Month: February 2010

A Visit to a Record Store, Part 1

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I had a yen to go to a record store the other day. I don’t go to record stores much these days. First of all, there aren’t too many record stores remaining. Secondly, I’m trying to get rid of records, not add them. But it was my birthday last week and I’ve always gotten records for my birthday — even if I had to buy them myself — and perhaps it was merely just a Pavlovian reaction from years of training: Birthday = records, records = record stores. So I took a drive out to the last remaining great record store on Long Island: Infinity Records in Massapequa Park. I’ve been going there for at least 20 or more years and there was a time I would probably take a ride out at least every other week as part of my regular route of scouring all the local stores. This time, I hadn’t been out in at least a year or so. My first stop was to check out “the wall.” The store’s owner, Joe Ostermeier, always hangs some of his best records on the wall and he always has some good jazz. Sure enough, there were three or four items of interest. Among the records I wanted to check out was one of my all-time favorites: The Tal Farlow Album, Norgran 1047. I happened to remember that my copy of this record, the

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Jazz Vinyl Countdown: Max Roach, Dorham, Mobley

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I was poring through my records the other day and stopped for a moment on this one: Max Roach Four Plays Charlie Parker, Mercury SR 80019. I’ve had this record for a while and haven’t listened to it in years, but it struck me as such: It features two of the great stalwarts of the Blue Note catalogue — Hank Mobley and Kenny Dorham — both in their primes; it has a great cover and a great concept. Yet, it is not really high on any list of collectible records and, in fact, we have never once even tagged it in the Jazz Collector Price Guide, which means we haven’t really seen it sell for a collectible price in the past seven years. And it struck me: What if this record, with this personnel, in this era — 1958 or so — had been issued on Blue Note? What would it be worth? Why is there such a profound difference between the value of a record like this, on the Mercury label, and a record with similar personnel in the same era from the Blue Note era? I think these are rhetorical questions, but I’m happy

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Win a Free Collectible: Dexter Gordon On Blue Note

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There’s been a lot of Blue Note chatter on Jazz Collector lately, and some Dexter Gordon chatter as well, so, as I was looking on my shelves for a suitable item for the next giveaway, I was pleased to come across this: Dexter Gordon, Blue Note  LA393-H2. This is a double LP from 1975, issued by United Artists as part of Blue Note Reissue series. It consists of a variety of Dexter’s work, stretching from his first album as a leader on Blue Note, Doing All Right, up to the 1965 date the produced Gettin’ Around. I wouldn’t have purchased this LP when it came out, since my sole interest was collecting original pressings, but somewhere along the way I picked up this copy and, in fact, it is

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More Blue Note Favorites, Courtesy of Downbeat

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I did that post earlier today and mentioned that Downbeat had done a whole feature asking various artists about their favorite Blue Note records. I was able to dig up my copy of the magazine — I don’t have a subscription anymore, but I had purchased this one on the newsstand because of the cover. It was from March of 2009. The cover, as you can see, has Joe Lovano with his favorite Blue Note: Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Free For All, Blue Note 4170. It’s quite gratifying to see his picture with a vinyl pressing, and a mono vinyl pressing at that and perhaps even an original mono pressing. Inside, the magazine asked a variety of other jazz artists to name their favorite Blue Notes as well. Here are their replies:

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A Blue Note Favorite: Is It The One?

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Here’s an interesting item I was watching on eBay. Art Blakey, Buhaina’s Delight, Blue Note 4104. This was an original pressing with the NY USA label. It was in M- condition for both the record and the cover and it sold for $172.01, which is relatively high for this record. Ever since I got into that Blue Note head a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about doing a post on my favorite Blue Note album, which Downbeat did about a year ago with a bunch of jazz artists. I will try to dig out my copy and do a subsequent post. My problem with choosing my favorite Blue Note is this: Every time I think I come up with the one album, I think about another and, to be honest,  I’m having a hard time settling on one. I will say, however, that this album is a top contender, is definitely a finalist and may even emerge as the winner. We’ll see. Hopefully I will get around to doing the post. I can tell you how much I love this album: Even though

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Free Duke Jazz Vinyl: The Winner Is . . .

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I was so busy having my Blue Note existential crisis last week I forgot to end the contest for the latest giveaway: Duke Ellington, Ellington at Newport, Columbia 8648. This is not an original pressing but is a later stereo issue that’s in near mint, unplayed condition. As always with our giveaways we have one copy that will go to a Jazz Collector reader who has commented on the site during the contest’s duration. This week we have a lot of newcomers to the competition, which is great. Traffic has been building pretty steadily on the site and we are now able to tally our monthly page views in the tens of thousands, believe it or not. In any case, those eligible for the Duke LP are:

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Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown: Doin’ Allright

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Sometimes you forget to listen to great records, right? You have a limited amount of time to listen, and there are all the other great records, and then there are the other records that have never made it to your turntable and you figure they deserve a chance as well. And, what happens, at least to me, is that some of the great records get buried on the shelf and sometimes go years without being heard. So this week I’ve been going through my Blue Notes and I had about an hour yesterday to just sit and listen and I decided it was time to take one of those records off the shelf and put it on. The record I chose: Dexter Gordon, Doin’ All Right, Blue Note 4077. And I put it on, the first track, I Was Doing All Right, and I smiled instantly and said quietly to myself, “Oh, yeah.” Oh yeah, as in

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Catching Up: Blakey on Elektra, Capuchin Swing

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Let’s catch up on a few recent eBay sales.

This one was sold by the Jazz Record Center: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, A Midnight Session, Elektra 120. This was an original mono pressing. Frankly, this is not a record I’ve seen very often and I had no idea what kind of value it had as a collectible. I own a copy, although mine is a stereo pressing. I’ve been going through a lot of my records to catalog them for insurance purposes and because it’s kind of fun in an obsessive compulsive psychotic neurotic kind of way. My copy is in VG+ condition, and I estimated its value at $35. This one was in M- condition and sold for $228. Perhaps I’ll have to adjust my spreadsheet.

I should have been on this one: Jackie McLean, Capuchin Swing, Blue Note 4038. This one was listed a West 63rd but it did not mention

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Confessions of a Vinyl Addict, Redux

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Someone asked why I labeled the recent series “More” Confessions of a Vinyl Addict. Well, unfortunately, we’ve been down this road before. I did a search of the Jazz Collector site and unearthed this gem from April 5, 2004 labeled, of course, Confessions of A Vinyl Addict, Part 1. It’s amazing how little I’ve learned and how little has changed. But . . . at the time I had 12,000 records and now I have 10,000, so perhaps that’s progress. I also called eBay insidious, which is still true today, right? Anyway, it’s worth a read, I think. Just give it a click above.

Catching Up: Walter Davis on UA, Jackie, Sonny

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Here are a few items we’ve been watching on eBay. Given our recent interest in later pressings, particularly Blue Notes, we were curious about this record: Walter Davis, Davis Cup, Blue Note 4018. An original pressing of this would normally sell for more than $1,000, and we’ve recorded one instance of this record fetching $2,000 in the Jazz Collector Price Guide. This record was not of that distinctive lineage: This was a United Artists pressing, similar, unfortunately, to the one in my collection. It sold for $34, which seems about right, unless you’re the seller bobdjukik and can somehow sell it for $400 or more.

This was from the same seller, but it was an original: Jackie McLean, Swing, Swang, Swingin’, Blue Note 4024. This one was in VG+ condition for the vinyl and VG or VG+ for the cover. The price was $273.60.

Here’s one of my favorite Sonny Rollins records, at a reasonable price:

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