Updates From The Jazz Record Center Auction, Part 2
We did promise a Part 2 of our post on the recent auction from The Jazz Record Center, so here goes (apologize for the delay):
Why isn’t this record worth more: Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, Prestige 7075? This was an original New York pressing. The record was in M- condition — nearly new — and the cover looked like it was at least VG++, maybe better. It sold for $192.50. I happen to think this is a terrific album. I love Sonny’s interpretation of The Way You Look Tonight. When I was first getting into jazz I used to compare this version to the Stan Getz version on Stan Getz Plays and it took me a while to reconcile not only that it was the same song, but that it was even the same instrument. My ears are obviously much more sophisticated now, but at the time the difference in approach seemed so stark. And I liked both versions. Anyway, I repeat my query: Why is this great original Prestige, featuring two of the geniuses of modern jazz, not even a $200 record?
This has always been one of the rarest and more expensive of the Riversides, for good reason: Sonny Rollins, The Sound of Sonny, Riverside 241. This was an original white label pressing and it was in M- condition for both the record and the cover. It sold for $765. It’s the presence of Sonny Clark with Rollins that makes this one so sought-after, no?
Now for a few Blue Notes:
Kenny Dorham, Afro-Cuban, Blue Note 5065. This was an original 10-inch pressing and it was in M- condition for both the record and the cover. The price was $854.09. Someone will be quite pleased to get this record in this condition.
Horace Parlan, Up and Down, Blue Note 4082. This was an original New York USA pressing with a “Review Copy” stamp. The record and cover looked to be in M- condition and the top bid was $656.60.
Donald Byrd, Byrd in Hand, Blue Note 4019. This was an original, deep groove West 63rd Street pressing in M- condition for the vinyl and probably VG+ for the cover. The price was $332.87.
Maybe the Monk 7075 is not as valued because it was thrown together over the course of a year with various sidemen configurations and not more of a cohesive work? Also, any of these last albums done for a label tend to have some filler.
Hey DaveS. I don’t have the record with me, but if I recall correctly I think the record was actually the result of two previously released 10-inch sessions. I’m sure Rudolf will set us straight.
7075 draws from Prlp 166, 189 and 190. So DaveS is right in a way. But this album, with 7053, 7058, gives the complete picture on 12″ of the Monk/Rollins sessions for Prestige.
I agree with Al that the Monk/Rollins quartet is terrific. On the 10″ edition, there were three numbers, two of which issued on 7075 (later 7169) and one on 7058. So it is by bits and pieces.
I think the art work of Reid Miles is gorgeous and I am surprised that this gem did not bring more than 200. But I am sure DaveS gave the right answer.
The problem is that high prices are dictated very often by other considerations than the quality of the music.
The “Sound of Sonny” is a first issue on 12″, so it brings more.
For future reference:anyone feeling slightly out-of-sorts by the difference in $$ you’ve PAID for a winning bid and what you think it SHOULD be selling for,kindly forward your savings to me. This will save you from any kind of “buyer’s remorse”-after all,we know how much that obscure session is REALLY worth-while making me very happy. In other words,a win-win!
I love ceedee’s approach here!
Maybe they just made a lot MORE of this record and it isn’t as rare (?)
Al- I don’t think it’s the difference in Getz and Sonny’s approach that threw you. I think it’s the fact that Sonny never plays the fuckin’ melody! What he substitutes is what a decade later became Spanky and our Gang’s “Sunday will never be the same”.
Interesting post nonetheless. The question is can you tie your passion to a community and the hip answer is no- once it hits the 1,000 bin, its lost it’s mojo. Case in point-the rolled down socks on Ella and Louis. I’ll let you fill in the details.
Collecting is an act of sanctification and reconciling personal joy with a marketplace can be dicey, for the nobility of collecting lies in seeing the beauty in the plain girl.
I’m about to purchase a jazz collectible that I deem to be of value, but it sits bidless as we speak and like the undervalued Rollins disc, I too wonder why. But in a world where pig faces are prized and Donna Douglas is the meeskite, I guess Serling was right.
Thank you, Dan, for the first Twilight Zone reference on Jazz Collector.
After all the money I threw out,I wish i could wish the whole fuckin’ ebay website into the cornfield.
That’s two.
room for one more, dearie
It’s honey…but funny.
f-bomb f-bomb serling f-bomb f-bomb serling f- etc etc
Why all the profanity all of a sudden?
Music should inspire, unless all are more concerned with matrix #’s and deep grooves.
“Music always brings goodness to us all, p.s. unless one has some other motive for its use.”
-Ornette Coleman
I found this record in London, Mole Jazz, 1978.
it’s his last Atlantic, published in Japan, titled “To whom who keeps a record”.
it’s still in my collection.
no deep groove, no black label, no swirl or bull’s eye.
just Ornette’s music, still good, before the harmolodic turn which I don’t like.
again I repeat: it’s a shame that almost no Jazz Collector reader loves Free Jazz, the last original American classical music.
I consider all jazz after 1970 substantially derivative, partly from rock, partly from older jazz expressions.
in the last 40 (forty) years no seminal master has come to light.
there are hundreds of musicians who play good music but can’t say a new word in jazz.
that’s why I’m still staying with my 40’s to 60’s heroes and, well, I take a look to deep grooves sometimes….
lennib, zarabeth f-bombs about serling (aka Rod Serling) are a Twilight Zone reference. I doubt he meant to offend.
Mike, I’m hip to what they refer to, however with a vast selection of words to chose from, close to 1,022,000,I despair when what I consider to be vulgarities become accepted as socially correct.
But again I am a dreamer of a better world.
dottorjazz, count me among those who love “free jazz.” the music of the ’60’s (and beyond)from such as Dixon and Shepp, and Pharoah and the Musra brothers, Phil and Michael(Cosmic), AACM and BAG, all the outcats, is music to my ears. Travelling the spaceways with Sun Ra and being bombarded by the likes of Brotzmann and his ilk makes my day.
dottore: You are not alone with lennib. I dig Ornettte C. and have all his albums on CR and Atlantic, incl. the Japanese one (also bought at Mole Jazz!) plus the unissued takes on US Atlantic 1572 and 1588. The O.C. quartet sides are as classic as Bird’s quintet or Gerry Mulligan quartet sides.
I also dig the Jimmy Giuffre trio sides on Verve (with Paul Bley), Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor.
But alas, all music becomes derivative. In our field, nothing new has appeared since fifty years. Indeed I am very pessimistic about the future of our music. Jazz is now studied at university and there are crowds of musicians who play decent but unsurprising music. Therefor I stick to the golden decade, the fifties, and develop new tastes of surprisingly new music (for me at least) in modern classics.
I go to concerts of modern classical music to discover and be thrilled. No “Jazz” festivals anymore, most of the music is so called World Music, or R&B or well copied modal hard bop. Look at this year’s Montreux Jazz Festival program, deceiving!
at least we are three !
I could have written all Rudolf wrote.
sometimes a doubt tightens my throat: am I too old to appreciate jazz after 1970 ?
I was 17 in 1970 and I had just begun to explore my new jazz interests. I attended concerts in Italy and abroad, I travelled to festivals (North Sea, Nice, Juan les pins…), I was, as now, open to new expressions in Music, some of which were, and are, really hard, eg Cecil Taylor, 65-66 Trane and so on.
as jazz ended his historical Free phase, ’round 1970, I was unable to find a new direction. While I continued to search, I could’t get satisfaction in “new jazz”.
so I had to turn back to “old 60’s and 50’s”, I explored new, for me, musicians (Pres and Bean in their 30’s and 40’s), the Rabbit and Frog, Lady Day in her whole production.
but I was in need of something more contemporary too.
well, if after 1970 Jazz was unable to strike me out again, I began to search in another field, were I was totally ignorant. Like a virgin I approached Classical, from Middle Ages to Contemporary and I got it.
My friend London Calling says that is “music of the dead”.
I say: no, it’s Music, an expression of love and soul.
My most liked expression, even if the composer is laying in the ground, Bach as Bird, Ludwig as Trane, Mahler as Miles.
they are simply resting for a longer time.
but their Music lives, for the pleasure of all will like to know Her.
dottor,
My story would be similar to yours except the first jazz I got into was the mid-late 70s fusion stuff. From there I went backward but like many people my favorite era is the 50s – early 60s. I rarely pull out those fusion records anymore except for nostalgia’s sake. It’s not that I think they were terrible, it’s just that I find them very much of there time while the best jazz(like the best of all music including even pop) is timeless.
I have a lot of “free jazz” on vinyl and cd. I find I listen to it out of curiosity though. Ornette doesn’t speak to me the same way as Jackie Mclean does. Yet, I completely agree that Ornette had a substantial effect on the way jazz musicians expressed themselves from 1960 to today. His ideas were revolutionary and from those ideas it opened a whole new avenue of expression for jazz musicians. My problem is that while I agree with there ideas and appreciate what they are saying I simply don’t find it musical.
This leads me to jazz today, and by today I mean post fusion. I believe that people are right when they say that there has not been anything revolutionary in jazz since free jazz. I find it hard to imagine what would even follow it, free jazz to me seemed to be the end of originality in jazz. But I don’t believe that it is the end of expression in jazz which to me is really what it’s all about. There are some great musicians out there taking the ideas learned from a century of jazz and using it to express themselves in wonderful ways. They are not as numerous as they were before 1970, but there is a lot of talent out there. I don’t find Jazz to be dead, just at a mature phase like most arts and science achieve when all of the revolutionary movements end and the fruits of those movements are put into use by the next generation.
Lennib-
Fuck isn’t profane when used comicly for emphasis and if that’s all you got from my post, it explains your love for Peter Brotzmann. I just watched a youtube clip of him and suddenly realized I was wrong. Hitler is the SECOND most offensive German in history!
Sorry Lennib-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xa75w-vEXk
is the Brotzmann video I watched and I finally got it and it’s even funnier than the audition scene in Mel Brooks’ The Producers.
You take 4 non-musicians with the sensitivity of stormtroopers and put instruments in their hands. But how did they get thru it without laughing? The outtakes outtakes must be a real pisser…I mean urinator!
don’t dig that Brotzmann, as I don’t dig european free music. I remember the Critics (!) writing about a group Archie Shepp brought to Europe in 1967: they called his music “defecation on the audience”.
one of these concerts is well documented on record and is one I really love.
I’ve never got dirty out from it .
Grachan Moncur III, Roswell Rudd (tb) Archie Shepp (ts) Jimmy Garrison (b) Beaver Harris (d)
“Donaueschinger Musiktage”, Donaueschingen, West Germany, October 21, 1967.
I also remember how the most acclaimed critic in France considered Bebop at its beginnings (and after).
Mr.Charles Delaunay and his anti-jazz.
please lend your ear to the alto break in A night in Tunisia.
some music you like, some you don’t, depending on different factors.
and more: Miles was suggested to fire Coltrane from his group. Trane played long solos and when Miles asked him why, he said ” I don’t know how to stop”, and Miles: ” simply take your sax off your mouth”.
Pres was criticized for having such a different voice from Bean.
Monk couldn’t play.
but the most ferocious critics came with Free Jazz: Arrigo Polillo, the most appreciated Italian jazz critic, couldn’t stand the New Thing, at least for years.
then he changed his mind.
it’s music: love it or leave it.
Spoken like a gentleman, Dotter. I just reacted to lennib’s misunderstanding of my adjective of conviction…like the obtuse German inquiring about the Three Stooges: “Vy do zey call him Cuhrley…he has no hair??
No friggin’ offense at all – just friggin’ wondering why? I can fuckin’ handle it! ALL IN GOOD FUN EVERYONE! I do like the word in jovial conversation but it was just kind of a shock for me at the time! All in good taste DA! … “I don’t see a strange creature outside on the wing Mr. Shatner.”
You want a reason for choosing a particular word, Zarabeth? Well here’s the sequence of events:
1) Al posted a comment that when he was young, Rollins “The Way You look Tonight” seemed unrecognizable as being the same song that Getz played.
2)I laughed knowing he was absolutely right. They’re not the same song ’cause SONNY NEVER PLAYS THE FUCKIN MELODY!!!
3) I was proud of the pop tune cennection. I’d never thought of it before nor heard it referenced…so I delivered the line with gusto.
4) Then the fuck police chimed in and I reacted the same way Charlie Christian reacted at a jam session when he turned his amp up to full volume…and Barney Kessel said “Charlie- why do you have to play so loud??”
Charlie reposnded “I like to hear myself”. An original thought can spark excitement in someone that causes them to “up the volume”
5) The part of the pop song by the way that steals Sonny and Monk’s alteration is: Sunny afternoons that made me feel so warm inside Have turned as cold and gray as ashes As I feel the embers die
…and if anyone can find a google reference that my observation didn’t warrant full volume, I’ll rewrite it without the adjective, Zarabeth.
DA: All good here man! I feel like the word has it’s place, it just surprised me is all. I like the way you used the color metaphor! It was strong in character and very correctly placed in syntax. It had emotion as well etc etc … I guess that’s why it surprised me so much!
On a different note and pertaning to our man, Sonny Rollins: I recently bought some SR lps in a collections and the SR +4 (prestige 7038) had a huge edge warp to it making it unplayable. It used to be records like this were just traded into record shops for whatever in trade or thrown out.
Well, I live in AZ and it’s really F@*^$% hot here! There is a way to take warps out of records using the old ZARABETH47 SECRET INTERPOLATING GALLACTIC DE-WARP-I-ZATION METHOD which is another topic all together and involves profuse sweating, kotexes, a car, and several gallons of Timothy’s bitter, & BTW, must be bonded/liscened & implemented by the chairman of Recreational Activity in the state of AZ only. (LOL!)
To make a long story short the first attempts proved no results as the record is a big thick heavy DG SOaB! Cheap 70s Columbia vinyl – a few hours-BING! A 50th St. Yellow label – NO WAY! Well, the method involves strategy in terms of THE HOTTEST DAYS OF THE YEAR IN AZ! So … I pick those, get the records doin it and … NOTHING! Day after Day …..NOTHING! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
So I give up at this point. Put the record in the trade pile and go on dreaming of all the other Rollins records I need (not want but NEED!) Well, thank god and as it’s really too hot to go record hunting here, yesterday, as I am skimming over the ol’ trade pile, hmmm …. that old NY yellow label stares me in the face and I say “one more time baby!” As it’s record heat index advisory time here I placed the old ZSIGDM into action. WOW!
Well, it’s not perfect and it does require a little bit of a grammage boost, BUT … it is fully playable now! Nice clean RVG sound! Oh yeah baby! Almost threw Sonny to the wolves!
Well I hope everyone enjoys this recent experience and, oh yeah, I’m still in the hospital from driving w/o AC but my doctor says I can go home tomorrow and listen to this baby once the hydration levels come back up! DA: you might find this appropriate – FUCK YEAH! LOL!
Z-
The word Kotex has such a vintage ring, that someone should start kotexcollecor.com. The site could also track prices of antique Midol bottles. Tampons would be included as well, but only the papyrus ones made in ancient Greece.
Regarding warpage, shellacs are a breeze compared with vinyl. Stick ’em in the oven till they’re malleable, put ’em between two pieces of glass and voila. Haven’t tried it myself, but I have a a 12″ Granz jam 78 deeply in need of this repair. The record features this weekend’s birthday boys- Bird and Pres, and the warp is so pronounced that Lester is warbling not like a meadowlark…but like Vido Musso!