Jan 3, 2012 Features 26 Comments
Why do we collect? I’ve been giving that a lot of thought lately, trying to figure out what to do with all of my stuff and trying to determine what is worth keeping – and why – and what isn’t. So along comes this interesting article from The New York Times on the very topic. [...]
Dec 5, 2011 Features Leave a comment
The actual Kennedy Center Honors took place last night, the one in which Sonny Rollins received his long-overdue and much deserved recognition. In looking over various accounts of the festivities, it seems as if it was a lovely evening all around. Bill Cosby did the honors of introducing Sonny and I saw a clip on [...]
Nov 10, 2011 Features 11 Comments
We’ve been asked to help call attention to a proposed documentary on Charles Mingus and so we will. The filmmaker is Kevin Ellington Mingus and the documentary is called “Mingus on Mingus”. Kevin is Mingus’ grandson and the film will be about his journey to discover “the truth” about his famous grandfather. There’s a video [...]
Oct 26, 2011 Features, Jazz Vinyl 30 Comments
Had an interesting observation last night. I was going through the jazz auctions page by page, probably 30-40 pages covering about 1,500 records over a period of more than 24 hours. What struck me was the incredibly large numbers of listings of jazz vinyl that simply won’t sell. Page after page of records that probably [...]
Oct 15, 2011 Features Leave a comment
I mentioned the play Central Avenue Breakdown the other day and what a pleasant surprise it was. If any of you goes to see it, let us know what you think with a comment on the site. I had another pleasant musical surprise a few weeks ago. I was up at the house in The [...]
Apr 12, 2011 Features 3 Comments
Do you see a lot of live jazz anymore? I don’t. When people ask why, I kind of laugh it off and tell them that just about everyone I’d want to see is dead. Which, unfortunately, is pretty true, with a very few exceptions. I do still try to see Sonny Rollins whenever possible and [...]
Dec 6, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 34 Comments
Mattyman tells the story of the Blue Mitchell record and the rude and competitive and somewhat nasty rival who bid the price up for no reason other than in the hope that Mattyman would put the record down and he would lay claim to it. Good for Mattyman to not fall for the bait and [...]
Nov 3, 2010 Features, Guest Columns 11 Comments
In a comment last week one of our loyal readers asked if he could write a guest column about his experiences buying vinyl in Japan. So without further ado, we offer: Record Shopping in Japan By Mike Falcon For most of my adult life I have been very interested in Japanese culture. I love their [...]
Oct 31, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 22 Comments
This is a completely random post. At the WFMU Record Fair last week I was selling a copy of Miles Davis Steamin’ on Prestige and got into a discussion with a buyer and he said, of the Steamin’/Workin’/Cookin’/Relaxin’ group of albums that Steamin’ was his least favorite. I said, hmm, that’s interesting because Steamin’ is [...]
Oct 26, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 5 Comments
So, after more than an hour of live rock music blasting in my ears, I decided to bag it at the WFMU Record Fair after Saturday, so I packed my records, loaded them in my Prius and drove them home. But what was I to do with them next? There were a dozen boxes of [...]
Oct 25, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 1 Comment
I mentioned that my table was towards the back at the WFMU Record Fair this weekend. There were some clear disadvantages to this location. For one, the front of the room was mobbed and there was a lot of jazz at almost every table, so by the time people made it to my side of [...]
Oct 23, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 4 Comments
So yesterday was Day One of the WFMU Record Fair in New York City and I purchased a dealer table to sell of duplicates from my collection and other odds and ends and this was my experience. There was a time, when I was an compulsive buyer of records – as opposed to now, when [...]
Sep 27, 2010 Features 3 Comments
I was driving up to my home in The Berkshires for one of the last times this season on Friday and I had some music on the CD player and on came Waltz for Debby, the version with Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans on Riverside. And I turned to the lovely Mrs. JC and told [...]
Sep 22, 2010 Features 7 Comments
My friend sent me this earlier. It’s pretty apt: Although I don’t necessarily feel low, I was working on records at 3 o’clock this morning, trying to get the smell of mildew out of some of the beautiful boxed-set 78s I purchased last week and lugged home and am now trying to wedge into my [...]
Sep 20, 2010 Features 10 Comments
Remember I had written about my late friend Red Carraro a couple of months ago and how he would compile these long lists of records and send them out for auction all over the world in the days before eBay. Red was among a number of practitioners of this art, which also included Leon Leavitt [...]
Sep 19, 2010 78-RPM Records, Features, Jazz Memoirs 5 Comments
I brought home another collection yesterday. It is an interesting one. It is mostly traditional jazz, but of more recent vintage. There was the full three-volume Mosaic Commodore set in near mint condition. That alone will cover my costs and the time and energy I expended. There were also a lot of 78s, mostly albums [...]
Sep 9, 2010 Features, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown 4 Comments
In an earlier post, Rudolf poses the following statement and question: “Al announced the slimming down of his collection a while ago. But I don’t see anything else but buying records by the lot, ‘improving’ on quality, etc., etc. Al: I just would like an honest reply to my straightforward question (the lovely Mrs. JC [...]
Aug 31, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 6 Comments
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 [...]
Aug 26, 2010 Features, Guest Columns, Uncategorized 14 Comments
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 [...]
Jul 16, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 3 Comments
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 [...]
Jul 14, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 1 Comment
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 [...]
Jul 13, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 1 Comment
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 [...]
Jul 12, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs, Verve 19 Comments
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 [...]
May 31, 2010 Features 9 Comments
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 [...]
Apr 30, 2010 78-RPM Records, Features, Prestige 5 Comments
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 [...]
Apr 12, 2010 10-Inch LPs, Features, Jazz Memoirs Leave a comment
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 [...]
Apr 12, 2010 Features, RCA, Verve Leave a comment
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 [...]
Apr 11, 2010 Features, Prestige, Verve 9 Comments
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 [...]
Apr 11, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Savoy Leave a comment
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. [...]
Mar 23, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 15 Comments
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 [...]
Mar 19, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs 4 Comments
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 [...]
Mar 10, 2010 Features 1 Comment
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 [...]
Mar 4, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs 9 Comments
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 [...]
Feb 16, 2010 Features, Jazz Memoirs, Questions 12 Comments
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 [...]
Feb 3, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs 10 Comments
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 [...]
Feb 1, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs, Jazz Vinyl 5 Comments
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 [...]
Jan 30, 2010 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Memoirs, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown 5 Comments
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 [...]
Oct 26, 2009 Features, Record Shows 7 Comments
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 [...]
Oct 13, 2009 Features, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown 3 Comments
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. [...]
Sep 29, 2009 Features, The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown 22 Comments
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. [...]
Sep 15, 2009 Features, Jazz Memoirs 2 Comments
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. [...]
Sep 15, 2009 Features 3 Comments
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 [...]
Aug 24, 2009 Features 1 Comment
There’s this new study from the University of Cambridge that concludes that people make assumptions about other people based on their musical tastes. Classical music fans, for example, are expected to be dumb and boring. Rock fans: emotionally unstable. Who fares best in this study? Jazz fans, of course. We are regarded as imaginative, peace-loving [...]
Aug 13, 2009 Features 4 Comments
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day entitled “Can Jazz Be Saved?” It cites a bunch of statistics showing that the audience for jazz in the U.S. is both dwindling and aging, which is not a good combination. It’s somewhat of a sad commentary on the state of the jazz [...]
Aug 10, 2009 Features 2 Comments
Got two notes recently from Jeff Barr, a long-time jazz writer, DJ, collector, producer and seller of rare vinyl. The first note was asking to inform my readers about his site, www.jazzrecordscene.com, which is worth checking out because there’s some very nice vinyl there. I’ve added a link to this site from Jazz Collector, so [...]
Jun 17, 2009 Album Covers, Blue Note, Features, Free Collectibles 8 Comments
OK, we’ve been putting up some interesting posts, but we’re not getting all that many comments these days, aside from Michel and Rudolf and a few of our other consistent (and always compelling) contributors. That means it must be time to give away another free collectible. So, here it is, a new free giveaway contest [...]
Apr 6, 2009 Features 4 Comments
Ye ask, and ye shall receive. Bethellodge asks on another post that we start a conversation on the topic: “Why do we collect?” Here’s my story: I started out, probably like most of us, loving the music for the music’s sake. I remember the sound of jazz in my living room, from my father’s collection, [...]
Mar 24, 2009 Features 5 Comments
We turn the post over to Mrs. Jazz Collector: “I really have just one question: Are you all as crazy as my husband? When our kids were growing up, every family vacation we would drive around looking for record stores. In Boston, LA, San Francisco, Toronto, London – wherever – we’d search for record [...]
Mar 16, 2009 Features, Jazz Vinyl on eBay 2 Comments
From the archives: Here’s advice I gave recently to someone looking to sell jazz records on eBay: 1. Buy a professional record cleaner and clean every record before you grade it and sell it. 2. Grade your records accurately/conservatively. You want to develop a good reputation and leave your customers satisfied so they’ll feel confident [...]
Mar 13, 2009 Features 1 Comment
Here’s another item we found of interest from our Downbeat collection. It’s a review by D. Leon Wolf in the Nov. 18, 1946 issue of Downbeat. The headline: Granz Bash a Caricature on Jazz: Everything Bad in Jazz Found Here.” Here’s how the article starts off: “Of all the wretched music ever inflicted upon this [...]
Mar 13, 2009 Features Leave a comment
In addition to vinyl, I collect jazz books, magazines and other ephemera. Once in a while I go through my old copies of Downbeat. Here’s something I pulled a few years ago: The Dec. 16, 1946 Downbeat offers a prime example of the divergent fortunes of the two leaders of the be-bop movement. On the [...]
Mar 10, 2009 Features Leave a comment
From our our archives, here’s an interesting item from June 18, 2004. If you’re looking for a good read, pick up the July issue of Downbeat. It’s being promoted as the “70th Anniversary Collector’s Edition” and the focus is a feature called “Our Heroes” in which more than 70 musicians talk about their primary influences. [...]
Jan 27, 2009 Collecting Tips, Features, Uncategorized 14 Comments
So the other day I was reorganizing my records, which I do every couple of months, and I took out an old Sidney Bechet record on Blue Note and inside the sleeve found this great little pamphlet, called The Blue Note Story. It’s a four-pager on a coated paper and it clearly dates from 1955 [...]
Nov 5, 2008 Features, Free Collectibles 1 Comment
Yes, Barack Obama. YAY!!!!!! Not quite as important, we do have a winner of our latest record give-away. Early this morning we asked our lovely bride, Mrs. Jazz Collector, to pick from the seven names who entered our contest to give away the record, Wayne Shorter, Adam’s Apple, Blue Note 84232. And the name she [...]
Oct 28, 2008 Features 1 Comment
Sorry we haven’t posted in a few days. We sold some records at the WFMU Record Fair on Friday. There were good crowds, maybe about 3 percent were interested in jazz, and, from what we sold, the bulk went to a couple of dealers, one from Japan, the other from Belgium. In walking around, we didn’t [...]
Oct 23, 2008 Features Leave a comment
Sorry we haven’t been posting the past couple of days. We’ve been buried in our basement, cleaning and pricing records for this weekend’s WFMU Record Fair, which begins on Friday and runs through Sunday. Click here for details. Jazz Collector has a table on Friday: Our location is F5, if you want to stop by [...]
Oct 14, 2008 Features 2 Comments
I opened up my New York Times this morning to the news that the great jazz photographer William Claxton had died at age 80. Claxton was one of the great jazz photographers, mainly on the West Coast, and he was most noted for his great, almost obsessive, work in shooting the young Chet Baker. His [...]
Oct 13, 2008 Features, Jazz Memoirs, Riverside 5 Comments
I miss record stores. There was a time, living here in the New York area, I could sneak out of my office at lunchtime and visit a different record store every day of the week, for several weeks without repeating myself. Just in my area of Long Island and Queens, there was Titus Oaks in [...]
Oct 10, 2008 Autographs, Features, Prestige 2 Comments
Here at Jazz Collector, we usually focus on jazz records, mostly what’s bought and sold on eBay. There are lots of reasons for that but, fundamentally, the reason is that we believe eBay sets the market’s prices. What’s more it’s a public market, so everyone can see it and monitor it and decide if he [...]
Oct 2, 2008 Blue Note, Features, Jazz Vinyl, Jazz Vinyl on eBay, Price Guide 22 Comments
Three years ago, in the previous iteration of Jazz Collector, we had a heated discussion about the pros and cons of eBay, spurred by a letter from the Blue Note expert Larry Cohn. I’ve been updating the site with a lot of the old material and posting it with the original dates. This one, however, [...]
Oct 2, 2008 Features 4 Comments
We’ve set up a new section on the site called Hot Topics. We’re hoping that it evolves into something like a Reader Forum, where collectors can come and ask questions about collectibles and can get answers from other collectors within the community. At Jazz Collector, we don’t claim to be experts on everything in the jazz [...]
Sep 30, 2008 Features, Jazz Vinyl, Jazz Vinyl on eBay, Price Guide Leave a comment
We’ve updated the Price Guide in a number of ways over the past few days. We added about 35 new entries, including a copy of Louis Smith, Smithville, that sold for more than $1,500, a copy of Sonny Clark’s Cool Struttin’ that sold for 3,750, the Count Basie RCA record with the Andy Warhol cover [...]
Sep 18, 2008 Features 8 Comments
A couple of days ago we sent out an email to all of our newsletter subscribers from a few years ago. It was interesting in that most of the people that replied, did so via email rather than going to the Web site and posting a comment there. We are trying to get people used [...]
Sep 12, 2008 Features, Jazz Memoirs 2 Comments
Tuesday was Sonny Rollins’ 78th birthday. Happy Birthday, Newk. First time I saw Sonny was in the early 1970s at the Village Vanguard. Sonny wasn’t playing live when I first got into jazz. He was in one of his several retirements. I’d go to clubs in the city and see Bill Evans and Monk and [...]
Sep 11, 2008 Features, Jazz Vinyl, Jazz Vinyl on eBay Leave a comment
We’re back posting regularly on the blog, which means we’re back to watching eBay. It’s been a while and, from what we can tell, the prices have held pretty steady over the past couple of years. We’re looking at a batch of records over the weekend and we’ll summarize them in a few posts today, [...]
Jan 2, 2008 Features 3 Comments
I did the Jazz Collector Web site and newsletter for about a year and a half in 2004 and 2005 and abandoned my loyal readers to start another business. I almost came back a year ago, but didn’t. Now I’m trying again. This time it should stick. – Al Perlman
Jul 20, 2005 Features Leave a comment
We took an unexpected break for a couple of days. Sorry about that. Here’s a note from a new subscriber: “Al: Just discovered you site tonight and have been happily reading your commentaries and exploring your links for the last couple of hours. I expect to lear a lot from you and your correspondents and [...]
Jun 30, 2005 Features, Jazz Vinyl, Jazz Vinyl on eBay Leave a comment
I’m always looking for information on records I see on eBay that I haven’t seen before, either online or in real life. I’ve been collecting jazz records for more than 35 years and have spent thousands of hours poring through record stores all over the U.S. and in parts of Europe, yet I still come [...]
May 26, 2004 Features, Jazz Vinyl Leave a comment
As we go through records preparing to sell them on eBay, we always seem to find a few that fail to list the accompanying musicians. When this happens, we go through our source material to try to fill in the blanks. Among the resources we use most often are The Jazz Discography by Tom Lord, [...]
May 25, 2004 Features Leave a comment
Many dealers, including our partner AJ Doctor, use the Goldmine Grading Guide as a guideline to grading records. Goldmine is a biweekly record collectors magazine in the United States that also publishes price guides. The following is an excerpt from their Grading Guide: Mint (M): Absolutely perfect in every way – certainly never played, possibly [...]
May 10, 2004 Features Leave a comment
I couldn’t sleep again the other night so I went into my music room and started poring through the batch of 115 Downbeat and Metronome magazines I bought at the WFMU Record Show in New York last week. Most of the magazines are from the 1940s and 1950s, with a few Downbeats from the 1960s [...]
Apr 5, 2004 Features, Jazz Memoirs, Jazz Vinyl 1 Comment
(This is the first in an occasional, sporadic and perhaps-never ending series of confessions by Al Perlman) My name is Al. I’m a vinyl addict. Last year, I thought I had it beaten. I had turned 50, quit my job and decided to move to a smaller house. It was time to downsize. No one [...]
Apr 4, 2004 Features, Jazz Memoirs 2 Comments
One of the great things about selling the records on eBay is making contact with a wide group of people with varied experiences. One of the customers got into a riff about the late bassist and composer Charles Mingus, which brought me back 30 years, to the time when I was a young reporter for [...]
Apr 4, 2004 Autographs, Features 5 Comments
It’s always surprised me that jazz collectors seem to place only marginal value in autographed albums or other memorabilia. There are exceptions of course: A Charlie Parker signature on a contract or a Billie Holiday inscription on a book are extraordinarily rare collectibles that fetch a small fortune whenever they appear on eBay or on [...]
Feb 21, 2004 Features Leave a comment
Review of: Sonny Stitt, The Complete Roost Sonny Stitt Studio Sessions, Mosaic Records MD9-208 By Al Perlman I am an unabashed fan of Mosaic records. No company does a better job mining and repackaging the treasures of recorded jazz. From Mosaic’s beginnings in 1983 the company has focused on producing comprehensive boxed sets that document periods [...]
Aug 26, 2003 $1000 Records, 10-Inch LPs, Features, Jazz Vinyl, Jazz Vinyl on eBay Leave a comment
Jazz vinyl dealers at the WFMU Record Convention in New York last November were concerned. Traffic at the show was down and, worse, volume on E-Bay had declined fairly dramatically in the fall. A few dealers were anticipating the beginning of the end of the LP market, finally done in by CDs and [...]
