What are you listening to on your reel to reel right now?

Wow that’s a rare one alright! But it’s not full-track mono?
It is, but the title implies "in stereo". I have the more common 4 track copy of this, but picked this one up for kicks and it actually sounds different. It's an oddball...PM me if you want me to send it to you to give it a listen.
 
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Ornette Coleman "Tomorrow Is The Question!"
1959 Contemporary Records

This has to be a re-release as it looks almost mint, never played, and not like anything stored from 1959. Even the Ampex tape holding sticker adhesive was still tacky.
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Not likely, since there have ben pitiful few R2R tapes manufactured in the last 35 or so years. A few years back, I was dealing with a guy (somewhere in New England, New Hampshire, maybe?) who had bought the entire contents of a long-gone record store, including a fair number of NOS, sealed, original tapes, right out of The Wayback Machine. Among the ones I got were Allman Bros @ Fillmore East, Brubeck`s "Time Out", Ginger Baker`s "Air Force", Clapton`s first solo album, The Animals, and a few others. So, they ARE out there, but ya have to be lucky....
 
Not likely, since there have ben pitiful few R2R tapes manufactured in the last 35 or so years....

My thought was Contemporary re-released some of their library in the 70's, as their business was deteriorating, and this was an example. I know Fantasy and others later released their stuff, but there are no such markings on this tape. It just doesn't seem like anything like I have from 1959, including the multi-colored Ampex sticker. I have some GRT re-issues of popular albums (from Coltrane, Mingus, etc.) and they don't sound as good as the originals. This one, to my ears, isn't as good as the original lp release. It is known that Contemporary re-released their vinyl issues over many years with no cover indicators (keeping original copyright dates all the way through, for example). I think they did the same with tapes and this one, along with a few others I have (e.g. Art Pepper) are re-releases. I have a Barney Kessel tape from Contemporary that is very different, and clearly from the late 50's.
 
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That Shelly Manne Tape doesn’t look like 1960 to me. More like late 60’s. Just because the album was released in 1960 doesn’t mean the tape was...
 
That Shelly Manne Tape doesn’t look like 1960 to me. More like late 60’s. Just because the album was released in 1960 doesn’t mean the tape was...
I'm thinking more like around 1975-1980, when Contemporary was struggling. They didn't shrink wrap tapes until the mid to late 60's, so no way it came out with first release. My wife, who worked at WEA/Warner Music back in the day recalls seeing some new jazz reels around 1980 that were re-released (not Columbia House), but she can't remember which ones. Wish there was some info somewhere...interesting puzzle, still researching.
 
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Still on a roll..
ArtPepper Smackup2.JPG

I also may have solved the Contemporary CYX riddle...I found this small new music review in a Desert Sun back issue, showing a release of one of the CVX tapes in 1968 (10 years after this Sonny Rollins album was released) so I'm thinking this was a 10 year anniversary thing:
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Time for a break from Jazz: here's some Pop: The 1968 debut album by Kenny Odell (the guy who wrote Charlie Rich's country hit "Behind Closed Doors", among others). Rare tape that nobody cares about!
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