Thelonious Monk – Thelonious Himself

Great sound otherwise but my copy have an awful crack at star of B3 All Alone. Will send back to Amazon.de and try another copy.

Stunning sound on this. Golden age for Jazz vinyl reissues is now.

A favourite Monk album, and thankfully reissued properly. Beautiful tip on jacket, ultra clean pressing, with great mastering.

As far as I can tell from research, the original Riverside pressing labels are white with gray, then white with blue, 1955 to 1957. The last catalog number for the white with blue labels are RLP 12 242 which is "Monk's Music". And to complete the cork sniffing: patent number in the dead wax is for "Groove Guard" raised rim supposed to protect the grooves on stackable record changers.

Superb record, sounds great! Got it new and sealed, what a find :)

This pressing absolutely glorious to me - a nice, inexpensive option if you don’t wanna shell out big bucks for an OG pressing.

I've got this with no obi... Frankly I hate the obi... However you seem to get these LPs for a little less $ if it's missing the obi. Dead quiet wax, slightly "softer" mastering than any of the ojc issues. Seems to be how the Japanese liked to master these jazz LPs, at least in the '80s. I have some of the Bud Powell issues from Japan in the 80s, and it's the same thing: back to back with Blue Notes, the recording volume is slightly lower, however the Japanese seem to make a real effort to press (and press well) on quiet vinyl. And a lot of these seem to still be out there at really reasonable prices compared to a lot of jazz reissues. Especially if they don't have the obi lol... To me it's a good trade-off versus noisier American 80s vinyl. That's why God created the volume control... Would love to hear from anybody out there that has these Japanese issues and their opinion on the way they are mastered. It's definitely noticeable... Plus most of the Japanese issues seem to make a real effort to accurately reproduce the historical sleeve... No extra OJC logos, etc.

The matrix runout of variant 1 includes RLP 12=234, is that a typo instead of RLP 12=235?

This does not seem like a first press label. .

My copy of this 1986 apparently stereo reissue really sounds remastered compared to my other version, a 1974 Japan mono press. Piano level seems to have been lifted and stands out with more dynamics and the background noise seems more prominent as often with mono converted to stereo