Author: Al

An Early Adventure in Jazz and Journalism

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Chick Corea, Return to Forever, 1973

In the fall of 1973, when I was 20 years old, I had the chutzpah to strut into the offices of the Syracuse New Times in Syracuse, NY, and inform them that I should be their new jazz critic. Although I was a journalism major at the Newhouse school, I had never published anything before in my life, not a word in my high school paper, not a syllable in my college newspaper. Not even an exclamation point anywhere! It was only by sheer luck that I was in the journalism school at all. My first two years in college were mostly a total waste. I didn’t get in to any of the schools to which I applied, so I had to go to Queens College, which was a couple of bus rides from my home in Bayside. I was still living with my parents for those two years, sharing a tiny room with my younger brother and sister, spending a lot more time at the race track and the poker table than in school, or anywhere else for that matter. Read more

The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown, Ad Infinitum

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Finally, the real deal.

To answer some of your post pressing questions. Yes, those are many of my records on the current Carolina Soul eBay auction. Seeing the actual listings makes it pretty clear to me one of the reasons why Jason and I weren’t able to strike a deal: We were grading the condition of the records on a different curve. That wasn’t the only reason, but it must have played an important factor. As a collector and former seller on eBay, I was grading the records quite a bit differently than Jason and his team, who are admittedly more in touch with today’s marketplace. Some of the obvious examples are ones I’ve written about here. Like the Jutta Hipp and Zoot Sims record on Blue Note and the Donald Byrd on Transition. I know that I got those records from the Bruce M. West collection in Baltimore, and I am pretty sure those records weren’t played more than two or three times. When I listened to them, once each, they were clean. In my collection, I had graded the vinyl condition at M- or VG++ at worst. Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 6

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I was going to milk the suspense for a couple more days, but I changed my mind. I’ll cut right to the chase. I was prepared to sell Jason from Carolina Soul Records about 5,500 records. My strong preference was an outright purchase and not a consignment. Jason was prepared to buy 5,500 records from me and had the wherewithal to make the outright purchase based on the amount I told him I was looking for. He and his colleague Nate came up to my home in The Berkshires and spent the better part of a day and evening poring through the 5,500-or-so records I had put aside. The opportunity for a big deal was in place . . . . Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 5

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On Feb. 4, 2023 I turned 70 years of age.

Yada, yada, yada . . . on Feb. 7, 2023 I sent an email to Carolina Soul Records to see if they would be interested in buying a portion of my collection. So, yeah,  you could say turning 70 was a bit of a tipping point for me. Why did I reach out to Carolina Soul as my first choice? We’ve all been watching over the past few years as they have come out of nowhere to be one of the premier sellers of jazz vinyl on eBay. They seem to grade the records fairly, they must have a strong coterie of loyal customers, they get good prices, and they keep getting these pretty amazing collections of jazz records. I also figured, with the money they’ve collected in some of these auctions, they might have the wherewithal to actually pay cash up-front for the records. Plus, there were a few comments on the Jazz Collector site that pointed me in their direction, alluding to their reputation for being “very favorable” on consignment payouts, as Clifford mentioned the other day a comment on the first article in this New Adventure in Jazz Collecting. Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 4

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The pix with these posts are copies of some of the records to be auctioned. The real pics will be with the listings.

Looking back, it seems I’ve been going through this existential angst about what to do with my collection ever since I started Jazz Collector back in 2003, and probably well before that. I am sure, among this audience, I am not alone, but I’m fairly unique in that I  have this forum to share and explore my experiences, as I am doing yet again. I learn a lot about myself from doing Jazz Collector and from paying attention to the comments on the site.

In this case, I go back to a post I did on June 20, 2022 titled Back in Action. This was another one of those angsty posts in which I shared that my long-term plan for retirement was to spend more time doing Jazz Collector and to go back to selling records on eBay, a la Rudolf and some of the other regular contributors to the site. There were a lot of thoughtful comments on that post but one especially hit a nerve. It was from Mark and this is what he said:

“I think the last thing I would want to do when I retire is sell jazz records online! I mean perhaps selling a few key high end pieces would make sense, but in reality I would rather just consign the whole collection to a big name eBay dealer or store. It also seems that collecting taxes and such is more and more of a thing these days on Discogs and eBay.” Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 3

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The pix with these posts are copies of some of the records to be auctioned. The real pics will be with the listings.

I trace the roots of this latest chapter in The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown back to a post I wrote on Jazz Collector on July 28, 2022. It was simply called Updates. In this midst of writing about a bunch of records on eBay, I went off topic based on a comment from our friend Maarten Kools — the idea of spending time with the records and enjoying them while also enjoying the process of thinning them out. Then, I wrote this: “If someone would have the wherewithal to buy one of the world’s greatest jazz collections in one shot, you know where to find me.”

The next day I received an email. The sender said he did, indeed, have the wherewithal to buy a collection like mine. Henceforth, I will refer to this individual as KC Ken, short for Kansas City Ken, which is neither his real name nor real location. Anyway, I checked him out on LinkedIn and it didn’t take more than a minute to determine that yes, he did have that kind of wherewithal. I wrote back and suggested we chat. Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 2

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The pix with these posts are copies of some of the records to be auctioned. The real pics will be with the listings.

Let me start this new adventure with a post from Jazz Collector from Sept. 29, 2009. I had the audacity to call it The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown, and this an abridged version of how it began:

“I counted my records the other day. At least I counted most of them. I have more records than I want. I have them in four separate rooms in two separate homes. I have records I have owned for more than 25 years and have never put on a turntable. I have records by artists I don’t especially like. I have collected them because I am a collector. It’s what I do. That is why my site is called Jazz Collector.

“I counted the records because I have made a fairly momentous decision, and that decision is this: I am going to get rid of many of them. This is heresy, is it not? These are my friends, all hand selected personally by me. I have invited them into my home, to share my space, to give me comfort and joy in times of stress or sorrow. And they have served me well, all of them, in whatever way they could. But the time has come to part with many of them.”

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A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting

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Sometime over the next few weeks the seller Carolina Soul Records will be running an eBay auction that will include many really, really nice original jazz collectibles. These will include a beautiful copy of Jutta Hipp With Zoot Sims, Blue Note 1530, along with nice copies of the other 12-inch Jutta Hipp Blue Notes; a really nice original New York pressing of Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus, as well as Blue Note 1542, 1558 and 1581; a West 63rd copy of John Coltrane, Blue Train, Blue Note 1557, plus more than a dozen additional original Tranes; a bunch of Miles originals; Donald Byrd Blows Beacon Hill on Transition, Kenny Dorham Blue Note, Lou Donaldson Blue Note. I could go on.

How do I know so much about this upcoming auction? Read more

Heavy Hitters: Monk, Duke, Evans, Dorham

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Here are some of the rare Jazz LPs I am currently watching on eBay, starting with Thelonious Monk Plays the Music of Duke Ellington, Riverside 12-201. This is an original white label pressing with the original cover. The seller doesn’t offer a grade, but it looks like the record is in nice shape and the cover looks really clean. This is a cool record, with the original cover, great music and the first record in the Riverside 200 series, signifying the label’s shift to modern jazz and, in particular, its very fruitful relationship with Monk. I would love to have an original pressing of this record and, unfortunately, I passed up an opportunity to buy one for $100 at the Jazz Record Center in New York about 30 or so years ago. This one has a start price of $940, which is too rich for my sensibilities. I took a look over at Popsike and, to my surprise, this record has sold for more than $1,000 at least two times. Perhaps this will be a third? Read more

InBox: Una Mas, New OJCs, Autographs and A Rare J.R.

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I know it’s been a long time between posts, but there is a reason, and, fortunately, it has nothing to do with health, at least physical health, but there may be some of you out there who will question my mental health once I get around to telling the whole story, which I will do in a few days. Sorry for the intrigue and mystery, but for a couple of days I want to just do regular, routine posts, looking at rare jazz records on eBay, so I can take a little more time to write about may latest adventure in Jazz Collecting. You’ve waited this long between posts, you can wait a few days more to hear the story. Meanwhile, our old friend CeeDee has gotten impatient, rightfully so, and sent me a link to this record: Kenny Dorham, Una Mas, Blue Note 4127. This looks to be an original New York USA pressing. The cover is pretty trashed and the record plays with slight noise throughout. It is on buy-it-now on eBay for $245. Something about this listing has perplexed Mr. CeeDee because this is the note that accompanied the link: “I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream. I’m sure there is something missing . . . isn’t there?” Is there?

Also in my inbox was a new press release from Craft Recordings announcing that they are relaunching the Original Jazz Classics series on vinyl. The press release mentions that the first OJC issues came out in 1982, which is more than 40 years ago, which seems quite amazing to me. I was never a huge fan of the original OJCs, with their soft cardboard covers and thin vinyl. I would use them to fill in gaps in my collection, but always with the idea that I would like to replace them with originals as soon as possible. These new OJCs are being pressed on 180-gram vinyl and “housed in a replica of the original tip-on jacket. I have no idea what the original tip-on jacket means, but I hope they are using thicker cardboard so they feel more like the original original pressings. If these are nicer copies that the first round of OJCs, do you think they will have any impact on the market for first pressings. Perhaps collectors will be content with a nice reissue, but if experience is any guide, it might make the originals even more in demand as collectors/listenters get hooked on the idea of having these great music on vinyl. The first two records to be issued are Workin’ With the Mildes Davis Quintet and the Monk/Coltrane record on Jazzland. Looks like the first of the products are shipping at the end of May. Perhaps I’ll be among the first to purchase, even though I have both records, just to report on it here at Jazz Collector.

While I’m here, I will clear out some of the other items in my mailbox. This one comes from a reader looking for a buyer: “I have a programme from a Jimmy Smith gig in Birmingham, England. It is signed by Jimmy and his guitarist Nathan Page when I met him at the stage door. Would it be of any interest to anyone as I am willing to sell it?” If you are interested send me an email at alatjazzcollectordotcom and I will pass on your name and email address.

One of our readers bought a collection and sent this note: “Recently I bought a Jazz LP collection and found a sample copy. This record is a promotional press of J.R. Monterose recorded in 1963 live in Tender Trap at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I read in a Japanese website that it was a British Spotlight recording distributed as promotional records in Japan in only 20-30 copies, but for copyright problems never released. Later it was repressed in 1993 by Fresh Sound. The sample copy is: Spotlight SPJ 152 (C 556). Do you know something more about this sample copy and his grading of rarity? I suppose, as it was written in that Japanese Web site, it’s a very rare record.” I replied that I was ignorant about this particular record, but felt pretty sure that someone in the Jazz Collector audience will have the information. So, if that someone is out there, please comment.

Finally, our friend Clifford sent this link: My Name is Albert Ayler, Fontana 6888603 ZL. The record was graded VG and the cover was just good. But the cover had signatures from Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray. Per Clifford: “I’ve seen one other Ayler autograph in my life, almost exactly the same, so it’s definitely legit – the Sunny Murray signature looks like the other ones I’ve seen.” There were four bids and the final price was $1,532.

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