Guest Column: Digging Vinyl in Portland

I recently received a note from a reader who asked to write a short post, so here it is, from Stuart Levine.

I moved to Portland, Oregon a week ago and have spent every day but one (Record Store Day; I don’t like crowds) hitting the local record shops. The first one was Jackpot Records, where I had anything but good luck. You see, there was a pristine copy of “My Favorite Things,” but it was on hold for another customer. That led me up the street to Exiled Records and things began to improve. I found an original 1971 Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On.” That’s no easy feat, considering the fact that Rolling Stone had named it the top album of all time. Oh, and it’s VG (not a beater) and plays through. Read more

A Brief Detour

Sorry (again) for the long gap between posts. In the meantime, I thought you would all get a kick out of this. My nephew sent it by text and I’m not sure of the source. My family had a lot of fun ribbing me about this. Well descriptive of me and The Lovely Mrs. JC. Just substitute Prestige and yellow labels and you have the story of our relationship.

 

 

Guest Column: Treasure Hunt — Prestige

Miles Davis at Prestige in New York

So Don Lucky was asking me offline about something to do with Prestige, and I suggested he contact Rufolf, and Rudolf replied with this fascinating tale of how he ended up at the Prestige warehouse, and Don Lucky and I said Rudolf you have to write this up  for the rest of the Jazz Collector audience, and Rudolf said sure, and here it is. Enjoy.

Treasure Hunt — Prestige
How a Courtesy Call Turned Out to be the Discovery of the Cave of Ali Baba

By Rudolf Flinterman

In the ‘50s/early ’60s a simple catalog of say Prestige, Blue Note or Contemporary could be of invaluable worth. Without, one simply could not know what was in the market. There were no discographies like Jepsen and Ruppli and no Internet, of course. At the time I would regularly write to Prestige, Pacific Jazz, Blue Note, Atlantic and Contemporary requesting to send me a catalog, which they all did. Lester Koenig always wrote a kind letter. Nesuhi Ertegun of Atlantic was so kind to send me copies of deleted items, for free!

In 1959 Prestige sent me an offer to become a free member of their Jazz & Folk Record Club in Teaneck, N.J. The formula was simple: Pay for two, receive three. Especially for New Jazz, with a list price of $3.98, that was an interesting proposition. I still have the box of the first shipment from Prestige. For three records I paid 2-X-$3.98 plus 89 cents postage, i.e. $2.95 per album, which was the equivalent of 10,75 Dutch florins. At the time the list price in Holland was 18 Dutch florins. No wonder that I became a frequent buyer at Prestige throughout the ‘60s, despite the fact that the sea transport and customs took more than two months.

In 1969 I made my first trip to the U.S. We stayed for one week in Manhattan. I travelled with the then-Mrs.-Rudolf. The first day we made a boat trip with the Circle Line to have a general idea of the city. I then proposed to her to make a courtesy call to a certain Mr. Bob Weinstock – “who would be most happy to make our acquaintance,” I assured. She could hardly object to this great idea. So the next day she found herself in the bus at the Port Authority to go to Bergenfield, N.J.

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Price Update: 10-Inch LPs by Miles, Prez . . .

We’ve been updating Prestige and Blue Note. Here are some 10-inch LPs for the Jazz Collector Price Guide:

Miles Davis Sextet, Prestige 182. This was in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. We were thinking about bidding on this because the price was right, but in the end we’re getting rid of records, not adding records. We do have to remind ourselves of this, constantly, each time we see a nice item on eBay, which is several times a day. Anyway, this one sold for $102.50. That’s a pretty attractive price and was in my range. This was in M- condition for both the vinyl and the cover. The price was $233.50.

Howard McGhee Volume 2, Blue Note 5024. This was in M- condition for both the record and the cover and sold for $234.

Here are a couple of nice 10-inch LPs by Lester Young:

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Win A Free Record, Part 2

           Win This Record

A few weeks ago at Jazz Collector we tried to give away a free record and no one seemed to want it. We posted a Bob Brookmeyer record on the site and simply asked people to leave a comment. No one did. But we gave the record away anyway, and we’re happy to say it has arrived safe and sound in its new home. I will post the note of thanks separately. Anyway, we are not ones to give up too easily, so we are back to try and give away another record. This time it’s Wayne Shorter, Adam’s Apple, Blue Note 84232. This is a great record with Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Reggie Workman and Joe Chambers. This is not an original — we’re generous, but not that generous — but a 1985 reissue from the original historical master tape. The record and cover are both in M- condition. We have one copy to give away, so this is a contest, but you don’t have to do anything to enter the contest except leave a comment on this post.

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