Stan Getz has gone down as one of the great jazz tenor sax players.  His deep, lush tone is instantly recognizable.  Getz broke onto the jazz scene in the 1940s and ’50s.  In the ’50s, he released several well-known albums and recorded with such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson, Cal Tjader, and Gerry Mulligan.  He is […]

When the CBS/Sony family of record labels began releasing CDs across the globe in 1983, these discs were pressed in Japan.  CBS/Sony opened its own pressing plant in Tokyo named CSR Compact Disc, with CSR standing for CBS/Sony Records.  Thus, Japanese pressings began to appear on store shelves not just in Japan, but also in […]

Vince Guaraldi is considered one of the great jazz pianists. From the early 1950s until his untimely death in 1976 at the age of 47, he turned out numerous albums showcasing his unique talent across many different jazz styles. Guaraldi is best known for his scores accompanying Charles Schulz’s animated Peanuts specials, but he first […]

As we close the book on 2012 and stare at a blank slate for 2013, it’s O.K. to accept that not all things must change.  Here at keithhirsch.com, we will continue to focus on early CDs.  Sure, we’ve been doing that since 2007, but there are still a lot of interesting discs that have not gotten their due […]

Happy Holidays!  Stores and retail web sites are in full holiday mode, so why not get things into gear on keithhirsch.com?  It’s time once again to feature an early pressing of a Christmas CD, a holiday tradition here since 2007.  This year we consider a rare Japan-for-U.S. pressing of Barbra Streisand’s 1967 holiday offering, A […]

A popular subset of early CD pressings among collectors are those released by EMI primarily in the U.S. and Europe bearing a colored paint coating on the label side.  These CDs were pressed in Japan or West Germany.  Common colors for these discs are red and black (one color to a CD, not combinations).  An […]

It’s been 30 years.  On October 1, 1982, the Compact Disc, or simply the CD, was commercialized in Japan by Sony.  The CD was several years in the making, with Philips and Sony developing their own digital music disc technology starting in the 1970s.  They finally settled on the Redbook CD Standard, which set the […]

One of the ubiquitous Japanese CD pressing plants on the scene in the early days of the format was Denon, aka Nippon Columbia.  In addition to pressing CDs for their own jazz and classical music labels, Denon was contracted to produce 5″ digital discs for numerous other labels, including MCA, RCA, and A&M.  Of interest to the collector […]