To my knowledge, their new King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band boxed set, Centennial, is the first time Archeophone has included full size LPs in a collection. They are accompanied by the same material on two CDs and two more CDs with additional material, as well as their often award winning album notes. The two vinyl discs, carrying the complete Creole Jazz Band recordings, add to the bulk and gravitas of the spectacular set, and are a nod to the popularity vinyl records have again achieved. Archeophone has had at least three prior releases for turntables, all in smaller than 12-inch formats, and until now they have always been the only format for that particular release.
It is an interesting approach. When the unique vintage material you are highlighting is limited in length you have two options. Fill out a full CD with related items, to make an aesthetically pleasing and coherent whole, the approach taken with The Missing Link: How Gus Haenschen Got Us From Joplin to Jazz and Shaped the Music Business, or concentrate on the extreme uniqueness of the material with a compact vinyl release in extravagant packaging. While cassette tapes had a good run with singles, buying a CD with two tracks always seemed off. When Archeophone has a priceless artifact to share they use smaller size vinyl releases to signal how special the contents are.
The two prior Archeophhone releases in this format
