Author: Al

Jazz Vinyl Countdown: Sonny 10-Inch Prestige

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How do you place a value on an album like this: Sonny Rollins Quartet, Prestige 137? Here’s my story: I purchased a copy of this record about 25 years ago as part of a large collection. It is quite, quite rare, Sonny is one of my favorite artists and it has this great cover picture of him from the early 1950s with slicked-back hair and a wisp of a mustache. A real beauty, right? However, the copy I owned was in pretty poor shape and a few years ago I picked up a near mint copy on eBay for $200. Actually, it was advertised as near mint and it’s not near mint, but that’s another story. So I’ve been sitting with two copies of this record, one in poor shape, and as I’ve been trying to weed doubles out of my collection, I’ve put this one aside and avoided making a decision. For some reason, this week

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Catching Up: Morgan, Blakey, Kenny Dorham

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Here are a few records we’ve been watching:

Lee Morgan, The Cooker, Blue Note 1578. This seemed to be an original pressing listed as being in near mint condition. The price was $741. It’s hard to think of a record selling for $741 as being a bargain but given Blue Note prices lately, this seems kind of low. I had expected it to break into the $1,000 bin.

Because of some of the chatter on the site, we’ve also decided to keep an eye on more second pressings, such as this one: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, The Big Beat, Blue Note 4029. This was a New York USA pressing — not an original — and it was

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What To Do With Two Covers: A Simple Solution

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One of the great things about doing the Jazz Collector site is that I get to learn along with everyone else. Remember I did that post the other day about the two Teddy Charles Prestige covers and Rudolf replied, as I hoped he would, and he mentioned the Jon Eardley Seven, Prestige 7033, and how Prestige just decided one day that it would no longer be a Jon Eardley record and would now be a Zoot Sims record, Zoot Sims Down East, only they didn’t change the number, they just changed the packaging. And I read that and I thought to myself: Whoops, I think I have both of those records, in different parts of my collection: One under “E” for Eardley and the other under “S” for Sims. Now, here’s the real beauty of the entire situation:

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What Makes a Collectible a Collectible?

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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 of collectors. I know this sounds odd coming from the guy who writes about jazz records every day, pores over eBay listings to decide which records to put in the Price Guide and writes articles under the headline “Confessions of a Vinyl Addict.”

However, and this gets to Jan’s point: The copy of Saxophone Colossus in my collection is a Bergenfield, N.J. pressing. Same with Tenor Madness. I have the Bergenfield copies, they are in great condition, they have yellow labels, this is enough for me. I have the music in an early pressing, it sounds great, I’m OK. Would I like a New York pressing of both of these records? Yes. Would I ever obsess about it? No. Would I ever pay the going rate on eBay for them? Not a chance.

The people I’ve always considered to be “serious collectors” wouldn’t accept these second pressings and are constantly hunting for the original pressings and would not be content with anything but an original. I do think, however, things are changing and the

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More Blue Notes, More Big Price Tags

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Catching up on some recent eBay sales.

Here’s one that was quite a surprise: Jimmy Smith at the Organ, Blue Note 1525. This was an original Lexington Avenue pressing. The record was M- and the cover was VG++.  Normally the Jimmy Smith Blue Notes have not fetched huge dollars, but something is changing in the Blue Note market: All of the originals are going up in value and even later pressings are starting to sell at collectible prices. This one sold for an eye-popping $511.

May as well stick with some more Blue Notes: Kenny Burrell, Blue Lights Volume 1. This one, of course, has the cover illustration by Andy Warhol. The record was

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A Visit to A Record Store, Part 3

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So many comments to follow up on, but first let me finish my little trilogy about my visit to Infinity Records. Given the market conditions for music the days, it’s easy to assume that the days of the brick and mortar record store are numbered. In the mainstream music market, CDs are collapsing as the medium shifts to an online digital model. In the collectibles market, eBay has become the dominant sales medium. But, for now at least, it seems there is still room for a few places where people can physically walk into a store and purchase music. I happened to be in lower Manhattan a few weeks ago with time to kill and I popped in to J&R Music. It was jam-packed with people. And I was amazed to see the rows and rows and rows of CDs. They even had four bins of new vinyl — lots of recent Blue Note pressings — as well as a wall full of collectible vinyl that featured autographed covers, including Billie Holiday, Dexter Gordon and others.  The key was that they were comprehensive: You got the sense that if there was a jazz CD you wanted, you’d be able to find it there — as opposed to walking into a Border’s or Barnes and Noble, where the music is clearly secondary. There is also room, I think, for good record stores that understand the collectibles market. I spoke to Joe Ostermeier at Infinity — that’s Joe in the picture, standing in front of his wall of records — and he said business is still solid, no major let up as the music world has

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A Visit To A Record Store, Part 2

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OK, so I was at my favorite record store, Infinity Records, and I was asking the guys to pull records off the wall and one of the records was this one: Teddy Charles (with Shorty Rogers and Jimmy Giuffre), Collaboration West, Prestige 7028. I knew the record was familiar and I was pretty sure I owned it but I started doubting myself because (1) I have too many records too keep track of every single one and (2) Remember I had that birthday last week and age does awful things to one’s memory and (3) I still do remember record covers and this cover did not look familiar at all. So I looked at the record and it was a New York pressing, deep groove, mono, RVG in the deadwax, yellow label, all the stuff you would look for. The vinyl was in pretty nice VG++ condition and the cover was a shade below M-. The price was fair as well: $75. So I bought the record, and put it in the bag with the Tal record and a couple of others and I got in the car and started driving home and I kept pondering and pondering this Teddy Charles record on Prestige and I realized, “Hey, wait a second. I have that record. But the

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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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