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 several weeks later. One of the leading and last practitioners of this fading art was a gentleman, and I use that word purposefully, by the name of William Carraro, known to all as “Red.” I am sad to report that Red passed away in his sleep yesterday morning.
I will tell you more about Red in a subsequent post, but first let me tell you the story of the first time I met Red. It was back in the early 1970s and I had just started collecting jazz records. I was 19 years old. My good friend from childhood Dan Axelrod had also begun collecting jazz records at the same time and Dan was far more obsessive about it than I was, so he was always finding scores before me. He’d call from Philadelphia or Miami, out of breath, describing beautiful Blue Notes
