This Week — Live At The Monterey General Store
Aug 31, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs
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I play a little bit of jazz guitar — very little bit — but I am fortunate to have grown up with a fantastic, world-class jazz guitarist and we have remained great friends and this weekend we are doing a gig here in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts. There are many stories I can tell about the circumstances that have led to this gig, 30-plus years in the making, but I will be brief. My friend, Dan Axelrod, was a musical prodigy from early childhood and he lived down the street from me and somehow we both fell in love with jazz as teenagers – Dan because he could play it as well as anyone and I because it was music that was always around, in my pores, courtesy of my dad. Dan and I used to hang around a lot and at various points he would teach me chords and how to strum and eventually I was proficient enough to accompany him as a rhythm guitarist, as long as we kept the changes relatively simple and dispatched with the suspended flatted fifths, ninths and thirteenths. What I lacked in ability I made up for in chutzpah and eventually I found us a gig at a local place called the Rainy Nighthouse and I somehow convinced Dan that this would be a fun thing to do, two nights a week. We were still in our late teens. Dan, if I recall properly, was studying with Billy Bauer and perhaps a little with Jim Hall and had not yet met his guitar hero, Tal Farlow, who would eventually become his great friend and mentor.
Guest Column: Collecting Jazz 45s
Aug 26, 2010 Features, Guest Columns, Uncategorized
A couple of weeks ago friend of Jazz Collector Erich Schultz asked why we never wrote about collecting jazz 45s here at Jazz Collector. We said that we didn’t collect them ourselves, we didn’t know of any collectors and no one had ever even asked. We also invited him to write a post on the joys of collecting jazz 45s and, voila, here it is. Erich, it’s all yours:
Collecting Jazz 45 RPM Records, by Erich Schultz
Although I have a large library of jazz 10” and 12” 33 RPM records, I also have over 1,000 jazz 45 RPM records as well. I starting collecting these 45’s about five years ago, and I have picked up most of them in the Los Angeles area when I visit my two children (I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.) I also get them sometimes through bulk sales on ebay. My reasons for collecting them include:
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Tags: Jazz 45-RPM Records
Adventures in Jazz Collecting: Red Carraro, Part 3
Jul 16, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs
Red in the basement
Back to my Red Carraro stories. If Red were alive today and reading this he’d look at the name on the Web site and swear he never knew me. That’s because when I first met Red I was still going by my childhood nickname, which was “Lit.” This came from being somewhat short in height and someone once started calling me little and it became Lit and it really stuck. Kids in school called me “Lit Perlman” but Red never knew my last name, or my first name, and always just called me Lit. “Lit, hey how ya doin,” Red would always say when he’d see me, with a smile and a warm pat on the pack. “I see you’re still hustlin’ for records.”
When I started my journalism career my first paying job was as the jazz critic for the New Times in Syracuse, an alternative weekly paper. I’ve repurposed at least one of my articles here at Jazz Collector in Memories of Mingus. Anyway, I had spent the first half of 1973 at home in Bayside mending my broken leg and spending a lot of time at Red’s house, in the basement, poring through records and listening to music. It was definitely good times. When I got back to Syracuse, I wanted to do Red a favor so I wrote a review of a record
Yet Another Adventure in Jazz Collecting
Jul 14, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs
I have another story for you.
As many of you may recall, I have this oddball penchant for occasional wild gambles on eBay: Purchasing records that are not well described or, more often, buying batches of records that might contain one or two gems without having any sense of whether the listing is accurate or even feasible. I have done this maybe a couple of dozen times and it has almost always worked out to my advantage.I tried it again recently and thought I had finally met my Waterloo.
Here it is: I was recently up the country for a couple of weeks, doing work, doing fishing, some writing, a little Jazz Collector and occasionally looking at eBay. One day I was perusing the eBay listings and came upon a listing that was as follows:
Jazz Record Albums – 118 Albums from collector.
The seller had zero feedback: A complete eBay novice. In the description he noted that these records were the collection from his late stepfather, who was a CPA and accountant for musicians. It was a really strange list with a lot of non-jazz, such as Al Green and
Tags: Jazz Vinyl, Jazz Vinyl on eBay
Adventures In Jazz Collecting: Red Carraro, Part 2
Jul 13, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs
I can’t tell you all how much pleasure it gives me to see the many wonderful comments about Red Carraro from his family and friends, as well as from the many jazz collectors whose lives he touched. This was why I started the Jazz Collector site in the first place, to build this kind of community. That it has actually happened is intensely gratifying, as you can imagine.
But I also left you all in the middle of a story, with me in a cast clutching a batch of records, sitting with Red in his basement, with no way of getting home. So there were Red and I sitting there, no idea what to do, when the door flung open and Dan came charging down the stairs again.
“Are you giving me the record?” he said.
“No,” I replied.
He looked at Red, as if Red should fix this with a Solomon-like gesture of perhaps breaking
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Adventures in Jazz Collecting: Red Carraro, Part 1
Jul 12, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs, Verve
There was a time, before the Internet and eBay, when jazz record dealers would amass hundreds of collectible records and compile them in lists and send those lists all over the world so that collectors could bid on them, blindly, hoping they would make the top bid and receive a shipment of rare jazz vinyl several weeks later. One of the leading and last practitioners of this fading art was a gentleman, and I use that word purposefully, by the name of William Carraro, known to all as “Red.” I am sad to report that Red passed away in his sleep yesterday morning.
I will tell you more about Red in a subsequent post, but first let me tell you the story of the first time I met Red. It was back in the early 1970s and I had just started collecting jazz records. I was 19 years old. My good friend from childhood Dan Axelrod had also begun collecting jazz records at the same time and Dan was far more obsessive about it than I was, so he was always finding scores before me. He’d call from Philadelphia or Miami, out of breath, describing beautiful Blue Notes
Jazz Vinyl Price Decline? Some Theories
May 31, 2010 Features
OK, I have two theories on why prices in mid-tier, i.e. non-Blue Note jazz vinyl on eBay may be down from previous levels.
1. A couple of months ago, eBay made a decision that would drive more revenue, but not necessarily enhance either the buyer’s or seller’s experience. Previously, if you did a search of jazz vinyl you would only see those items that were up for auction, plus those items that had buy-it-now prices with specific deadlines. On average, if you would do a search you would get about 20,000 to 25,000 jazz records over the course of any week. Then eBay decided it wanted to charge more for store listings and raised the price from 3 cents a month for a store listing to some listings as high as 20 cents a month. To justify this rate hike, they made all of the store listings appear on general searches for jazz records.
The result: If you do a search on 12-inch jazz records, which I did just now, you will come up
Tags: Jazz Vinyl on eBay
Finding a Rare Lee Konitz, Right On My Own Shelf
Apr 30, 2010 78-RPM Records, Features, Prestige
I have many hundreds of records I’m hoping to sell and on rare occasions someone may come to the house to peruse them. I don’t necessarily encourage this, but if I know you from Jazz Collector I’m generally OK with it. Anyway, the other night I had one of our readers come over and it turns out he was an alto player who was associated with the Lenny Tristano school and had played with Sal Mosca, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Billy Bauer and others. He went through the records I was selling and didn’t find anything he liked and asked if I had an 78s I’d be willing to sell. I do have more than 1,000 78s and I have been willing to pare this down and among the more than 1,000 78s I happen to have about 100 Prestiges in mint, unplayed condition. I purchased these Prestiges on
Tags: Lee Konitz
Adventures in Jazz Collecting: The Auction, Part 6
Apr 12, 2010 10-Inch LPs, Features, Jazz Memoirs
Now we get to the batch of records that turned out to be the most pleasant surprise of all. There was at one point a group listed as such: Bill Evans, Seven Riverside LPs. There was a picture on the Web site and there was a copy of Waltz for Debby in there and perhaps an original pressing of New Jazz Conceptions as well. Anyway, I was hoping to steal this one, but once the bidding surpassed $400 I realized there was no steal to be had and I had better keep my mouth shut. The package eventually went for $650. Ah, well. However, about 15 minutes later there was another group of LPs, described as such: Bill Evans, Eleven LPs, Eight Verve and Three Riverside. There was no picture or other description. I won this lot at $80, so my total for these 11 records was $93.60. This is a great batch of music, and each record is in
Tags: Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Tal Farlow
Adventures in Jazz Collecting: The Auction, Part 5
Apr 12, 2010 Features, RCA, Verve
All right, let’s do some more of this Jazz Auction stuff. So, by this point in the auction I have purchased eight lots and I am clearly on a roll and forgetting about the 17 percent surcharge and figuring, “What the heck, I’m already paying for shipping, let’s buy some more records.” And so I did.
Gerry Mulligan, Seven LPs. Price: $46.80. Why? There is no good answer to this question. I certainly have all of these LPs, and probably don’t even want to keep all of these LPs, and there is probably not that much of a market for these LPs on eBay. The best of the records, from a collectible standpoint, is The Gerry Mulligan Songbook on World Pacific. There’s also a nice Mulligan on Emarcy with Zoot Sims. There’s a copy of Mulligan and Stan Getz on Verve, but it’s an MGM pressing. Really, there was no rhyme or reason to bidding on these — and actually winning — other than the adrenaline rush of buying more records.
Sonny Rollins, Three RCA Victor LPs and Lester Young For LPs. Price: $93.60. This fits into
Tags: Gerry Mulligan, Lester Young, Sonny Rollins
Adventures in Jazz Collecting, The Auction Part 4
Apr 11, 2010 Features, Prestige, Verve
OK. The auction records are here, in a newly created bin on the floor of my music room/office. It’s fun looking through the records, of course, encountering pleasant surprises, but what I am most looking forward to is listening to them. That’s the best thing about getting new records, or even getting new copies of old records: Exploring and discovering (or rediscovering) the music. As I type this I’m listening to Wes Montgomery Full House and it’s probably the first time I’ve listened to this LP in 10 years or more. With 10,000 records a lot of great LPs wind up sitting on the shelf. I remember the first time I heard this record. I was in a car with my friend Dan and we had the radio on and we heard a Wes solo and we knew immediately it was Wes and then the tenor player starting playing and we were both blown away because he was really cooking and we couldn’t figure out who it was. It was, of course, Johnny Griffin. And now I am listening to this beautiful near mint copy of this record again and, ah, what a nice way to start a gorgeous Sunday morning. Anyway, back to the auction items:
The next one I purchased was listed as: Stan Getz, Three Verve LPS with Trumpeter labels. Price $40.95. These turned out to be For Musicians Only with Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt;
Tags: Jazzland, John Coltrane, New Jazz, Oliver Nelson, Red Garland, Stan Getz
Adventures in Jazz Collecting: The Auction, Part 3
Apr 11, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Savoy
Guess what came in the mail yesterday? Remember that Jazz Auction in which I participated a few weeks ago. Well the records are here and now I can tell you how I did. Remember, I bid blind on these records, based on the written descriptions, and I gambled on quite a few of the packages. I was competing with a bunch of sellers/dealers who were at the scene and had the opportunity to physically view the records. Also, I paid an extra 17 percent above what I bid because that was the fee taken by the auction house. In any case, here are the results, part one of three: Live vicariously through me if you please. The prices listed below include the 17 percent extra fee, so they are the amount I actually paid for each package. Also, the listings as I describe them below are similar to the way they were listed in the auction itself.
Wes Montgomery, Full House. Price: $70.20. This is an original blue-label Riverside
Tags: Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Lem Winchester, Lester Young, New Jazz Records, Roy Haynes, Wes Montgromery
Adventures in Jazz Collecting: The Auction, Part 2
Mar 23, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs
Sorry to leave you hanging on Part 2 of this story. So I am on the phone listening to the auctioneer in the background. He is describing each lot – Here’s Number 14, Kenny Burrell on Blue Note, do I hear one hundred, a hundred ten, a hundred twenty, a hundred thirty, two hundred, two ten. This is going by in what seems like nanoseconds. For me to get in a bid I have to decide quickly how much, then I have to react quickly and, in the end I have one or two seconds to decide as the auctioneer is getting ready to close the auction. It’s a bit of an adrenaline rush, as you may imagine. Anyway, I lose out on all the Burrell records and I’m feeling a bit guilty about tying up the phone line and the next thing I know I’m bidding on a couple of Wes Montgomery records and the guy on the other end of the phone, who is the brother of the auctioneer, is telling me it looks like I’m going to win these records. And I do. One is Full House, a great Riverside record featuring Johnny Griffin. The other is The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, also on Riverside. I have bid $60 for
Tags: Jazz Auctions
Adventures in Jazz Collection: The Auction, Volume 1
Mar 19, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs
I participated in a jazz auction the other night. Not an eBay auction, but a traditional auction with real people and an auctioneer and a gavel. Here’s the story: A few weeks ago I got a call from a guy named David Quinn who said he ran an auction house and had in his possession a collection of jazz records and CDs from an estate sale. I helped David out with some information about the jazz collectibles market and he told me he’d send me a list and let me know when the auction was taking place. It was in the Washington DC area. I couldn’t make it down there, so I asked if I could be on the phone and perhaps bid on a few items. He arranged it and when the first item was put on the block at about 6:30 on Wednesday night, there I was on the phone, bidding on items I hadn’t actually seen. This put me at a pretty stark disadvantage, because there were about 30 people physically in the room at Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church, Va. These people could physically see the items: I was going on guts and instincts and whatever pictures were available online. The thing with this type of auction, the auction house gets
Where’s The Reader Forum?
Mar 10, 2010 Features
Ok, I’m back, and thanks to everyone for your best wishes. I haven’t been on eBay in days and I’m not ready to begin blogging now, but I have to say I’m thrilled to see that the site went on just fine without me: Perhaps even better. This is what I had envisioned when I started Jazz Collector, a community where we can all chat and ask one another questions, and share both the passion for the collecting as well as the passion for the music. Anyway, necessity was the mother of invention, and the idea of the Reader Forum took hold and now I’ve made it a permanent part of the site. So, to find the new Reader Forum just go to the top of the page and there it is right between Hot Topics and About. I’ve also had it enhanced so that the most recent comments are on top, so you don’t have to scroll down every time to see what’s new. Thanks to everyone who commented on the site and kept things going and please, please, please don’t stop now simply because I’m back. I can’t wait to read it all.
Tags: Reader Forum
The Gift of Jazz
Mar 4, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs
When I was six my parents took me to a jazz show somewhere in New York. I think it was the Palladium, but my memory doesn’t stretch back far enough to remember the exact location. I do remember that there was George Shearing on the bill and I didn’t understand how a blind man could play the piano. How did he know what to play without seeing the keys? And there was the Miles Davis quintet or sextet, and I’m pretty sure I saw Trane when I was six. I wish I could have appreciated it. The education in jazz from my parents continued. There were Sunday afternoon concerts at the Village Gate — Jazz Interactions, they were called — and brunches and late afternoon shows at the Five Spot and the Red Garter, all when I was pre-teen and early teen. I remember my father going up to Kenny Burrell and asking if he’d give me lessons. That was not cool. Anyway, Burrell was warm and friendly and I noticed in my collection the other day an autographed copy of Blue Bash!, Kenny Burrell with Jimmy Smith on Verve signed: “To Diane and Hal, Best Wishes, Kenny Burrell.” All of which is a roundabout way of saying how much I appreciate this great gift my parents gave me and that I am quite sad to report that my mom just passed away unexpectedly. I will be taking a few days off from Jazz Collector, so there will be no new posts from me, but I am hopeful that you guys can fill in the slack. I will post an item right after I post this called: Reader Forum. Please use this to post new comments and keep an eye on eBay and keep the conversation going while I step away for a few days. Thanks.
Tags: Five Spot, George Shearing, Jazz Interactions, Miles Davis, Red Garter, Village Gate
What Makes a Collectible a Collectible?
Feb 16, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs, Questions
In another post (A Visit To A Record Store, Part 2), Jan poses an interesting question, addressed to experienced and serious collectors: What do you consider to be collectible and how do you decide if a second pressing of a record is collectible or not?
I am not, I must admit, among the most serious of collectors. I know this sounds odd coming from the guy who writes about jazz records every day, pores over eBay listings to decide which records to put in the Price Guide and writes articles under the headline “Confessions of a Vinyl Addict.”
However, and this gets to Jan’s point: The copy of Saxophone Colossus in my collection is a Bergenfield, N.J. pressing. Same with Tenor Madness. I have the Bergenfield copies, they are in great condition, they have yellow labels, this is enough for me. I have the music in an early pressing, it sounds great, I’m OK. Would I like a New York pressing of both of these records? Yes. Would I ever obsess about it? No. Would I ever pay the going rate on eBay for them? Not a chance.
The people I’ve always considered to be “serious collectors” wouldn’t accept these second pressings and are constantly hunting for the original pressings and would not be content with anything but an original. I do think, however, things are changing and the
Tags: Jazz Vinyl
More Confessions of a Vinyl Act, Part 3
Feb 3, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs
OK. The crisis has passed. As relapses go, it was relatively harmless. I did not log onto eBay and search for every missing Blue Note and bid like a madman. I did not head into Manhattan armed with enough cash and credit cards to buy out the Jazz Record Center. I didn’t really do anything except lose a night’s sleep and move a bunch of Jimmy Smith records from one shelf to another.
As I am left to ponder this latest chapter in my ongoing struggle with vinyl addiction, I believe what I had was not a relapse of vinyl addiction but something more akin to a full blown existential crisis. Why am I here, what am I doing, why do I have 10,000 records, why do I care if a single one of those records has a New York USA address on the label rather than a 767 Lexington Avenue address? You know, the usual kind of existential crisis.
The trigger was the cataloging of the Blue Notes and the process of
Tags: Jimmy Smith
More Confessions of A Vinyl Addict, Part 2
Feb 1, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs, Jazz Vinyl
OK, so I got to the JJ Johnson record and realized it was a New York USA pressing, and then I got to Blue Note 1513, Thad Jones, Detroit-New York Junction, and realized it was a Japanese pressing, and then I got to Blue Note 1515, Jutta Hipp at the Hickory House Volume 1, and realized, hey, I don’t own that record at all.
I knew all of that. I knew I didn’t have a complete original collection of Blue Notes. I knew I wasn’t even close to having a complete collection of original Blue Notes. I knew I never aspired to having a complete collection of original Blue Notes. But I felt compelled to go on, to go through the entire 1500 series and know exactly what I had
Tags: Bud Powell, Curtis Fuller, Horace Parlan, Jazz Vinyl, JJ Johnson, Jutta Hipp, Lee Morgan, Thad Jones
More Confessions of a Vinyl Addict, Part 1
Jan 30, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown
Friends, my name is Al and I am a vinyl addict. It is necessary for me to confess once again because I have had yet another setback. Remember my mission to pare down my collection, which I have labeled The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown? Well, as part of that endeavor I decided it would be wise to take inventory of my records so that I would know what I actually have, in intimate detail: Record, condition, provenance, value. I had never actually done this before, so yesterday I set up a spreadsheet and began the process. I started, naturally, with the Blue Notes, the 1500 series, Blue Note 1501, Miles Davis Volume 1. I pulled the record off the shelf, looked at the record, cleaned it, typed the information into the spreadsheet, put it back on the shelf and then pulled the second record, Blue Note 1502, Miles Davis Volume 2. Same deal: Looked at the record, cleaned it, wrote it down, then moved on to the next record.
What a mistake.
I was moving along fine through the first eight records in the
Tags: Miles Davis, Milt Jackson
WFMU Record Fair: A Brief Report
Oct 26, 2009 Features, Record Shows
So I did go to the WFMU Record Fair on Sunday. I’ve attached a picture to prove it. I didn’t buy any records. My goal with Record Shows has traditionally been to find bargains. You often get dealers who don’t know anything about jazz vinyl, and sometimes they under-price the records, and sometimes they are just trying to get rid of records, and sometimes they are happy to bargain so they don’t have to take the records home. There have also been many times where I’ve met collectors who really didn’t know the value of their records, and they underpriced everything that they had. I’ve written here about the guy who had a bunch of original Blue Notes and Prestiges and just priced everything at $5, including a mint copy of
Tags: Tina Brooks, WFMU Record Fair
Jazz Vinyl Countdown? HAH!
Oct 13, 2009 Features, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown
So much for whittling down my collection. Last night, I bought another batch of albums, about 300 altogether. So, let’s see: Since I started this Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown two weeks ago, I’ve decided to sell 12 records. In that same period, I’ve managed to purchase 300 records, for a net gain of 288 records. At the rate I’m going, in three years I’ll have a half a million records and I’ll be living in a straitjacket. In any case, there is a story behind the purchase of these records, which I will tell. A couple of weeks ago I accompanied the lovely Mrs. Jazz Collector to a party of her colleagues. She told me there would be many other spouses there. She was wrong: There were three others, and two of them fell asleep before the hors d’oeuvres were served. So that left me and another guy. We started chatting. I told him about Jazz Collector. “Really,” he said. “I’m moving to California in two weeks and I was thinking about selling my jazz collection.” “Really,” I said. “This could be
Tags: Jazz Vinyl Countdown
The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown
Sep 29, 2009 Features, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown
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?
Happy Birthday, Cannonball
Sep 15, 2009 Features, Jazz Memoirs
Thank you to Don-Lucky for pointing out that this would have been Cannonball Adderley’s 81st birthday. I’ll never forget where I was when Cannonball died back in August 1975. I was driving my car in Auburn, N.Y., where I was just breaking in as a newspaper reporter. I had to pull over to compose myself. Cannonball was always a big figure for me because he was a favorite of my father’s and I saw him a few times as a kid and also because the album Live At The Lighthouse was the first or second record that really set me on the path to becoming a jazz fan and, eventually, a jazz collector. For my money, after Bird there was Cannon on alto and then a big gap to whoever would be next. I’ve been putting records on eBay lately, a lot of duplicates, and I listen to parts of them before I post them. Every time I put on a Cannonball record, particularly the early ones on Mercury, I am surprised and amazed once again at just how much he had under his fingers and how naturally he swung and how everything he did was just great. So, Happy Birthday, indeed. By the way,
Tags: Cannonball Adderley
A Tale of a Few Vocalists
Sep 15, 2009 Features
I was perusing a Web site called Jazz.com the other day. They’ve been picking up a few of my posts here and there and sending traffic my way, which I appreciate. Anyway, they pointed to another feature from another post somewhere else in which the great drummer Jimmy Cobb was asked to list his six favorite records. Anyway, there was Miles Birth of the Cool and, of course, Kind of Blue, on which Cobb played. Then there was an Oscar Peterson and, incredibly to me, a Wynton Marsalis. I won’t comment on that one. The two that struck me were the vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. This brought up a conversation I had with a friend last weekend. He had made the point that he believed there were three premium vocal stylists (in the jazz idiom, of course) in the 20th Century. They were:
Tags: Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Cobb