Pour Over Jazz

Blue Note session · in the studio

April 1, 1956

Gil Melle Quintet

Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ

In the room

The takes

What the numbers mean

BN308-2 is a matrix number: Blue Note gave every tune it recorded the next number in one running series (BN308 is "Humph"), and the figure after the dash is which take of that tune was kept. Early on the series starts each tune's takes at 0, so -0 is usually the first try.

tk. 5 is the take as counted through the whole day, from the first tune to the last: the way the studio's log and, from the mid-1950s, Rudy Van Gelder's tapes number them. Later dates have only these.

On the earliest records (1939–40) the numbers in the matrix place, like 486A-1 or GM535-6, are the masters' numbers from the studios and pressing plants Blue Note used before it had its own series.

Matrix · takeTitleFirst out on
tk. 5Weird ValleyBLP 1517
tk. 10The Set BreakBLP 1517
tk. 11Moonlight In VermontBLP 1517
tk. 12Long Ago And Far AwayBLP 1517
tk. 13The Arab Barber BluesBLP 1517
tk. 14Nice QuestionBLP 1517
6 takes · the ones we haven't matched yet are looked up on Spotify when you make it

Where it ended up