A Recurring Case of Blue Note Envy

Back to eBay with four Blue Notes that come to you straight from my want list, leading off with Sonny Red, Out of the Blue, Blue Note 4032. This looks to be an original deep-groove West 63^rd Street pressing that appears to be in M- condition for the record and VG++ for the cover. The bidding is now in the $300 range with four days left on the auction. This is a record that has sold for more than $1,000 several times in the past, with a top price of $1,802, according to Popsike. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see this copy end up in the $1,000 bin. This is a record I once owned and stupidly traded away back many years ago – I would say nearly 40 years? – when  I was transitioning from fan to collector and I had set out to fill in all of the first 200 or so yellow-label Prestiges.

Why I set out to do that, I can’t say, but I had a nice, pristine copy of Out of the Blue that I had purchased for $5 (!) at the Titus Oaks Record shop in Hicksville, New York, among a huge collection of original Blue Notes that had just landed on the shelves, upon which I was excited out of my skin to be the first one to access. I think I walked out that day with about 30 records, each one priced at $5. I know, it’s like a dream, right? Every record was pristine and, in my mind, they had come from some Long Islander who had worked at Blue Note, never played the records, and just dropped them off at Titus Oaks when he was clearing clutter from his house.

Among the other records in my pile that day was another that I also traded away and remains to this day yet one more record that I have never been able to replace in its original, first-pressing format, and that is Pete La Roca, Basra, Blue Note 4205. This looks to be a New York USA pressing that looks to be in VG++ condition for the record and M- for the cover. The bidding is now in the range of about $325, with more than four days left on the auction. This one has sold for as much as $820 in the past.

My recollection is that I traded these two records, among others, to a sax player named Ned Otter. Ned was, and apparently still is, a very sweet guy and I was happy to trade him the records because he was so excited to get them and fill in the blanks in his own personal quest to acquire the entire Blue Note catalogue. I will say that he definitely got the better of the deal back then because he was a lot more knowledgeable than I was at the time and I was feeling quite generous because I had only paid $5 for each of the albums anyway. I know that Ned is still around because my friend Danny saw him last week at a memorial for another sax player we knew, Jeff Gordon, so, Ned, if you ever do come across this post, I remain pleased to this day that you were able to get those records from me—in exchange for maybe a couple of Miles, Gene Ammons and Gil Melle records?—and I hope you are still enjoying them. Of course, if you ever decide to get rid of them, you now know where to find me.

Okay, these next two Blue Notes are legitimate want list items for me.  I have never owned an original copy of either record, but I have owned United Artists pressings of each for at least 30 years or so. They are: Cliff Jordan, Cliff Craft, Blue Note 1682. This looks to be an original deep-groove West 63^rd Street pressing, probably in VG++ condition for the record and probably similar for the cover. The bidding on this one is in the $170 range, also with four days left in the auction, and I would be shocked if this one doesn’t make it into the $1,000 bin. Finally, there is Kenny Drew, Undercurrent, Blue Note 4059. This looks to be an original pressing with the West 63^rd Street label and the deep groove on Side 2. The record is listed in M- condition and the cover M- as well. Current bidding is in the $275 range but this one will undoubtedly cross the $1,000 barrier and may even go well beyond. The top price for this record, again per Popsike, has been $3,038.