eBaying With Horace, Lou, Newk & Leo Parker
Some interesting items on eBay now. Shall we see?
Horace Silver, The Cape Verdean Blues, Blue Note 4220. This looks to be an original mono pressing with the ear and the Van Gelder in the deadwax, although there is no close-up picture of the label to tell. This one is closing soon and is at more than $150 in VG+ or VG++ condition. Anyone out there have an explanation? Not that it’s not an excellent record, but it’s never been one of those that has garnered high prices. Perhaps because it’s a mono pressing?
We’d mentioned this one a couple of weeks ago when it sold for $81 in VG condition: Leo Parker and Bill Jennings, Billy in the Lion’s Den, King 395-527. The record here is VG+ and the cover is VG, but the pictures with the listing are very nice. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and, in this case, they seem to be worth several hundred at least: This one is already more than $325.
The picture with this one is nice also, but the seller has it graded only at VG for the record and the cover: Lou Donaldson, Wailing With Lou, Blue Note 1545. This is an original pressing and it plays with some surface noise, according to the seller. I’d love a copy of this record, but not at $345, the current price, in that condition. But that’s just me.
Good morning, Newk: Sonny Rollins, A Night at the Village Vanguard, Blue Note 1581. This looks to be an original pressing.The seller has listed the vinyl as ex plus and the cover as ex, which I assume translates to VG++ and VG+. The price is a little more than $450 with a few hours to go.
I always thought that “Cape Verdean Blues” is one of the more expensive LP’s of Silver. Records like “Song for my father” or “Doing the thang” can be found at bargain prices, some other are fairly priced and some of the earlier ones are sometimes quite expensive.
I don’t know, why “Cape Verdean Blues” is one of the later ones that are expensive. Maybe Silver didn’t sell that many records at that time – after “Song for my father” and it’s more rare? And it definitely has to do with the Mono. A lot of the 4200 releases are kind of scarce, when it comes to Mono!
Great music indeed.
cover in shrink accounts for high price me thinks
Sigh… Wailing With Lou… Another one of those great titles from the 1500 series that I have on a Jap reissue and would love to have on vinyl. But these prices darn! 😉
Also, I believe Cape Verdean Blues is on of Silver’s most highly regarded albums. I love it, but I recall many many people saying it’s one of their favorite silver albums. This and Tokyo Blues are mine, both later albums. Both great.
@Mike: cheers! “Tokyo Blues” has some sort of darkness to it! My favourite Silver-LP As well! Great Band and less soul jazz…somehow.
Re:CVB-In the March ’09 Downbeat-the “Blue Note issue”-trumpeter Dave Douglas writes that”one momentin Joe Henderson’s solo on ‘The African Queen’ makes me want to scream every time I hear it…This record is filled with little things that you almost don’t notice,but have a profound effect on the expressiveness of the music.”
But now,a word from the “Do you spell gough with one or g’s?” Dept:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Horace-Silver-Cape-Verdean-Blue-Note-4220-MONO-Shrink-/330529072142?pt=Music_on_Vinyl&hash=item4cf511640e
“two g’s,one e” (LOL)
It’s around six months since I picked up my copy of Cape Verdean Blues on ebay. There were two copies auction ending that day – one stereo one mono – within a few hours of each other.
The mono went way out my price range so I punted on the stereo which closed at around $28. It bore NY labels and VAN GELDER stamp but no “ear” so it was an early Liberty press.
I have quite a few of these transitional Liberty presses – for example a Sam Rivers acquired very recently, and I have to say they sound every bit as good as the original NY originals. Later Liberty are not so good, but these 1996-ish transitional pressings are difficult to fault. They have the bright freshness of Plastylite, whoever pressed them.
What’s nice is when the vinyl pressing quality is up to the mark, you can move on to enjoy the musical quality.
London Calling — not 1996-ish. Perhaps you meant 1966-ish?
Of course, 1966. Old Age. (Hopefully, its my typing thats failing not my memory!)
I have about 60 liberty presses, with about 40 being albums that were originally pressed after Blue Note was sold to Liberty(sue me, I like some of this stuff :-)). I would say that the majority of these sound quite nice. The ones I have that don’t sound good, look pretty crappy which makes sense. I have heard people say negative things about liberty presses but my personal experience is that they are not bad at all. I think that some of this comes from Liberty maybe using old stampers on some of the represses. I’m curious what others opinion is on this. I’ve found that most of the original liberty presses(i.e. numbers higher than 4220 or so) sound on par with the Blue Notes pressed earlier. I’ve also found that the represses of the original Blue Notes sound pretty good, and are a very nice substitute for an original. I know they stopped using the same presses so there should be some change but many where still mastered by RVG and should have a similar level of quality control. And at least in the mid 60s the quality of the vinyl used hadn’t gone down so dramatically if I remember right.
Just spent this afternoon listening to some Sam Rivers favourites – “Contours”(4206),
A New Conception ( 4249) and Dimensions an Extensions (4261).
They are all transitional Blue Note / Liberty pressings 1966-7 no “ear” and they all sound absolutely great. Fresh, bright lively, sonically a match for any New York label originals.
Stereo as you might expect, but absolutely streets ahead of the run-of-the-mill Japanese reissues, even the mighty King doesn’t have the visceral energy of these transitional Liberty pressings.
At $30-40 they are a steal, and its no compromise, as they don’t exist earlier.
I’m with you on “Contours” and “A New Conception”. I have M- liberty issues that I paid less than $40 for. Great albums. The most I’ve ever paid for a Liberty was $75 for an immaculate “Street of Dreams”, which tends to go for a little higher than most Liberties(although I’ve seen it in the $30 – $40 range often).
Sam Rivers on “When I Fall In Love” from A New Conception,is,as they say,to die for. Steve Ellington on brushes is also amazing on this…a keeper.