M’Boom, John Gordon and Other Rarities from Jazz Record Center
Greetings all – Al should be back posting soon as I think he’s nearly back from holiday, but it’s been fun writing up various eBay shenanigans while he’s been out. The Jazz Record Center had a number of interesting items up last week, mostly 70s jazz on the Strata-East label, and I actually completely let these records slip notice until they were done for. A few titles in the list I might’ve gone toe-to-toe on but likely would’ve been taken to the cleaners anyway, starting with this one:
M’Boom – their self-titled debut, issued on Strata-East in 1973, went for a whopping $1,592. It’s probably the rarest Strata-East album by a long shot and certainly one of the scarcest in Roach’s discography. My memory is foggy on the details, but I believe that Roach decided he wanted the record pulled right after Strata-East released it and most copies were destroyed. Maybe he had a falling out with Tolliver and Cowell? A few leaked out, though, and it was bootlegged on CD in Japan several years ago (that’s what I’ve got). It’s probably their strongest album, and percussion ensembles are (for me) usually a pretty engaging listen. This one was M- for both record and cover.
Trombonist John Gordon’s Erotica Suite is another rare Strata-East title, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen it go for quite this much. Sealed and presumed Mint, this copy went for just shy of $1,000. It’s a nice, funky post-bop record with reedist James Spaulding, drummer Frank Derrick and trumpeter Waymon Reed. Gordon has another nice record on Strata-East that doesn’t usually go for nearly as much – in fact, it attracted no bids at the opening price of $75 and was also sealed.
Here’s a rare one – pianist Enrique Villegas’ trio featuring Paul Gonsalves and Willie Cook, titled Encuentro, on the Argentine label Trova (which also issued a nice record by pianist Alberto Favero called Suite Trane). Fred showed it to me in the shop at one point though I wasn’t feeling like spending $250 that day. Someone got lucky and was able to get it for $91 at auction. The record was listed as M- and the cover was probably a strong VG++. I like those later Gonsalves LPs and wouldn’t mind having this one in the collection at some point.
Until next time, happy bidding and happier listening…
