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I love this stuff.  MF will dig out all the fact and I thank him for that. 

What becomes clear is this is one wacky business. Tapes hidden everywhere, in some cases only "The Shadow"  knows. 

...would seem to make sense, assuming there's an obvious person to ask.

The 4th paragraph deserves further review...since most lables guard their wares with threats of physical force and lawyers. This story seems bizare. 

Philips may own it but that doesn't mean they've always owned it. And if they've owned it for many years it's easy for a CEO to get confused. Trolling eBay I saw a Philips-label version of this (UK pressing) but with the original artwork, Phillips logo included there. I think the seller said it was from around 1980?

The takeaway here is that labels ignore the past --- it simply doesn't exist for them. Look on any artist's or label's site and click on the Discography link (if one even exists ...) and all you'll find is what's available for sale today. Today's verison, today's media or download.

So was this ever released after the ownership change, at least in Europe, with the ugly red, bad-Photoshop-looking artwork shown here? If so, again that's history being rewritten but would explain the "original artwork" stance.

A shootout between the CS1250/CS8079 and more common, mono CL1250 would be interesting if they were both dedicated mixes. Hell, compare the Speakers Corner to the Wax-Time since those are "what's available." (kidding) (sorta)

Should we publish first and notify? Or ask first and publish later.

Questions of provenance are everywhere. MF and ML over on the sister site audiostream.com sound the bell quite often.

This is the kind of thing that can get crazy, fast. If I were to propose anything, it'd be something simple.

- If the record jacket, press release or other published source makes a provenance claim, report it.

- If the provencance claim doesn't make sense or comflicts in some way with previous knowledge, or is incomplete, ask before publishing but don't wait around if they don't respond. Labels don't often really know the full provenance. The past doesn't interest them very much.

- All questions of provenance must be detailed and explicit because a label's definiiton of "original master" or "from the original tapes" often means they made a digital copy from them first, as if the intermediary step is of no consequence due to assumed utter tranparency. Read Baird's piece about EMI's classical archive remasters as to why engineers today don't consider digitizing to be a potential problem: EMI Remasters Its Classical Catalog for SACD

as a reader I primarily want you to report what you hear, which is what you did in this case. If there are questions raised by the review that the manufacturer can answer, by all means allow them to do so in a follow up.

Issues such as who owns the tapes, whether mono tapes still exist, whether there are true stereo tapes, etc. are interesting, but secondary to the quality of the product, IMO.

I think you should publish your opinions regarding the sound and pressing quality of a record (and the quality of the jacket/inserts/etc.) and then allow companies to respond if they wish.  

I understand that sometimes the reality these companies have to deal with is less than ideal.  That does not, however, change the fact they sometimes release a dud.

I own a japanese pressing of this album which sounds great, but I'm pretty sure this album was made as a condition from Legrand of his signing with Columbia. At the time he was pretty hot stuff and Columbia who knew that he was a huge jazz fan decided that allowing Legrand the indulgance of using their jazz stars & studio would be a small price to pay for getting him to sign with them when his film scores would earn them millions.

Hey, I've never pretended anything I've contributed was better than useless!

I have a CD reissue on Philips (830 074-2) that is P 1986 Phonogram S.A., Paris. Remastered by Gert van Hoeyen, prepared by Cees Schrama. Interesting notes by Max Harrison. Included are some fascinating photos from the sessions.

The sound is very good and is definitely stereo. Don't know if the album was popular with jazz fans, but for musicians it was one of the great big-band albums of that era.

Was it possible that Phillips owned the rights to European issue, and retained possession of the master that was sent to them back in the day?  If so, then it is possible that there is some truth in their explanation of provenance and they may be working from "their" original master.    That said, I applaud your efforts to discover and verify provenance for reissues.  Sometimes the tales are fascinating, sometimes mundane, but always interesting.   The history should be a part of the reissue review, warts and all.  Sometimes questions are asked, but answers are not forthcoming....that should be part of the review as well.   Keep up the good work.   

Depends on what your talking about. If it's technical details, I'd say ask rather then speculate.

On the sound quality, no, you have no obligation to let a company know your opinion before publishing. It's your opinion, your job.

If Speakers Corner listened to their Legrand Jazz and thought it was good sound then they can't hear. I mean did they bother to listen to any early version??? All they had to do is listen to ten seconds of the Philips CD from the 90's or any copy of the Columbia LP to know the tape they used was bad.

I heard the Speaker Corner version when it fist was released and could not believe it was not some sort of defective record...awful.

Speakers Corner in my opinion doesn't have much luck either with their Musical choice nor with the Sound compared to US Releases now with doubles done by them an AP etc.

And as this article suggests, even not with their background research