Danish Jazz, Anyone? Blue Notes, Anyone?
Here’s one that almost made it to the $3,000 bin: Sahib Shihab and the Danish Jazz Radio Group, Oktav OKLP 111. This was an original Danish pressing listed in Ex condition for both the record and the cover, with just a single photo on the listing. The bidders must have had a lot of confidence in the seller because the record sold for $2,965. Last time we saw that record in the Jazz Collector Price Guide it sold for $1,953. This seller had quite a week. This next one went deep into the $3,000 bin: Presenting Jazz Quintet 60, Fontana TL 687.527. This was another Danish original, from 1963, and it featured, among others Bent Axen and Neils Hennings Oersted Pedersen. It was described as being in pristine condition and sold for a whopping $3,617.89. Imagine buying these records in the mid ’60s for, what, the equivalent of five bucks or so each, and now selling the two of them for $6,500? What’s more, if you look at the seller’s completed auctions, you see another record that sold for $2,240: Jazz Quintet 60, Metronome 15124.
Here are a few nice Blue Notes:
Lou Donaldson, Sunny Side Up, Blue Note 4036. This was an original pressing with the original cover. The record and cover were both listed in M- condition. The price was $612.
Lee Morgan, City Lights, Blue Note 1575. This was a West 63rd pressing. Should it have the New York 23 labels to be a first press? It was in VG++ condition for both the record and the cover. It sold for $900.
Here Comes Louis Smith, Blue Note 1584. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing in M- condition for the record and M-/VG++ for the cover. It sold for $1,028.99.
Those Danish jazz LPs got under my skin… I’ve seen a few of them sell before and enter the $1000 bin, but not for such astronomical prices as these. I was thinking of bidding on a couple of titles but the VG+ grade put me off… no matter, they still went nuts.
I have Japanese pressings of the Oktav and the Sahib Shihab “Sahib’s Jazz Party” (originally on Debut), as well as the Bent Jaedig that the seller was offering. Great records. I believe that there are Japanese pressings of both Jazz Quintet 60 titles as well.
European hardbop albums tend to be pretty expensive – a lot of them are very, very rare.
Sahib Shihab and the Danish Radio Jazz Group is probably my most desired original. I would have paid a little over $1K for this one, which is higher than I would usually go. I just didn’t want to swing it for that high a price and not NM. Its a great album, and should be checked out.
sahib is great!
I have a japanese pressing that sounds really good.
It was a limeted edition from a few years back, but also going up in price..