SteepleChase · 1972
SCS-1001 — the record that opened SteepleChase and Copenhagen's expatriate-jazz story. The catalogue's very first release, live at the Café Montmartre.
Some grails are the first of a line, and their importance is partly the door they open. Live at Montmartre is catalogue number SCS-1001 — the very first release on SteepleChase, the Danish label that would go on to document, over hundreds of records, the American jazz musicians who made Copenhagen their home. Play it and you're hearing not just a great Jackie McLean set but the opening of an entire chapter in the music's history: the Copenhagen story, cut to wax for the first time.
By 1972 Copenhagen had become an unlikely jazz capital. The Café Montmartre was its heart — a club where American players, drawn by European respect and freedom from the pressures back home, came to work and often to stay. Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Kenny Drew, Stan Getz all passed through or settled; a young Danish student named Nils Winther started recording the shows on a tape machine, and out of those tapes SteepleChase was born. McLean's set was the one he chose to launch it.
Jackie McLean was a perfect choice. The alto saxophonist had come up through bebop and hard bop — a Blue Note mainstay with one of the most instantly recognisable tones in jazz, acid-sharp, keening, always sounding as if he's leaning slightly into the note. Live, and freed from the studio clock, he stretches out here with the local rhythm players and the room's warm attention, playing with the fierce lyricism that was his signature. It's the sound of a great American musician thriving in the European exile that Copenhagen offered — respected, unhurried, at home.
The performance has the particular electricity of a good club night captured honestly: you can feel the room, the applause, the give-and-take. That intimacy is the whole SteepleChase aesthetic in embryo — a label that believed in documenting the music as it actually happened, in a real place, for a real audience, rather than polishing it into something else. Everything the label became — its devotion to the expat scene, its unadorned live recordings, its role as the archive of Copenhagen jazz — starts with the decisions made on this first record.
McLean's playing here deserves its own mention. By 1972 he had absorbed everything from Charlie Parker to the free jazz of the sixties, and the alto you hear is a distillation of all of it — bluesy and biting, harmonically restless, capable of turning a standard inside out. In a European club, before an audience that came to listen rather than to drink, he plays with a relaxed authority the American clubs of the era rarely afforded him. That freedom is audible, and it's a large part of why the Copenhagen recordings, this one first, feel so alive.
There's a lovely symmetry in a grail that is literally catalogue number one. For a collector, SCS-1001 isn't only a fine McLean live album; it's the cornerstone of one of jazz's great independent labels, the physical beginning of a project that would preserve a whole community of music that might otherwise have gone undocumented. To own it is to own the first brick.
And it holds up purely as music. Decades on, this is still a vivid, warm, hard-swinging live date from a master in his element — the record that proves why Copenhagen mattered, and why a Danish student with a tape machine turned out to be doing something that history would thank him for.
The first SteepleChase release (SCS-1001) and the opening of Copenhagen's expatriate-jazz story — Jackie McLean live and thriving at the Café Montmartre. A warm, hard-swinging date and the cornerstone of a great label; affordable, and full of clean first-press tells.
Live at Montmartre on Vinyl — Which Pressing?
cat. SCS-1001 — literally the label's first release, which is part of the appeal. Several tells confirm an original, and they stack up nicely. First, the disc carries an NCB stamp (NCB being the Nordic/Danish mechanical-rights society), the mark of a genuine Danish pressing of the period
the record's labels read "Live IN Montmartre", while the cover says "AT". That mismatch, an artefact of the original production, is a delightful and reliable authentication detail — check that the label and jacket disagree exactly this way. The sleeve is a flipback design (the cover edges folded over to the back, typical of the era's better jackets), and the inner sleeve carries a København (Copenhagen) address: another confirmation that you're holding a Danish-made original
SteepleChase became a beloved and long-running label, and its early titles have been reissued and repressed over the decades, so the original-versus-reissue question is real here. The combination is what settles it: SCS-1001 catalogue, the NCB stamp, the "IN"/"AT" label-versus-cover discrepancy, the flipback sleeve and the Copenhagen inner. A genuine first pressing agrees on all of them; don't rely on the catalogue number alone
clean originals sit around a median of ~€26. That makes it one of the most rewarding grails in this whole guide — the first release of a major jazz label, a fine live album by a master, for the price of a couple of new records. Treat the figure as an order of magnitude, and let condition (and the presence of the correct inner sleeve) guide the rest
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How do I identify a first pressing of Live at Montmartre?
Look for the combination: SteepleChase SCS-1001, an NCB stamp, the tell-tale discrepancy where the labels say 'Live IN Montmartre' but the cover says 'AT,' a flipback sleeve, and a København address on the inner. A genuine original agrees on all of these — the catalogue number alone isn't enough.
Why does SCS-1001 matter so much?
Because it's the very first SteepleChase release — the record that launched the Danish label that would document, across hundreds of albums, the American jazz musicians who settled in Copenhagen. Owning it is owning the cornerstone of one of jazz's great independent labels, and the start of the whole Copenhagen story on wax.
What does an original cost?
Clean originals sit around a median of ~€26 — remarkably affordable for a record this historically important. It's one of the best value grails going: catalogue number one of a major label, and a great live date. Prices move, so treat that as an order of magnitude.
Where might I find one in Copenhagen?
Copenhagen's jazz and second-hand record shops, and Danish record fairs, are the natural place a SteepleChase original surfaces — this is a hometown record for the label and the Montmartre scene. Buying in person lets you check the NCB stamp and the 'IN'/'AT' discrepancy before paying.
