Blue Notes, Deep Grooves and Vinyl Spirits
I was casually perusing eBay this morning and came upon this listing, which is closing soon and surprised me somewhat: Bobby Hutcherson, Happenings, Blue Note 4231. What do we make of this listing? It is listed as having deep grooves and, from the picture, that seems to be the case. I would hate to think that someone would have tried to etch in deep grooves. The thing that really caught my eye, however, was the price. This one is in M- condition for the record and VG++ for the cover. It is currently at more than $400 with several hours to go. I must have not been looking when this became a $400 — or more — record. From the same seller is Bobby Hutcherson, Dialogue, Blue Note 4198. This one is also listed as a deep groove pressing. It is in M- condition for the record and VG++ for the cover. The price is around $150.
May as well stick with Blue Notes this morning. Here’s one that will be found in the $1,000 bin: Dizzy Reece, Blues in Trinity, Blue Note 4006. This is an original pressing in M- condition for both the record and the cover. The current price is $1,195. Also, Sonny Red, Out of the Blue, Blue Note 4032. This is an original West 63rd Street pressing in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. It is in the $200 range. I list the Reece and Red records together because
they are both records I once owned and then either sold or traded. In both instances I got back much less in return than I should have, so when I look at my collection and don’t see these records I actually visualize gaps. Like I’m flipping through the records and I see it, but don’t. A spirit of vinyls past. One day I will get these records back, along with Shades of Redd. But probably not by paying top dollar on eBay.
Al,
There is no way, dispute the misleading and puzzling picture that the Bobby Hutcherson, Happenings is a deep groove…impossible? Right?
and $400…the worlds gone silly.
That Dizzy Reece is a fine fine record and an added attraction for us Brits that it features Tubby Hayes. Possibly the only British Tenor player who could hold his own with the American Tenor giants…
If i had had an original in good nick in my mitts you would have had to fight me to get it from me!
I feel like Columbo……”One more thing”
on further inspection the groove on the Bobby Hutcherson, Dialogue is a single thin groove, although a little deeper than normal but in no way a deep WIDE groove. Not a DG at all!!! No way
Agree. Looks too thin to be a true DG. Perhaps a trick of the lighting?
OK, I’ve got a background in photography and printing, as well as having worked a fair amount in Photoshop once upon a time. Since I’ve never studied a true deep groove, figured this would be a great opportunity to see what you’re all talking about. I pulled the photo from the ad, magnified it and compared it with examples pulled from London Jazz Collector. It’s pretty apparant that a true deep groove is so wide that one letter of the font used for artist credits easily falls inside it and that certainly isn’t the case with this record. I know some of you are saying “duh, so what, I knew that,” but for me what this means is that regardless of the lighting, whenever credit text crosses a true deep groove, from now on I should be able to identify it, based just on the distortion of the lettering. Most interesting.
Oh,when oh when will sellers finally realize how many more views a Blue Note lp gets simply by putting the word “MONO” in the heading??
I know it’s just a 5min google exercise to learn what ‘deep groove’ means for an ebay seller, but I wonder if they mostly just see other auctions say ‘deep groove’ on blue note listings and figure it has something esoteric to do with the playback grooves of the LP, rather than the label indentation?
I’ve seen auctions where they just say ‘deep groove’ on 70’s blue label pressings!
@kb: This is a major problem on eBay, Drives me crazy, I found an Andrew Hill Black fire listed a few months ago, a Liberty Pressing with the BUZZ word deep groove. The seller to his credit did change the listing. He still got 40 bucks for it. I am glad I was able to get a bunch of the better titles from the 62-66 period long before many started approaching $500 I wish I would have been as fortunate with the Lexington’s on up, just window shopping for me now.
Hi The Happenings firts pressing isn’t even supposed to be Deep Groove or Plastylite for that matter. This is a first pressing which may explain the high price to some extent. Well eBay makes price go through the roof sometimes. The next one selling will not be $400!
BTW-there should be a special corner in Hades for people who put the words “Blue Note” or “mono” in the heading when the lp is neither. Agreed?
@Ceedee: Another thing I hate is the Listing that says “mini LP CD”, so they end up polluting the LP search with CD’s.
The Happenings LP is not–I repeat, NOT–a deep groove…there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, just fro looking at the pictures. That is probably THE most ridiculous auction I have ever seen in my life.
People are way too hyped about deep grooves on these New York releases. Since this is a promotional copy, which suggests that it’s a first pressing, what we have here is, again, further evidence that all originals post-4059 were NON-DEEP GROOVE pressings, as indicated by every post-4059 promotional or review copy I have ever seen.
I have the stereo pressing of Hutcherson’s Happenings. Both the mono and stereo pressing have Van Gelder stamped in the dead wax but no deep groove and no Plastylite “P” according to Fred Cohen’s book.
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I’m not sure if the stereo pressing will fetch more than 400 bucks, but I do know that I paid much, much less for it! 😉
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Photos of my stereo copy of Happenings are HERE. Make sure to view in slide show mode 😉