condition (record/cover): NM / EX+

Gatefold sleeve. No obi.

Before Atlantic, before the dinner jackets became a matter of policy, the Modern Jazz Quartet recorded for Prestige, and those early sides have a rougher and in some ways more appealing quality. Milt Jackson and John Lewis had come out of the Dizzy Gillespie big band rhythm section and the group's first identity was closer to bop than to chamber music, with Kenny Clarke on drums before Connie Kay arrived. Golden Disk gathers material from that period. The blues content is higher, the arrangements are looser, and the whole thing swings.

Japanese Prestige pressing. The MJQ before the reputation hardened around them.