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

Sonny Rollins

Saxophone Colossus

2021-2022 · Prestige (Analogue Productions, Prestige Mono Series) PRLP 7079 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Prestige (Analogue Productions, Prestige Mono Series)
Catalogue number	PRLP 7079
Year	2021-2022
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Hard Bop
Producer	Bob Weinstock
Musicians	Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Doug Watkins (bass), Max Roach (drums)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PRLP-7079-A KG@CA KEVIN GRAY QRP
Side B:  PRLP-7079-B KG@CA KEVIN GRAY QRP

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

1957 - US Prestige LP 7079, PRLP 7079
1958 - US Prestige LP 7079, PRLP 7079, repress, yellow label without the HI FI wording
1958 - US Prestige LP 7079, PRLP 7079, repress, yellow label with HI FI wording added
1964 - US Prestige PR 7326, PRST 7326, stereo reissue
1991 - Japan Prestige SGD-13, PRLP-7079, reissue
2013 - US Analogue Productions APRJ 7079, 200g mono reissue
2022 - US Analogue Productions APRJ 7079, 180g mono repressing, Prestige Mono Series  <- this copy

This Pressing

2022 Analogue Productions/Prestige Mono Series reissue (QRP pressing, Kevin Gray lacquers) - a later audiophile pressing, not an original.

The Album

Recorded in a single June 1956 session at Van Gelder's Hackensack studio, this album arrived at a pivotal moment for its leader, just before Sonny Rollins stepped away from public performance to woodshed on the Williamsburg Bridge. Backed by Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins and Max Roach, Rollins built the record around his gift for thematic improvisation, most famously on the calypso-inflected opener that became one of jazz's most enduring melodies. The set also showcases his wit and historical reach, folding a German theatre song and a standard ballad into a program otherwise built from his own blues and bebop-rooted originals. Flanagan's lyrical comping and Roach's inventive solo work are frequently singled out as essential to the record's balance and drive. The album quickly became a touchstone of the hard bop era and a definitive statement of Rollins's improvisational logic, where a simple melodic cell is spun into extended, self-referential variation. It is widely regarded as one of the essential tenor saxophone albums of the 1950s and remains central to Rollins's standing as one of jazz's greatest soloists. Its critical reputation has only grown over the decades, and it is routinely cited among the greatest jazz albums ever recorded.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. St. Thomas
2. You Don't Know What Love Is
3. Strode Rode

Side 2

1. Moritat
2. Blue Seven

The Label

The side labels show the modern Analogue Productions pressing of this title: a yellow ground with black print and a black rim band carrying the Prestige banner, the 446 W. 50th St., N.Y.C. address line, and a copyright line crediting Craft Recordings and Analogue Productions dated 2021. That copyright line, printed nowhere before 2021, dates the label itself and places this copy in the Prestige Mono Series run issued under license from Concord to Analogue Productions, not among the 1950s Bergenfield/50th Street originals whose rim text it otherwise echoes. The cover's catalogue line reads PRESTIGE LP 7079 while the label prints PRLP 7079, a small but normal difference between jacket and label copy on this reissue. This placement puts the copy well down the pressing hierarchy, below every 1950s-60s Prestige issue and alongside the label's own 2010s-20s audiophile mono reissue run.

Fidelity

Cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio from the analogue masters and pressed at Quality Record Pressings, this mono reissue is well regarded by collectors as a faithful, clean-sounding modern cut of the Van Gelder session. It ranks below no vinyl edition of this album in surface quality and is generally considered among the best-sounding mono versions commercially available today, though the original 1957 Van Gelder-cut pressing remains the benchmark for tonal immediacy that collectors and reviewers still prize above any reissue, including this one and the companion 45rpm Analogue Productions cut.

Notes

This is a 2022 Analogue Productions pressing in the Prestige Mono Series, not an original Prestige issue. The labels carry a 2021 Craft Recordings/Analogue Productions copyright line that cannot predate 2021, and the etched runouts read Kevin Gray and QRP (Quality Record Pressings), the mastering engineer and plant used on this reissue series. The jacket's PRESTIGE LP 7079 line and the label's PRLP 7079 reflect normal jacket/label copy variance on this edition, not an original-era pressing detail. It sits well down the title's pressing hierarchy, well below the 1950s originals and alongside the label's own earlier 200g Analogue Productions mono reissue.

Documenting collections

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