Take Five on fontana

I had posted this picture to one of the groups on facebook, of which I was a member. This picture, as can be seen, was of a seven-inch 45rpm record that featured The Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Take Five on the A side and Blue Rondo Ala Turk on the B side.

This record was passed on to me recently by an old friend who was giving away his old music collection. "Left behind in the house by my late father and also my siblings when they went off to live overseas," he told me. "You can have all of the records if you wish," he continued, which I thankfully did. All 96 pieces of long-playing albums and a handful of 45s. This one was among them.

Soon after I had posted up the picture, a quick-eyed member of the group responded with an interesting message, "I checked and the main release was on Columbia, so I guess that particular record is rare. What is unfortunately rare is how few jazz recordings made it to 45s. That tune was originally on the "Time Out" album in 1959, but released on 45 in 1961 and became a surprise hit."

Maybe it's not so rare after all. Columbia, which was a major US label, couldn't release their records under the "Columbia" label in the UK and the Commonwealth countries because EMI, the major label in the UK, already owned the rights to the "Columbia" name there. I do have several old 45s that featured the EMI "Columbia" label.

So Columbia (the US company) went into an arrangement with Philips UK to have their catalogue pressed under the Philips-owned "fontana" label for the British market. This convenient arrangement went on from the late 1950s until 1962 when Columbia finally launched the CBS label and started releasing their own American recordings outside the US under "CBS".