Watching, And Appreciating, 10-Inch Jazz Vinyl

I have my eye on a couple of 10-inch LPs today, not that I’m interested in buying them, just interested to see if they’ll sell: Fats Navarro Memorial Album, Blue Note 5004. This is an original pressing, but you have to love the seller’s listing of 161 Lexington Ave. as opposed to 767 Lexington Ave. That early script was tough to read, I guess. This one is listed in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover and it has a start price of about $160. It closes early tomorrow and so far there are no bidders. From the same seller is Jay Jay Johnson, Blue Note 5028. This one is also in VG+ condition, is also closing early tomorrow, is also priced at about $160 and is also without any bidders. We’ll see. I think part of my interest in the 10-inchers is because this week I finally got my 10-inch LPs and my 78s out of storage. It was not a simple process and required deep negotiations with

The Lovely Mrs. JC, but I was able to find a nook in my new country house where there was empty space and where The Lovely Mrs. JC didn’t object to a couple of small record cabinets. Of course, The Lovely Mrs. JC hasn’t actually seen the records or the cabinets yet, so we don’t know what verdict she will eventually render. For the time being, at least, my 10-inch records are all out, all on display and all ready to be placed on a turntable. The two records above are both in my collection and, perhaps, will get a listen next time. As we’ve noted many times, one of the great things about the 10-inchers is that they are so clearly of a certain era. To my knowledge, the record companies pretty much stopped making 10-inch LPs by 1956, so you have a small window of 1950 to 1955 when these beauties were sitting on the shelves of record stores. A lot of the early 10-inch LPs were reissues of material first available on 78s — such as the two records above — but, to me, that doesn’t diminish anything about them.