Month: September 2009

The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown: John Coltrane, Settin’ The Pace, Prestige 7213

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As you may expect, the whole idea of permanently and arbitrarily shrinking my record collection, which has taken close to 40 years to accumulate, is causing quite a bit of trauma around here, around here being inside my very guts. So, if you’ll excuse me, I will ease into the process over the next few days before undertaking any gut-wrenching decisions. Therefore I shall start with one of my all-time favorite records: John Coltrane, Settin’ the Pace, Prestige 7213. This is a great record, probably my second favorite of all the Coltrane Prestiges (right behind Soultrane). The first “Arthur Schwartz” side, with the amazing ballad “I See Your Face Before Me” and the incredible “If There Is Someone Lovelier Than You” is all-time great Trane. The challenge is not deciding whether to keep this record for a collection of 1,000 — if the collection were to be shrunk to 20 records, this would probably still make the cut. The question is merely

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Today on Ebay: What to Do With A Sealed Record?

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We’re watching a few interesting items on eBay today, including several of our own records for sale. This one is interesting: Jimmy Heath, Really Big, Riverside 333. This is one of ours. What was interesting was the choice we made. This was a sealed copy: To open or not to open? That was the question. We chose to open, to make sure this was an original pressing that we were selling. However, based on what we’re seeing with prices of sealed records, perhaps we made a mistake. So far there is just one bidder for this LP and the price is around $50. We have a feeling if the record were listed as “still sealed” there’d be a lot more activity. As it is, it is quite a nice record, featuring Cannonball Adderley as well. So, perhaps someone will get a truly mint original LP for a bargain.

Also, Miles Davis, Cookin’ Prestige 7094. This was one of those that we

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The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown

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I counted my records the other day. At least I counted most of them. I didn’t count the 78s and I didn’t count the ones in storage. The ones in storage are all to be sold and the 78s are, well, 78s. No matter. The point is this. I have more records than I want. I have them in four separate rooms in two separate homes. I have records I have owned for more than 25 years and have never put on a turntable. I have records by artists I don’t especially like. I have collected them because I am a collector. It is what I do. That is why my site is called Jazz Collector.

I counted the records because I have made a fairly momentous decision, and that decision is this: I am going to get rid of many of them. This is heresy, is it not? These are my friends, all hand selected personally by me. I have invited them into my home, to share my space, to give me comfort and joy in times of stress or sorrow. And they have served me well, all of them, in whatever way they could.

But the time has come to part ways with many of them. Why?

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Win A Free Record: Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall

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Okay, it is time for our next Jazz Collector free collectible give-away contest. We always try to find interesting items for you, and this time we are offering up this: The Essential Billie Holiday Carnegie Hall Concert, Verve 8410. This is an original pressing with the MGM label and the gatefold cover. The record is in nice condition, although there are some marks at the end of side two. It’s an interesting record in that it was recorded in 1956 and issued here in 1961 as part of Verve’s Essentials series, which were tributes to jazz greats on the Verve labels, several of whom, unfortunately, had died. These included Lester Young and Charlie Parker. This LP was recorded live at Carnegie Hall as part of a concert in which Holiday sang and in which she also  had several sections of her autobiography, Lady Sings The Blues, read aloud to highlight various aspects of her life and to

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Catching Up: Dex & A Few For the $1,000 Bin

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Time to catch up on a few more jazz vinyl collectibles, including a few more for the $1,000 bin:

Dexter Gordon Quintet, Dial 204. This was an original 10-inch pressing. The record and the cover were both listed in VG+ condition. The price was about $240. I love these original 10-inch Dials, and the price on this one seemed pretty fair. But, alas, I was not a bidder.  Also from Dexter was this: Dexter Gordon, Dexter Rides Again, Savoy 12130. This was an original pressing with the deep groove and the red labels. The seller listed it in M- condition for both the record and the cover. The price was $69.

For the $1,000 bin there were these:

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For the $2,000 Bin: Dexter Gordon, True Blue (Again)

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A few of the items we’ve been watching have broken the $1,000 barrier, and a few of those have broken the $2,000 barrier.

Dexter Gordon, Dexter Blows Hot and Cool, Dootone 207. This was an original pressing with the red vinyl. The record was listed as M- and the cover was VG++. It was sold by the seller herschel78, who’s been selling quite a bit of rare jazz vinyl and scoring some nice prices with them. This one sold for $2,886. Our previous high for this in the Jazz Collector Price Guide was more than $3,000, so that’s not even a record. We were also watching a later pressing of this record on the Authentic label (which, unfortunately, is the version we own in our collection). Even this one did fairly well, selling for $70, although we’ll never know if the buyer thought he was getting an original.

Also for the $2,000 bin was this one:

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More Jazz Vinyl on eBay: Cannon, Young, Mobley

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We promised a few more items to watch this weekend, so here goes:

Cannonball Adderley, Sophisticated Swing, Emarcy 36110. There was a lot of discussion on the site the other day after we posted the Jazz Collector “Essential” Cannonball Adderley. Generally the Cannonball LPs don’t get collector prices, so we were surprised to see this one the other day at $75. The price hasn’t budged since then, so perhaps it won’t go much higher, which is still beyond what we normally see for this album. The record is in M- condition and the cover is VG or VG+.

Webster Young, For Lady, Prestige 7106. This is quite a nice record, with some beautiful tenor sax by Paul Quinichette, playing (as always) as close to Pres as Pres himself.  This is an original New York pressing that is listed in M- condition for both the record and the cover. It is being sold by herschel78, who has been posting some nice items the past few weeks, and has some more nice items on eBay now, so it’s worth taking a look. This one is currently at $300 with about nine hours to go.

Here’s one that’s a bit of a surprise:

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This Weekend on eBay: Dolphy, Dorham, Dex

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Here are some of the interesting records we’re watching on eBay this weekend.

Eric Dolphy Live at the Five Spot, Volume 1, New Jazz 8260. This is an original pressing with the deep grooves and the purple label. The record is listed as mint and the cover is listed as “near mint minus,” which sounds a bit like a double negative, but we’ll assume it is either VG++ or M-. In any case, the record is selling later today and has a price in the $300 range.

Also from the great Prestige New Jazz label is this classic: Kenny Dorham, Quiet Kenny, New Jazz 8225. This is also an original pressing, with the purple labels and the deep grooves.  The seller has his own grading system, but this one looks to be at least VG++ and perhaps M-. The current price is about $800.

The seller Herschel78 is back with a few nice ones, including this beauty:

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More Blue Notes For The $1,000 Bin

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Good that we mentioned those Blue Note tips yesterday: There are a few more original pressings that shall be entering and re-entering the $1,000 bin. Here  they are:

Hank Mobley and Lee Morgan, Peckin’ Time, Blue Note 1574. This is an original pressing and the vinyl is in M- condition. The cover is at least VG++. The price is already around $1,600 with many more hours left before it closes today, so we may be seeing an addition to the $2,000 bin.

Also, Tina Brooks, True Blue, Blue Note 4041. This is an original pressing. Again, the vinyl is listed in M- condition and the cover is VG+. This one has more than a day to go before it closes and

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Twelve Tips To Collecting Blue Note

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One of our Jazz Collector readers found a blog post somewhere on the Internet with some advice about collecting Blue Notes. It was written by Allan Songer. We don’t know Allan personally, but we’ve dealt with him many times on eBay as both a buyer and a seller. We’ve found him to be quite reputable and a very nice guy. In any case, this is interesting information and we are taking the liberty (slight pun intended) of cleaning it up and reproducing it here for our Jazz Collector community, but we happily give Allan full credit. Allan, if you’re out there and see this, please feel free to comment:

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