Imagine no longer. It is here, it is now and it is happening. For three weeks only.

Welcome to the one-time-only Jazz Collector Record Store.

This is the story:

In three weeks the lovely Mrs. JC and I are moving from our spacious home on Long Island to two locales, our lake house in The Berkshires and a much less spacious apartment in Manhattan. I plan to take as many records as possible with me, but I would like to divest of many records and other jazz collectibles before the moves as well.

I have 2,000 records in my basement for sale. These are mostly later pressings and reissues, but they will be moderately priced. For instance, I have about 50 Japanese and Liberty Blue Notes I will be selling for $10 each. I also have beautiful jazz posters and artwork, hundreds of jazz books, hundreds of jazz magazines, hundreds of CDs. Many are for sale.

Fine, but nothing to go nuts about, right?

I will also be willing to dip into my jazz vinyl collection. Deep into my collection, depending upon the records and the prices. How deep? I’ll consider selling major collectibles, such as an original Jutta Hipp on Blue Note, Kenny Dorham at the Café Bohemia on Blue Note, Sonny Criss on Imperial, Donald Byrd on Signature, Joe Henderson, Andrew Hill, Stanley Turrentine, Blue Notes all. I will not sell my Trane, Rollins, Dexter, Miles, Adderley, so don’t ask. But I may be willing sell some of my McLeans, Hubbards, Fullers or Mobleys. I will even sell my autographed 78 of Moody’s Mood for Love – but only to Don-Lucky because it has been promised to him.

Here are the conditions:

1. Do not expect bargains. I will sell records from my collection for prices slightly below what you will see on eBay or on the Jazz Collector Price Guide. The advantage is you get to see, touch and, if you want, listen to the record before purchase. There will also be many moderately priced collectibles.
2. Do not haggle. If you don’t like the price, don’t buy the record. If I tell you I won’t sell it, please put it back on the shelf.
3. In-person only. I’m not selling these records by mail. This sale is being conducted from my home, by appointment only. My house is quite easy to get to by car or train. Be polite and respectful, please.
4. No personal checks, no credit cards. Cash and Pay Pal only.

If you are anywhere around the New York area between now and July 14 I strongly suggest you make an appointment. Jason, this would be worth a trip from Massachusetts. Don-Lucky, this might be a time to plan that long-promised trip to New York. Any collectors or dealers from Japan, if you’re in New York, this will be worthwhile. I have thousands of great jazz records and I’m in a mood to cut back. I don’t need the money, it’s just psychological: I want to downsize my life. Once I get settled in my new homes, I imagine my mood will change and I’ll regret selling every single record I sold.

One more warning: There will be a challenge finding dates to fit people in: Because I’m moving, I may not be around a lot the next couple of weekends, but during the week the appointment book will often be clear.

You can e-mail me at the usual place, al(at)jazzcollector.com to make an appointment, or you can call my home office, 516 467-4276. Good luck and I hope to see some of you soon.  For those of you who can’t make it in person, I will be happy to provide updates on Jazz Collector.

Dexter Gordon, Dexter Calling, Blue Note 4083. This is an original pressing. It’s not in mint condition and some idiot stamped his name a few times on the back cover but, like a lot of these Blue Notes, it sounds so much better than it looks.

This is one of those blues records. I have no idea if this is a collectible, but it seems pretty rare, is clearly an original and I couldn’t find even a single copy on popsike. Perhaps someone in the audience will know: The Perry Bradford Story, Crispus-Attucks Records. This is not only unplayed, it is autographed as well. It’ll be interesting to hear if there is a story behind this record.

There are two things to note about this return to selling records:

1. On the Jazz Collector site there is a heading at the top for “Items For Sale.” For nearly a year, it’s been the same bunch of records I’ve had parked there. Now, there will be no items worth viewing, so this can be a section of the site to regularly look at once again.
2. Remember that idea of having a “store” in my basement, with all of my thousands of records to sell? Well, I’m finally ready. If any Jazz Collector reader is in town, or is local, and would like to make an appointment, the Jazz Collector “store” is open for business. You can contact me at al(at)jazzcollector.com.

Here’s the method to this madness. First off, I wanted to thank everyone for their good wishes and keeping the site going while I was away. Second, eBay has changed its pricing policy for anyone who is running a store on the site. It’s interesting the way they do things, because I received this very nice email congratulating me because they were reducing prices and upgrading my store listings. It turns out that this was, as you might expect, a bit of a

red herring. Actually, they are increasing the price, pretty dramatically, for my store listings. I have a basic store, usually with about 100 items, and it has been costing me three cents a month for each listing. Under the new scheme, the cost of listing each item in the store is now 20 cents a month. How eBay thought this was a price decrease for me is a logic beyond my understanding. In any case, the new rates go into effect on March 30, so I figured this would be a good time to reduce the inventory and give everyone an opportunity to find some bargains. I had to create a storewide sale on eBay to facilitate this process. I think it actually goes into effect at 11 a.m. Eastern today, which is about a half hour from the time I am posting this item. The sale will last a week and after that I will probably pull the items off the online shelves and replace them with new items. If you’re interested in any of these items, good luck.

He also, apparently, had tapes that were never issued in any format — and we’ve discovered one of them here. Not only that, but it’s quite a legendary performance by a legendary group of artists: Max Roach with Sonny Rollins and Kenny Dorham, recorded Dec. 12, 1956 at the Cafe Bohemia just seven months after the tragic accident that claimed the lives of Clifford Brown and Richie Powell.

This is the story: One of our friends and faithful Jazz Collector readers visited with the guy who had the tapes back in the 1970s and made a copy, on a reel-to-reel tape, of two

tracks that were recorded on this evening by the group, which also included Ray Bryant and George Morrow. The tracks are: Daahoud and I Feel a Song Coming On. They are pretty amazing, particularly I Feel a Song Coming On, which was a highlight of the LP Sonny Rollins Plus Four, Prestige 7038. Anyway, our friend is now making this music widely available for the first time. If you’re interested, you can purchase the music at a Website he set up at www.norgran.com. It’s hard to believe that URL was available, right? Anyway, we have no financial stake in this, we’re just publicizing it because we would like our friends at Jazz Collector to have access to this great music. If you do purchase it, let us know what you think of the music by commenting on this post.

Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess, In A Minor Groove, New Jazz 8209. We saw a copy of this sell for about $150 a few weeks ago and figured we’d give ours a shot.  So far this one has no bids at $30 with just a few hours to go. If it doesn’t sell, we’ll be happy to keep it: We were quite ambivalent about selling it in the first place.  There aren’t that many jazz harp LPs to begin with, and this is a good one.

Thelonious Monk, Monk’s Moods, Prestige 7159. This one is similar to the Early Miles LP we also have up on eBay now. It’s an early reissue of classic music, with nice packaging and it’s part of the early yellow-label Prestige catalogue. As we had mentioned last week,

we once had the goal of owning the entire catalogue of Yellow Prestiges, or at least those in the 7000 and 7100 series, but we gave up on that, thank goodness, in a rare moment of sanity. In any case, we have the earlier original pressing of this and we are hoping to sell this copy to someone looking for the music or someone still seeking the fantasy of Prestige catalogue completion. After you look at these, please take a look at our other auctions this week: We have a lot of items and many of them seem to be selling for quite reasonable prices at this stage.

Archie Shepp, Four For Trane, Impulse 71. This is an original orange label pressing in nice VG+ condition. It is closing later today and is currently at $40.  Also from the same batch is this:

Yusef Lateef, Jazz ‘Round the World, Impulse 56. This is also an original mono pressing with the orange label. This one is in VG++ condition and is currently at about $25. I knew a knowledgeable collector about 20 years ago who predicted that one day the Impulses would have the same cachet — and the same value — as the Blue Notes and Prestiges. With three or four notable exceptions — John Coltrane with Duke, Coltrane Ballads, A Love Supreme, Oliver Nelson Blues and the Abstract Truth – that prophesy hasn’t come close to coming true. Perhaps someday in the future, but I wouldn’t bet too heavily on it: Although the packaging on the Impulses is great, as is the music (generally), as are the recordings, generally by Rudy Van Gelder. So it’s hard to go wrong, isn’t it?

I would grade this copy in VG+ condition. I have it on the turntable now and it is playing nice, with no surface noise on the three tracks I’ve listened to. I’d also grade the cover at VG+. Copies of this have sold for more than $100 on the Jazz Collector Price Guide. We’ll offer this one up at $45, plus our usual shipping charges of $4 in the U.S., $15 to Europe and $17 to Asia. We have one copy, so first come first served. Good luck.

I’m always pleased to find a record I’ve never seen before. I’ve been collecting jazz records for nearly 40 years, I’ve been to hundreds of record stores in the U.S. and Europe, I’ve been on eBay quite consistently for at least six or seven years. And even still, there are records that are new to me. Here’s one, on eBay now: Johnny Coles, The Warm Sound, Epic 16015. This is an original mono pressing with the yellow label. It looks to be in M- condition, based on the seller’s description. The current price is $200 and there’s more than two days to go.

We also have a few records for sale this week, including a few of the ones that passed through our Jazz Vinyl Countdown, such as: Seldon Powell Sextet, Roost 2220. This one is in nice VG+ condition for the vinyl and VG++ condition for the cover. Michel warned us not to sell this one and perhaps he was right. The current price is

only $49, and when we decided to put this on eBay we were hoping for considerably more than that. Oh well: You play the game, you take your chances.

Our friends at Euclid Records also have some nice vinyl up this week, including: Clifford Brown Memorial, Prestige 7055. This is an original pressing with the New York address and the yellow label. The vinyl and the cover are both listed in M- condition and the price is around $160. After you look at this you should look at the seller’s other listings because there’s some more there worth viewing.

offer it for sale here on the Jazz Collector site and not put it on eBay. It is an experiment we have tried a couple of times before, with moderate success. We would like to do this more often — to give our loyal readers an opportunity to purchase collectibles that are not necessarily available to the general public. In any case, since the price of this is established at about $185, we would happily sell our copy to a Jazz Collector reader for $140. We have just the one copy so when it’s gone it’s gone. We’ll give it about two weeks to sell before we pull it down and offer it on eBay. If you purchase it here on the site, our normal shipping fees apply: $4 in the United States; $15 to Europe and $17 to Asia. Good luck.