He got back to me a few weeks later, sent me a comprehensive list of what he had and their approximate values. He said he didn’t want to take the time to sell the records himself and asked if I would be interested in buying them or if I knew anyone that would be interested. I told him I’d be interested, but I couldn’t pay their retail value. He asked what I’d be willing to pay. I gave him a figure. He said it wasn’t enough and I said I could understand. I wished him luck. I few weeks later he got back to me again. What would I be willing to offer? I gave him another figure. He said OK. I gulped hard and agreed. This was a guy in Canada, I’d never met him, never saw the records, and I had to trust that this guy – who admittedly didn’t know how to grade records – was being honest and accurate. We agreed to do the deal in two stages. I’d send him a third of the money and he’d send me about 25 records, including 10 or so of the Blue Notes.

The first batch arrived a couple of weeks ago and they were precisely as he said. Not mint condition, but VG++ for the most part. The second batch arrived yesterday. Same deal. Lots of nice records, not mint condition, but very nice. I was thrilled – especially because I was able to fill in some of the Blue Note voids in my collection and particularly the Sonny Clark Cool Struttin’ LP. There were also a couple of nice Donald Byrd originals I didn’t own and a couple of Lou Donaldsons as well. There were also a bunch of other records, not as collectible, from both England and South Africa. All in all it was a good deal all around: He got a reasonable price, I got a bunch of great records.

The best part: Even Mrs. JC was impressed. After all of these years of living with me, of me coming home with records from all around the world, some nice, some moldy, after all these years even she can now appreciate the beauty in an original Blue Note in nice condition. Not bad, huh?

Anyway, Erich’s comments got me to thinking about some of my favorite records on Columbia and other labels, so I thought I’d do a quick post on these. This is all off the top of my head because my records are all over the place these days, so here are one, two or three favorites per label, just for fun. I’m sure I’ll miss many favorites, but that’s why we have comments on this site to make amends and amendments.

Atlantic: John Coltrane, Giant Steps (too obvious, right?). I also have a fondness for LaVern Baker Sings Bessie Smith and Charles Mingus Blues and Roots.

Argo: Art Farmer, Art

Bethlehem: Charlie Rouse and Paul Quinichette, The Chase is On; Dexter Gordon, Daddy Plays the Horn

Blue Note: We’ve been down this road before: I’m sticking with Art Blakey, Buhaina’s Delight and Freddie Redd, Shades of Redd. Perhaps throw in Donald Byrd’s A New Perspective and Horace Silver’s Song for My Father or Blowin’ the Blues Away in honor of my dad.

Columbia: Miles Davis, Kind of Blue and ‘Round Midnight (OK, I’m still being obvious, but really, how can you go against these records). Thelonious Monk, Criss Cross

Contemporary: Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders (yes, most people prefer Way Out West; I prefer this one); Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section

Decca: Billie Holiday, Lover Man

Emarcy: Brown and Roach, Inc., Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street; Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown

Impulse: John Coltrane at Birdland (A Love Supreme would be the obvious Trane, but I prefer this one); Oliver Nelson, Blues and the Abstract Truth; Coltrane Ballads

Jazzland: Johnny Griffin and Lockjaw Davis, Lookin’ at Monk

New Jazz: Eric Dolphy, Outward Bound, Jackie McLean, McLean’s Scene, Kenny Dorham, Quiet Kenny

Norgran/Clef: The Tal Farlow Album (10-inch); The President Plays with the Oscar Peterson Trio; Stan Getz Plays; Bird with Strings

Pacific Jazz: Chet Baker Sings; Gerry Mulligan plays Mulligan

Prestige: Sonny Rollins, Worktime, Tenor Madness, Plus Four; Coltrane, Soultrane

Riverside: Cannonball Adderley Live at the Lighthouse; Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby

Roost: Sonny Stitt and the New Yorkers

Savoy: All of the Birds

Verve: Ella and Louis; Tal Farlow, The Swinging Guitar; Ben Webster and Art Tatum

Anyway, as happened once in a while those days, a guy came in with crates of rare records and had absolutely no idea of their value. No idea at all. New records were selling for $7.99 in stores, or something like that, so he figured used records must be $5 or so. So he priced all of his records at $5. This included Tina Brooks True Blue; Lee Morgan Candy; Hank Mobley’s Message, 1 and 2; and many, many others too numerous to name. The guy was at a table near me, and I would have pounced, but I never got the chance. As he was getting the records out of his car, two of the top New York dealers of the day accosted him, convinced him to show them the records and pulled out all of the valuables before they made their way into the room.

Because the guy’s table was near mine, I chatted with him a bit during the day and he confided two things to me. 1. He may have made a mistake in pricing the records so low. Perhaps he should have asked for $7 each instead of $5. 2. It was a good thing he only brought a few of his records because he had hundreds more at home he was hoping to sell. Upon hearing this revelation, my heart sank into my stomach and I pictured the big score of my lifetime. I acted quite calmly, of course. Really, I said. You have more records. You would like to sell them for $7 each. I might be interested. If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, how about if I come by your house. I don’t live too far away. Oh yes, do me one more favor: Don’t tell anyone else about this, just in case I would like to buy all of the records. I don’t think I slept at all that night in anticipation. I went to the bank early, took out $400 cash, which was all I could really afford at the time, and headed to the guy’s house so I would be there at 7:30 a.m. He had told me to come at 9 a.m., but I wasn’t taking any chances.

So I got there, and I had $4,000 in my pocket, and I rang the doorbell at 7:30 and the guy answered the door and he said come in and there in the living room was one of the NY dealers rifling through the guys shelves as if he had springs in his fingers: Pulling out records, dropping them on the floor, pulling out more records and creating a pile of Blue Notes and Prestiges and Riversides and Emarcy’s the likes of which I had never seen. The guy introduced me to the dealer, who was about as pleased to see me as I was pleased to see him, and I started going through any area of shelf that looked like it hadn’t been pored through. There were still plenty of nice records on the shelves and at $7 apiece I was still ready for a score. I must have had 60 records in my pile and the other dealer must have had 200 records but still he looked at my pile with envy and clearly wanted what he had and what I had.

I pulled out my $400 and started to settle with the guy when the dealer opened up his mouth. “You should be charging $20 a record,” he said. “That’s what I’ll pay you for all of the records. $20 each.” I had 60 records. At $20 apiece I was looking at $1,200, which I didn’t have, either in my pocket or in my bank account. The dealer pulled out a roll of cash. The guy selling the records was clearly startled. “Twenty dollars apiece,” he said. “That sounds about right.” I looked at the dealer with contempt and did what I had to do, which was choose the 20 records I really wanted. I think I negotiated with the guy to give me five extra records for my $400. As I was leaving, there were three other dealers pulling up into the guy’s driveway. At least, I had been smart enough to get there early and walk away with some nice records. Among the ones I recall: Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street; Mating Call, Tadd Dameron and John Coltrane; Soultrane; the Eddie Costa record with Bill Evans doing Guys and Dolls; a couple of Blakeys on Blue Note. Not bad for $20 apiece in near mint condition. I should have been happy, but instead I was kicking myself for not getting there earlier and for not having more money. I think I learned some lessons from this experience, but I’ll have to think hard to figure out what they were. I think the lasting lesson, and the one still applicable today: If you want the really good records, you better have some cold hard cash.

• Cannonball Adderley. Well I have to start with two: In San Francisco and Know What I mean with Bill Evans.
• Art Blakey, Buhaina’s Delight
• Clifford Brown and Max Roach on Emarcy
• Dave Brubeck, Time Out
• John Coltrane. Cheating again: Taking one from Prestige, Soultrane; one from Atlantic, Giant Steps; and one from Impulse, which is between Ballads and  Live at Birdland and is Ballads because I listen to it more often and it is quite romantic and is adored by the lovely Mrs. JC, who celebrates her birthday today.
• Miles Davis. I’m cheating again because I can’t leave off either Kind of Blue or Porgy and Bess, two of my all-time favorite albums
• Eric Dolphy, Outward Bound
• Bill Evans, Waltz For Debby
• Art Farmer, Art on Argo
• Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook
• Stan Getz Plays (with Getz/Gilberto quite close behind)
• Billie Holiday, Lover Man
• Roland Kirk, Volunteered Slavery (for the live side)
• Jackie McLean, Swing, Swang, Swingin’
• Thelonious Monk, Criss Cross
• Oliver Nelson, The Blues and the Abstract Truth
• Charlie Parker, all of the Dials, collectively
• Oscar Peterson, West Side Story
• Sonny Rollins Plus Four
• Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown
• Lester Young, The President Plays

As noted, this is completely random, just browsing through my records on a lazy Sunday morning, and is not meant to be all inclusive or anything other than what it is. There are artists I love, such as Sonny Stitt, Charles Mingus, Art Tatum, and the others mentioned above where I have dozens of records, but none that particularly stood out when I looked at the collection this morning. Try it yourself, it’s actually a fun process.

It is at times like this when I wish I had a record store.

Then, on Sunday morning at 6 a.m., on what would have been Day Three of the WFMU Record Fair, I woke up startled with a clear revelation. I would

rearrange the records in my basement, and use the shelving I have downstairs to place all of my doubles and records to sell and I would sell them from my basement, a la my old friend Red Carraro. This way, I could get rid of records and also give the readers of Jazz Collector an opportunity to purchase them rather than selling them to some random bidders on eBay.

So I jumped out of bed at 6:05 a.m. on Sunday and began moving records. By the time I was done at around noon, all – or at least most – of my duplicates were on the shelves in the basement and all of the records that had been there previously were now in boxes and in a separate storage closet elsewhere in the house. My back was quite sore as well, but the task was nearly done. Many of the records have prices on them, many don’t, and they’re not quite organized the way I would like, but it’s a start. Someday soon I will announce on Jazz Collector the opening of these secret little basement shop and we will see what happens next. It will only be available for viewing on an appointment basis, of course. In the meantime, if any of you are going to be traveling in the New York area and would like to get a preview feel free to send me an e-mail: al(at)jazzcollector.com. I’m quite busy with work these days, but we’ll see what we can do. So Day Three at the WFMU Record Fair, even though I was not at the WFMU Record Fair, turned out to be quite productive anyway.

And then it got worse.

Sometime in the later afternoon, perhaps 3 p.m. or so, they decided to have live music: Yes a rock band, followed by another rock band, each one trying to out-noise the other. Or so it seemed to these delicate, jazz-oriented ears. Loud doesn’t begin to describe what it was like at my table. The whole area of the room was quaking: Potential customers stayed away, and those that did come wouldn’t linger and weren’t able to ask any questions. I tried to cope by stuffing my ears with napkins, but it didn’t really keep out the noise and made me look quite ridiculous and perhaps a little ancient as well.

Up to that point I had been debating whether to come back for Day Three of the record fair, which I had already paid for. I figured I’d be able to sell some records if I came back but, frankly, two days there is more than enough for me, with the noise, the chatter and the boredom of just sitting behind a table waiting for a couple of pleasant conversations with a buyer or two. About 15 minutes of the first rock band made up my mind for me, no sweat: No way I was coming back for Day Three.

Despite the complaints it was actually a good experience. I sold more than 100 records, brought in more than $2,500 and spread the word of Jazz Collector to a bunch of people who, believe it or not, had never heard of the site. I’m sure I’ll be back next year, hopefully with a better table and certainly for no more than three days. As you can see by the picture of me below, taken by my daughter, the lovely Ms. JC, everything seemed quite copacetic. The picture above was taken from my location at the back of the hall, looking out towards where all the people were actually gathered.

Finally,  just because I didn’t go back to the WFMU Record Fair for Day Three, don’t assume that my chronicle is over. In fact, the two days at the fair and the return home provided inspiration for a radical new idea that could impact many of you the in the Jazz Collector audience. But that will have to wait for my next post.  See you then.

There was a time, when I was an compulsive buyer of records – as opposed to now, when I am merely an obsessive buyer of records – when I would purchase a dealer’s table at a record show just so that I could show up early and look at the other dealers’ records before anyone else. I’d get there and hover while dealers of jazz records would be unpacking their wares and I could get first shot at their offerings. Don’t laugh – I got some mighty nice records this way.

Now, however, I am more serene about it. I didn’t get there yesterday until 3:30 and the show opened at four to early arrivals so I barely had time to even look. In fact, I convinced myself that the only reason I was looking at all was so that I could write about it here at Jazz Collector. I even made certain that I would not be buying either compulsively or obsessively or both: I only brought $100.

So at 3:30 I began roaming the floor with my $100. What struck me was that just about every table had jazz records: Some a box or two, some had many, many boxes. And it was a lot of the stuff

I was selling as well: Pressings from the 1970s and 1980s on Concord Jazz and Pablo, Japanese Verve and Blue Note Reissues, lots of mid-range collectibles. The high-end stuff that I did see – a couple of Horace Silver 10-inch Blue Notes, for example – had extremely high prices, way beyond my level of interest.

None of this, of course, stopped me from spending my $100 on stuff I didn’t really want or need, although I was happy to purchase an original purple-label New Jazz Roland Alexander record for $30 and a Buddy DeFranco trumpet-label Verve with Sonny Clark and Tal Farlow for $20. It was a good start and I was quite pleased with myself for only bringing $100. It showed a certain level of maturity and restraint, wouldn’t you say.

Anyway, I went back to my table and awaited the throngs. In addition to the ilk of records I mentioned before, I also brought a few nice records: A Lexington Avenue Sonny Rollins Volume One on Blue Note in VG condition; a VG copy of Dexter Gordon Blows Hot And Cool (not red vinyl); a few Miles Davis Prestiges; a New Jersey Sonny Rollins plays Bird, and a few more.

As I was unpacking my records a dealer from Japan came by and each box I would open, he would peruse. In the end he purchased a VG stereo copy of Waltz For Debby for more than $100, and $300 records in all. Within the first two hours I had sold about $1,200 worth of records and the Rollins and Gordon were both gone, as well as a New Jersey copy of Miles Davis Relaxin’. Every single one of those records was sold to a dealer from Japan, not the same one but several. However, I got fair prices for each of them and I was quite pleased.

When they opened the doors for the general public at 7, I expected another onslaught – which never happened. My table is all the way, all the way, in the back and a lot of people simply never made it back there. And if they did, they had already seen so many jazz records and/or spent so much money, there wasn’t as much interest in my stuff.

Nonetheless it was quite fun just being there and I was quite pleased that several people who came by the table were fans of Jazz Collector. The last time I did the show two years ago, nobody had heard of the site, so this was a big improvement. Everyone wanted to talk about the big Nautiluso Record Fraud of last year and whatever happened with that, so I was reminded that I needed to do a follow up.

I was also joined at one point by my daughter, the lovely Ms. JC, and at 9 p.m., an hour before close, she took over the booth and I was free to roam the floor, this time with my wallet bulging with $1,400 in cash. Quite a dangerous combination, I would say. But, once again, I was able to show remarkable restraint. I stopped by the booth of Euclid Records, had a nice chat with Joe, and purchased from him a mint copy of the 10-inch Howard McGhee record Jazz Goes to the Battlefront Volume 1 for the very fair price of $60. This is the record with the infamous Filipino bass player “Chris” and if you want to read the story about this record, just check this out: Jazz in Korea: A Story Goes With It.

Anyway, I bought a couple of other inexpensive records, fought the massive crowds on the other side of the room, and realized that I probably hadn’t missed any great scores this year by not showing up at noon and obsessively, compulsively hovering over every dealer as he was arriving to set up his table.

But today’s another day, and there will be new dealers, and new records, and new opportunities for the old Jazz Collector habit to kick in once again. Let’s see what happens.

As I was laboriously going through the records on my porch in The Berkshires yesterday, much to the consternation of the lovely Mrs. JC, I discovered that there were about a dozen 12-inch Blue Note 78s – Sidney Bechet, Albert Ammons, etc. These are in

near mint condition, probably never played. I imagine they may be worth something, and they are certainly cool to look at, and I will have to decide what to do with them. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in traditional jazz – New Orleans, Dixieland, lots of Duke Ellington – you know where to find me. I’m not sure exactly why I purchased these records, other than the usual case of jazz vinyl addition, but that self-analysis will have to wait until another post. For now I have a bunch more records to look at.