Images and information were added for Philips BBL 7365. Click on the image below to see all of it.

Almost all Philips albums and singles shown on this website are original issues or early reissues (and still legitimate Philips issues), but of course, some albums from the Philips catalogue were reissued by other companies in more recent years. This Barney Wilen album is a good example; it was reissued by Sam Records (France) in 2021. The original album was neatly replicated and remastered from the original tapes. Original French copies are hard to find, though the album has been re-released before (like in Japan, where more Philips Minigroove reissues can be found). Guess this Sam Records reissue is the best one to own, except for a mint original, and it looks and sounds wonderful.

From the Sam Records website:

“Tenor saxophonist Barney Wilen was not quite 21 years old at the time of this meeting with Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, and Kenny Clarke, three veterans of the Modern Jazz Quartet. But the young man is surprising mature and confident throughout the session, interpreting several of Django Reinhardt’s compositions, along with a few by his French contemporaries and a pair of his own works. What’s surprising about this session is the rare opportunity to hear Jackson exclusively as a pianist, as his playing is a bit more reserved than on vibes. The leader digs into his rhythm section’s element with his original “B.B.B. (Bag’s Barney Blues),” giving them a full chorus before making a convincing statement himself. The quartet’s fluid arrangement of Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy” swings. Percussionist Gana M’Bow is added for both “Swing 39” and “Minor Swing” to add an exotic touch. Barney Wilen easily holds his own on his first major meeting on a record date with major American jazz stars.”

Click on the image below to see large images and more.

Scans were added for Philips A 00195 L, a classical LP with works by Brahms, performed by Abbey Simon. Click on the image below to see large images and more.

Scans of a first pressing of Philips B 07622 R by Erroll Garner were added. The page for this 10 inch album already existed, showing a later pressing. Click on the image below to see large images and additional information.

I’ve added some fifty 78rpm records (see the 78rpm page) with scans of Philips P 17541 H by Zwarte Riek. Scans of the 45rpm issue 317 541 PF were also added). This record was a hit for Zwarte Riek (rn. Hendrika Elisabeth Jansen, a.k.a. Fanny Black and ‘de Jordaanprinses’) in 1956 and the original issues are usually dated 1956 as well. I have reason to assume this could actually very well be 1955, which is explained on the page for Philips P 17541 H.

I didn’t work on the website as much as I wanted, but yesterday and today I added the data of over ten 78rpm records. Two of them were scanned: Philips P 17421 H by Texas Kitty (Kitty Prins) and Philips P 21002 H by Swing And Sway With Sammy Kaye (odd name but that’s how this orchestra is usually referred to). P 21002 H has unusual red labels, where almost all (Dutch) Philips 78’s came with either blue or black labels.

Texas Kitty (click to see a promotional photograph), who also recorded under her own name Kitty Prins, was a Dutch country singer and radio presenter (in Belgium). For more on Texas Kitty on this website, see Philips P 17257 H, Philips P 13099 R and compilation album P 10053 R.

I’ve been very busy with work and other things and didn’t ad much to the website. However, in the last few days I managed to continue the website update as intended and explained some time ago. I’m still in the process of getting it the way I want, which needs some more time. For now the structure of the website has been slightly improved, which meant a bit of a drastic measure, as I decided to give up on the single and EP releases. The pages/tables for singles and EP’s have been moved to a separate page, accessible from the Links-page. They will remain there but I won’t add much to them and I will focus instead on the LP releases (10 and 12 inch). This means I will slow down buying singles and EP’s and I won’t bother much to make scans. Acquired single and EP releases will still be listed though.

In the last few months I realised the website became increasingly hard to consult with all its tables, series, etc. In many cases I found it hard to determine where to categorize a record and the messy organisation in the Philips catalogue didn’t help much either. The next few weeks I will therefore try to reorganize the website and make it more accessible. I will use Philips’ own categories, indicated by the prefixes or suffixes used, as the starting point. This means the following:

A, N, L, S, G: Classical, Folklore and more
B: Jazz, American music and more
P: Popular, a receptacle of many styles and genres
D: Special releases
….

The prefix structure used by Philips is not always completely logical, but I’ll take it as it is, as much as possible. The page Minigroove will be updated with more general information regarding Philips’ prefixes and suffixes.

The category “Religious” has disappeared and the items formerly listed under “Religious” will move to “Classical” and (mostly) to “Popular”, depending on the prefix/suffix used.

I will minimize the use of ‘dedicated’ series as main categories. This means the data will as much as possible be integrated, depending on the prefixes/suffixes and numbers used. The series will still be available, but not for primary identification.

Images were added for Philips P 17528 H, a regular 78rpm record by Jan Corduwener. Click on the image below to see large images.

Images were added for Philips P 17730 H, a regular 78rpm issue by Willy Alberti, a Dutch artist who sings in Spanish (“Tani”) and in Italian (“Scusami”) on this disc. Click on the image below to see large images.