DeAgostini Jazz Vinyl Series
DeAgostini is a European publishing conglomerate that releases part work items every couple of weeks in various European countries. These items include everything from model cars, to star wars space ships to Marvel figurines to construct your own Robocop. They have also run a series of vinyl record campaigns in various countries – they are currently releasing Heavy Metal albums in Italy, and Blues albums in Spain. Previously they released a well received Beatles series in the UK & Ireland. The idea is that you buy an album for €20 (or £15) every 2 weeks, and, after a year or so – you have a pretty good collection. A coloured booklet is included with lots of (basic) information about the recording and the musicians (not of the same standard as vinyl me please). They throw in a few goodies – T shirts, vinyl cleaning solutions etc. as a way of enticing you to subscribe to the series, and provide a back issue service on the internet. The subscription service always seems to be a disaster – late or incorrect records arrive, but – as the titles gradually vanish from high street newsagents – it may be your only way of getting the record.
In 2016 I saw the first issue of Jazz at 33 1/3 in my local newsagent – Kind of Blue for £7.99 (or €10), bought it an I was hooked. Every couple of weeks, I raced into the newsagent to get my latest issues and accrue my collection. All of the records are pressed at MPO in France, with really well reconstructed covers, though the provenance of the records is not known and not declared. The run out grooves of all of the Jazz releases is stamped rather than etched, and it is almost certain that these albums come from digital sources. Be that as it may, every record that I bought sounded at least as good as, and in some cases better than, the CD releases. I bought records by artists that I would never have considered – Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Shirley Horn etc. The titles were well selected and the quality of pressing – silent, flat with perfect label reproductions – excellent. For a novice, the great advantage of the Jazz at 33 was the quality of the product – there were no bad pressings, bad copyright free recordings, sloppy covers or sources. The series finished after 72 releases, most of which I bought (excepting titles that I had already bought in Audiophile form). Then I discovered that there was an Italian series (5 years earlier) – Jazz 33 giri – that stretched to 100 releases and contained a bunch of albums that were not included in the UK & Ireland versions: Waltz for Debby, Sonny Rollins’ The Bridge, and titles by Bud Powell, Chet Baker and Stephane Grapelli. Then I discovered that DeAgostini released a similar, but not identical series in France and Spain. At this stage I have mopped up just over 100 of the titles (listed below). They can be located easily on Discogs or Ebay or in your local charity shop (if you live in any of the countries that released these records). The albums sound better than old crackily scratched versions pressed in the 1970s, and have a much more authentic feel (and sound) than the WaxTime, JazzWax and other copyright free versions that you might encounter (all are licenced and be identified by the DeAgostini line at the bottom of the back cover).
A final comment. DeAgostini released an 80 anniversary Blue Note series in Spain and Portugal – under the inappropriate title of “The Label that Invented Jazz” – which it clearly did not. So far, there have been 54 titles released – with some significant overlap with the Blue Note 80 and Blue Note 75 releases. I obtained a few of these – specifically Paul Chambers, Thad Jones, Fats Navarro, Sonny Rollins, Monk etc. I was quite excited to see that a couple of titles (Thad Jones and Jay Jay Johnson) had listed, on the back cover “Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio.” But, when I inspected the dead wax, there was no KG@CA inscription – the etched label was the same as on all of the others (I can’t identify it) – so I suspect that KG has prepared a bunch of lacquers for Blue Note that have not yet been released and the artwork was sent to DeAgostini. Unfortunately, the vinyl source was likely digital files sent to whomever does the mastering for them who then sent the lacquers to MPO. This is my theory. The records sound great, nevertheless (but don’t expect Tone Poet standard) – packaged 180g in standard cardboard covers in poly-lined inner sleeves. There are some tasty offerings on the list from Tony Williams, Don Cherry, Clifford Jordan and Cecil Taylor – so I hope that BN reissues all of these titles AAA via the BN 80 route.
The releases below are in first name alphabetical order, and to my knowledge are the full list of titles from the seriese in the various countries. Obviously, many titles were used in multiple countries (Kind of Blue, Blue Train etc) – some titles were released in only one country.
FULL LIST OF DEAGOSTINI JAZZ AT 33 TITLES FROM UK&IRELAND, SPAIN, FRANCE AND ITALY
*There are some unusual releases in this series. For example “The Blues and the Abstract Truth” was released in Mono in Spain, but in stereo in UK and Italy. It certainly sounds different – more compact and, in some ways more engaging that the recent Acoustic Sounds reissue. What is interesting about this reissue is that it appears to be the only Mono reissue in there original cover since 1961, and the source “files” are unclear (I have not encountered a mono CD).
audioexchange 
A side issue, are the De Agnostini issues are licensed? Maybe, however their source are absolutely certainly not original tapes, or possibly not even hi-resolution digital files, most likely 44.1KHz copy CD digital files, unless they declare otherwise.