York's downtown free-music community. By the mid-1970s his Blue Note period had given way to a run of records for ABC Impulse that pushed his reed, flute and piano playing into extended, freely structured forms. Sizzle gathers four side-long or near side-long pieces - Dawn, Flare, Flame and Scud - built around the pairing of Rivers's saxophones, flute and piano with Dave Holland's bass and cello, Ted Dunbar's guitar, and the double-drummer frontline of Barry Altschul and Warren Smith on drums, vibes and tympani. The expanded percussion and the cello textures give the record a denser, more orchestral free-jazz sound than Rivers's smaller working units of the period. It stands as a late entry in his major-label run before he moved increasingly toward self-produced and independent recordings, and it is valued by collectors of the loft-jazz and free-jazz movements as a document of Rivers's ensemble writing at full stretch. Critical reception situated it within the broader 1970s critical reassessment of free jazz's large-ensemble possibilities, and it remains a touchstone for listeners tracing Rivers's path from hard bop sideman to leading avant-garde voice.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Dawn
2. Flare

Side 2

1. Flame
2. Scud

The Label

The labels show the green-to-blue-to-purple-to-pink concentric “bullseye” rings with the abc/Impulse wordmark logo at top, the design ABC Impulse used from roughly 1974 through 1979, replacing the earlier black-and-red ring labels of the 1960s. The ℗ 1976, ABC Records, Inc. line printed on both sides fixes manufacture no earlier than that year. This places the copy in the mid-1970s ABC-era Impulse pressing run, well after the Van Gelder-mastered black/red-ring originals of the 1960s catalogue and squarely within the label's final years before MCA's 1980 buyout changed the imprint again.

Fidelity

This stereo cut was mastered at ABC's own recording studios in Los Angeles from tapes recorded and mixed at Generation Sound Studios in New York, rather than by a dedicated jazz mastering specialist. Collectors generally rate the sound as solid but unremarkable for the period, without the reputation of Rudy Van Gelder's earlier Blue Note or Impulse work. The Terre Haute pressing is considered a typical, competent mid-1970s ABC pressing rather than an audiophile-grade one. No audiophile reissue series (Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records or similar) exists for this title, so this original pressing remains the top of its own fidelity hierarchy.

Notes

1976 ABC Impulse ASD-9316 stereo pressing. The green bullseye label with the abc/Impulse logo is the design used from 1974-79, and the printed ℗ 1976 date places manufacture no earlier than that year. The “T1” runout prefix identifies the Columbia pressing plant at Terre Haute, Indiana, the standard plant used for ABC Impulse releases of this period. This is an original-era US stereo pressing, distinct from the contemporaneous promo, test-pressing, UK and Japanese issues of the same release.

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