Out of the Blue and Landslide were replacements for records that I had let slip through my fingertips over the years. I had an original mint pressing of Out of the Blue that I bought for $5 maybe 40 years ago – and immediately traded for a record that was not equal in value. It has been a hole in my collection ever since. With Landslide, I had one of those Liberty pressings with the white cover, and I just never took to those pressings and wound up selling most of them when I pared down my collection a few years ago.

I figured I could replace those records and check out the Tone Poet Series and also share my observations here, killing a few birds with two purchases of about $39 for Landslide and $28 for Out of the Blue. The records arrived in the mail with promotional material on the outside promising wonderful things once opened: “Cut Directly from The Original Analog Tapes; Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder; Reissue Supervised by Joe Harley; Mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio; Manufactured at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) on 180 Gram Vinyl.”

I quite like the packaging on the Tone Poet Series. These two records have slick gatefold covers. On the inside are Francis Wolff photos from the original sessions. The covers are the “originals,” although there was no real original pressing of Landslide since it was not released at the time it was recorded. Both records have the original liner notes on the back, Landslide being from the 1980 issue. I’m not an audiophile by any notion, although I have a great system, and to my ears these pressings sound great. If I was starting out as a collector today and couldn’t afford original pressings of Blue Notes – who can? – I’d certainly be pleased with these pressings.

Same goes for the two records I bought that were part of the Classic Vinyl Series, Roll Call and Serenade to a Soul Sister. I never had an original pressing of Roll Call – although I think I’ve just fixed that with a new purchase (more to come later). I had a copy of Serenade to a Soul Sister, but it wasn’t in great shape and I sold it a few years back hoping to replace it. As with the Tone Poet Series, this reissue is a suitable replacement. It has the original packaging, cover, liner notes, and it sounds good to these ears. The promo on the cover speaks to it: “Audiophile Vinyl Reissues from the Finest in Jazz Since 1939. Mastered from The original Analog Tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio; 180 Gram Vinyl.”

Finally, the promo on the shrink wrap of the Horace Silver discovery tells a it all:

“Previously unissued fiery live sets with powerhouse Horace Silver Band in 1965. Deluxe 180-gram LP transferred from the original tapes and mastered by Matthew Luthans. Stunning broadcast quality recording captured 60 years ago! Liner notes by jazz scholar Bob Blumenthal, and statements by Roger Humphries, Randy Brecker, Alvin Queen and Sullivan Fortner.”

Fiery and powerhouse. Quite a combination. Quite a package as well. In addition to the record, there is a 16-page booklet with all of those liner notes described above. It is a great set and it is well recorded, so if you’re a Horace Silver fan, I would definitely recommend it. It’s the quintet that featured Silver on piano, Woody Shaw on trumpet, Joe Henderson on tenor, Teddy Smith on bass and Roger Humphries on drums.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has dipped a few toes into these new waters, so if any of the regular readers and commenters are out there, I would definitely be interested in hearing your opinions.

The post Old and New Vinyl, Blue Note Style first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]> https://jazzcollector.com/blue-note/old-and-new-vinyl-blue-note-style/feed/ 2 9945 https://jazzcollector.com/features/more-live-jazz-isaiah-j-thompson/ https://jazzcollector.com/features/more-live-jazz-isaiah-j-thompson/#respond Sun, 07 Dec 2025 15:12:31 +0000 https://jazzcollector.com/?p=9782 I saw a terrific jazz concert the other night here in The Berkshires. The pianist Isaiah. J. Thompson led a quartet playing holiday music, including [...]

I saw a terrific jazz concert the other night here in The Berkshires. The pianist Isaiah. J. Thompson led a quartet playing holiday music, including a familiar batch of songs written by Vince Guaraldi for the “Peanuts” series. I became aware of Thompson during the past few years when he appeared here in Great Barrington with the guitarist/vocalist/raconteur John Pizzarelli. I was extremely impressed with his playing. He has really strong technique and, even better, he really swings. When I saw that he would be appearing with his own group at a relatively new venue in Great Barrington, I got tickets immediately.

For some reason, I was expecting a trio, but it was a quartet featuring Thompson on piano; Julian Lee on tenor sax; Matthew lee on drums, and Sebastian Rios on bass. These are all relatively young jazz musicians and they can all really play. The set featured mostly Guaraldi’s holiday classics, including Linus and Lucy, Skating, Christmas Time is Here, Thanksgiving Theme, and others. There were also some standards, such as White Christmas, Let it Snow, and What are You Doing New Year’s Eve.

As I said, Thompson has great technique and really swings. I heard a lot of Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver, and Bobby Timmons in his playing. I overheard him talking to an aspiring young pianist after the show, and he also mentioned Phineas Newborn Jr., which you could hear in the way he used both hands, as well as an occasional emphasis of using his left hand to solo.  As I said, terrific stuff.

Lee on tenor was also a revelation. He is a straight-ahead player who swings. If I were to cite any influences that I noticed, Dexter Gordon was one that comes to mind, and, as most of you know my taste in music, that is high praise indeed. The Dexter influence, to me, was most pronounced on the ballad What Are you Doing New Year’s Eve. Lee on drums and Rios on bass kept the band swinging all set and had a great rapport with one another and with Thompson and Julian Lee.

After the set, Thompson was in the lobby selling and signing copies of the CD A Guaraldi Holiday. I bought a copy and spoke to him briefly. I don’t think he had heard of the Jazz Collector web site, but maybe he’ll find us now. The great thing for me is that now I have a new CD to play on my upcoming Christmas radio show for WTBR-FM, live on the air Dec. 21, followed up here at Jazz Collector with the podcast thereafter. I just listened to the CD and it is excellent. Here’s a sample from YouTube: Linus and Lucy.

A couple of other things about the concert. The new venue, called the Indigo Room, is terrific for jazz. It is affiliated with the larger Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA., which is next door and where John Pizzarelli will be appearing on Dec. 20, with Mr. Thompson backing him on piano. The club is set in an old firehouse and it easily held about 100 people for the concert. Acoustics were excellent, as were the sight lines. I hope they are able to bring more jazz here.

The other thing that impressed me was the enthusiasm and knowledge of the audience. Whenever I looked around the people were bopping and smiling, and based on the reaction to the music, it was clear they had a strong affinity and appreciation for jazz. It made me think that perhaps I should be doing more in the community to promote my radio show and perhaps even expand the show. We’ll see.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for Isaiah. J. Thompson. He is a young pianist who plays in a style that most of you here at Jazz Collector will appreciate. I took a quick look at his web site, and he will be playing with Pizzarelli in Boston Dec. 19, and with the Guaraldi set in Vail, Co., on Dec. 22.

Here’s another pictured taken by my wife, the Lovely Mrs. JC.  She wanted to share it.

The post More Live Jazz: Isaiah J. Thompson first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]> https://jazzcollector.com/features/more-live-jazz-isaiah-j-thompson/feed/ 0 9782 https://jazzcollector.com/features/live-jazz-with-a-classical-touch/ https://jazzcollector.com/features/live-jazz-with-a-classical-touch/#respond Sun, 30 Nov 2025 14:17:19 +0000 https://jazzcollector.com/?p=9767 I saw an excellent jazz concert the other night here in my amazing community of The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. It was the Ted Rosenthal [...]

The post Live Jazz, With A Classical Touch first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]> I saw an excellent jazz concert the other night here in my amazing community of The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. It was the Ted Rosenthal Trio with Special Guests. The trio being Ted Rosenthal on piano, Noriko Ueda on bass, and Quincy Davis on drums. The special guests being Anat Cohen on clarinet and Sara Caswell on violin. The theme of the concert was “Classics Reimagined.” It featured a number of pieces by classical composers such as Chopin, Dvorak, Beethoven, Satie, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and others reimagined, arranged, and performed as jazz pieces. I know very little about classical music, but I know a lot about jazz and, to me, each of the pieces sounded as if it could have come out of a standard jazz songbook. They closed the set with a Tchaikovsky piece that echoed Diz and Bird right out of the bebop era. There were also beautiful ballads, such as a duet by Rosenthal and Cohen on a Chopin piece called Waltz in E-Flat. Anyway, the trio travels all over the world, so if you ever get a chance to see them, I recommend them highly. Also, if you’re interested in hearing the music, it is available on CD and perhaps other formats under the title Ted Rosenthal Trio, Classics Reimagined: improp2. I walked out of the concert with a copy of the CD. Actually a couple of CDs, as well as a video clip I was graciously allowed to record and subsequently post on YouTube. If you want to listen, here it is: Ted Rosenthal Trio With Guests, Linde Center, Tanglewood, Nov. 28, 2025, Classics Reimagined.

I started this post with a reference to my amazing community here in The Berkshires. Given the size of our county and the fact that it is somewhat rural and not attached as a burb of any major city, it is astounding the amount of great music we get here — not to mention theater and art. Of course, we have Tanglewood, which is the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra as well as a venue where many popular artists perform regularly. From a jazz standpoint alone, I’ve seen artists such as Sonny Rollins, Roy Haynes, The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and many others at Tanglewood. And I see James Taylor here every year, of course.

The concert the other night was held at a relatively new venue called the Linde Center for Music and Learning, and it is on the Tanglewood campus. It is a great setting for jazz: Rosenthal said he and his fellow musicians the other night described it as “perfect.” Great acoustics, all seats have a great view, and a surprisingly intimate atmosphere for a venue that probably has a capacity for 300 or so people.

In the next few weeks, I am seeing separate concerts by pianist Isaiah J. Thompson and guitarist John Pizzarelli at another gorgeous venue called the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA. It’s funny, because I also spend some time in New York City, but I tend to see more live jazz here in the Berkshires. I used to be glib about it when people asked me if I see a lot of live jazz. My standard answer was: “Not anymore — anybody I would want to see is dead.”

Fortunately, that was never really true and is even less apt today. In any case, since I’m using my forum here at Jazz Collector to talk about live jazz, please feel free at any time to post your own recent experiences, either as a comment or, if you really want to get creative, send an email to me alatjazzcollectordotcom.

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I am not going to reveal the Top Ten list here in this post, but, instead, will wait until I do the actual radio show/podcast, which means I have to figure out the best way to bring the music into the studio. Here is how I’m progressing on that. I realize I have in my collection Japanese versions of Art Blakey Blue Note 4003 and Reddie Redd, Shades of Redd, Blue Note 4045. As for Dexter Gordon Our Man in Paris, Donald Byrd A New Perspective, Art Blakey Buhaina’s Delight, and anything by Horace Silver, I’ve already brought them into the studio and nothing happened, so I’ll be comfortable with them.

John Coltrane Blue Train, I’m not so sure. Maybe a CD, to be on the safe side. Perhaps CDs or alternate versions for a few others  as well. For example, if I were to include anything by Tina Brooks, I have the Mosaic boxed set on vinyl.

In case I go for Sonny Clark, I just ordered The Complete Sonny Clark Blue Note Sessions on Mosaic. It was unavailable for a while and recently made available again. I have no idea how that works, but it’s not an issue for me to worry about.

The Sonny Clark is a CD set. I figure it’s a good one to have in case I ever want to bring any Sonny Clark recordings into the studio for the radio show or if I ever fall into an irreversible coma and my family wants to sell my original copies. Of course, I’d rather them pull the plug on me before selling my original Sonny Clark LPs, but at that point I’ll be in no condition to make any demands. Once the Sonny Clark CD set arrives in the mail, I’ll be able to do the show. Whilst we wait, you are all free to speculate and to include your own lists as well.

First was the AI overview. It started out like this: “A list of ten favorite Blue Note records can be compiled from various jazz enthusiast lists, such as one from HifiZine, which includes titles like Wayne Shorter’s Adams Apple and Horace Silver’s “Cape Verdean Blues.”

OK, fair enough.

Here’s the next sentence: “Another source, jazzcollector.com, presents additional favorites, often highlighting specific artists and albums based on expert recommendations.”

All right. I feel like I made it to the big time. AI and all that. Right at the top.

Not only that, there was a link in the AI overview to a Jazz Collector article from February 2010. I’d forgotten about the article completely. Even better, the very first reference sited in the Google search was that very same article from February 2010, titled “More Blue Note Favorites, Courtesy of Downbeat.” And If you click on the link, as I did and as you should do as well, you will find the article describing a Downbeat issue from March of 2009.

While I had the general gist right, the premise was a bit off: It wasn’t a list of my TEN favorite Blue Notes, it was a list of MY FAVORITE BLUE NOTE ALBUM. As you will see if you clink the link, they asked a bunch of jazz musicians. Fascinating replies, with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Horace Silver leading the way. In that post, I was the one who corrupted the concept by listing my seven “Finalists” for my favorite Blue Note, but not necessarily making a decision on a single one. There are also 13 comments on the post. And perhaps we will get more comments here, if anybody is still watching.

Anyway, that solves one of my challenges in doing the show on my 10 Favorite Blue Notes. I’m make progress on solving the other challenges as well and I hope to be doing the show on the radio in the next few weeks. How am I resolving those challenges? Choosing the 10 records and playing them in the studio?

Stay tuned.

A few weeks ago, on the radio show I was playing tracks from the album John Coltrane Ballads, Impulse 32. I brought the vinyl into the studio, but I wanted to have backup, so I also brought in the Deluxe edition CD set. As I was doing the show, I noticed that the CD set has a previously unreleased duet version of They Say It’s Wonderful, the Irving Berlin song, featuring just a duet by Trane and McCoy Tyner. It’s a wonderful track and amazing that it was sitting in a vault for 40 years. I provided a link to it on YouTube.

Anyway, it gave me an idea to do a whole show on duets, starting with that track. The next one I thought of was Sonny Rollins and Philly Joe Jones, Surrey With the Fringe on Top from New’s Time, Blue Note 4001. Then I did what I normally do to prepare a show, I started going through my records. I have my records loosely organized in three categories: Instrumentals pre-1970s, instrumentals 1970 and later, vocals. There are various sub-categories because, like many of you I’m sure, I love to organize and reorganize, probably a little too obsessively.

Anyway, I started going through the 1970s and later records and I pulled out more than 30 records of various types: The five duet albums Oscar Peterson did with trumpet players, Zoot and Bucky, George Shearing and Hank Jones, Art Pepper and George Cables. You get the drift. At that point, I knew I had several shows and I never even bothered to go through the more collectible records from pre-1970. But based on this strictly anecdotal research, it seems to me that duet albums and tracks become more of a thing later on in the jazz vinyl era.

So here’s the thing: If you can think of any good duet albums or tracks, please comment here. If I have them in my collection, I’ll see if I can use them on the show. As I said, I’ve already pulled out more than 30 records, so I’m sure we’ll have some duplication. But I thought it would be a fun project to share here at Jazz Collector if any of my former regular readers and commenters are still around. In any case, I’ll try to be doing more regular posts for a while, so perhaps we’ll build up a regular following once again.

A reader writes that he recently  found a series of Jazz Review magazines at an estate sale. Most of these seem to be from the late 1950s and early 1960s. He’s been selling them on eBay, but if anyone is interested they can contact me and perhaps get access to some of them before they are offered to the general public. This is one of the listings that has already sold: The Jazz Review.

There will be a New Jersey Record Bash this year, June 19-June 21 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Edison, New Jersey. I used to attend this even fairly regularly, sometimes as a vendor, sometimes as an attendee, always as a buyer. It was always a good event, but I haven’t been in years. You can get details at their site 49^th Annual Jazz Record Collectors’ Bash.

Speaking of record shows, the WFMU Record fair is back in New York this year, Nov. 8 and 9 at the Metropolitan Pavilion. That was always one of the best shows around, so I’m planning to be in New York for that one, strictly as a buyer. Not looking to sell anything . . . yet.

I’m on the mailing list for Craft Recordings and they recently sent me a press release announcing reissues of six albums that are being released on vinyl in the next few weeks. They are Bill Evans, Interplay; Bill Evans Moon Beams; Here’s Lee Morgan; Introducing Wayne Shorter; Benny Golson, Gone With Golson; and Looking Ahead with Ken McIntyre and Eric Dolphy. These are part of the Original Jazz Classics collection. When the OJCs first came out on Fantasy in the early 1980s, I was not a huge fan. Didn’t like the soft vinyl and soft covers. Hey, I’m a collector of original pressings. I bought some for the music, but always tried to replace them with originals. What’s the verdict on the current crop of OJCs? Maybe I’ll pick one up, just to report back to you all. I sold or traded my original copy of the McIntyre/Dolphy record, so that’s a possibility. I’ll also take a gander at the rest of the series.

This one is about two months old, so it may no longer be relevant, but someone sent me a list of CDs she is trying to sell. Lots of Bird, Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, Miles, Clifford Brown, Sarah Vaughan, Lee Morgan, etc. As I said, she may have gotten rid of them already, but if anyone is interested, I can try reaching out to her. Just send me an email.

Someone posed this question to me: “Do you know anything about Jell Records in Newark, NJ? In the 1960s Jimmy McGriff released a Christmas LP.” My answer was no, I do not. Anyone out there?

This one is very old, sent to me about a year ago. I put in a file and forgot about it, until now. Perhaps it is still relevant, perhaps not: I own “das Chet -Baker-Buch” an illustrated portrait by Herbert Joos. Bonz Edition Number One. 039/100 1990 Herbert Joos/Bonz Verlag. Printed in Germany. Any information about how much the book is worth and any collectors out there who would be interested in buying. I also have several Chet Baker vinyl records and CDs. Many thanks for any info and kind regards.”

Another one I know nothing about: Hello:  “I’m looking for the two 45s and two 78s that Beverly Kenney recorded but these songs never appeared on albums.  Any ideas or clues?”

Now that I’ve opened the inbox, I realized I was also opening up a can of worms for myself. I still have more than a dozen old emails to go through, dating back a couple of years. If I find anything interesting, and still relevant, I’ll post it one of these days. Sorry to anyone who sent me an email, expecting it to be posted on JazzCollector.com, and did not see it.

Finally, our friend Stuart Levine, who just wrote the post about Blue Note Gold in Tokyo, reports that he is looking to obtain a First Stereo, black label Riverside pressing of Bill Evans Sunday Night at the Vanguard. So if anyone can help, you know where to find me. I wouldn’t mind a black label stereo original myself. As it is, when I listen to Sunday Night at the Vanguard, I typically listen on my Japanese pressing.

By Stuart Levine

I recently attended a big jazz vinyl record sale held by “Jazz Tokyo,” the flagship store of Japan’s Disk Union retail chain. They do this twice a year during Golden Week, a holiday in Japan, and again at the end of the year. The store had accumulated hundreds of used Blue Notes, putting many on the wall but most in the racks. Gems were at hand and serious crate digging commenced upon the store opening at 11:00 am. My friend, Charles Pearlman, who is the eBay seller known as “Strictly Headies,” flew out from Portland, Oregon. Together, we dug and came away with some impressive titles, two of which were Mobley 1568 and 1550. As for the condition, I’d say 1568 VG+/VG+ and 1550 NM-/NM-

I do believe luck played a part in our successful day there at Jazz Tokyo. You see, I had carried with me a paper fortune earlier acquired from a visit to a Shinto shrine in the neighborhood where I live in Japan. As Charlie and I waited among many others outside the store for it to open, we received random numbers, giving us our positions in line. I got #8 and he #15. Well, since he had traveled such a long distance, I just had to give him my lower number, right? Suffice to say, his favorable position and digging prowess got him the two Mobleys.

But I would be remiss not to mention a box of records Charlie bought on another day from a private collector. There was a pristine stereo Waltz for Debby, Saxophone Colossus with a turquoise-tinted cover (first?) and Jackie McLean’s the New Tradition on Ad Lib. You know the one – with that gorgeous cover.  And clean! Charlie says, “It plays quiet as a mouse pissin’ on cotton.” Damn if they don’t have the records in Japan.

Normally, I wouldn’t get overly excited about CDs and I wouldn’t go too far out of my way for them. But it just so happened I was planning to drive through White Plains just a few days after receiving this missive. I wrote back, mentioned that I would be in White Plains and said that I would be happy to take the CD collection and either keep it, donate it, or use it on my radio show/podcast. The sender wrote back that his brother had been collecting for at least 30 years and “I could not even think of dumping it.”

My reply: “As I mentioned, I’m very happy to take the CDs and find a home for them. However, you would also have the option of selling them to a local record store if there is one in the area. Depending on the CDs, you might be able to get $500 or more for them, so you wouldn’t have to just dump them.”

His reply: “I have 4 cases of about 60 to 70 each and 4 cardboard boxes with 150 + in each. I never considered selling. All I want is that you mention in your blog they he loved the music and is now giving his 30 + year collection to those like him.”

So, the next day I drove down to White Plains, knocked on the door, and there in the living room were the four cases and large boxes all filled to the brim with CDs. The CDs were in a variety of states: Many were in their original jewel case packages with liner notes, etc., as you would find in a store. There were probably 200 to 300 like that. There were also a few hundred CDs that were in jewel cases without the original liner notes or packaging.

The largest percentage of CDs were mixed tapes that the owner made himself. Each of these was carefully curated with the artists’ name and the tracks. Clearly the owner had spent a ton of time organizing this and taking a great joy out of his collection and the music. Some of these mix tapes were in their own jewel cases, and many were in these six-player CD magazines that would go directly into a CD player.

Anyway, we loaded the entire collection into the trunk of my car, filling pretty much all of the space, and I drove off with 1,000 CDs that I had no idea what to do with. I was heading to my niece and nephew’s house for a family gathering the next day, and I left the CDs in the car, hoping perhaps, that some family members may be interested. At this point, I had barely even looked at the CDs to see what was there. The general reaction from my family members was this: “CDs? Hah! How quaint.”

No interest there.

When I got home I unloaded the boxes and cases from my car and brought it all into the house. I have a lot of CDs, but I don’t actually collect them. And I rarely listen to them. But I have been using some on my radio show/podcast, so that was perhaps an opportunity. In fact, I’ve just used a Charlie Parker boxed CD set for some of the recent shows I did on Bird. Beyond that, I had promised the owner’s brother that I would try to find a home (or several homes) for the CDs, and I would try to do that.

Thus began the rather painstaking task of going through every CD and deciding what to do with it. The first part was relatively easy, and that was going through the original CDs that were still in their jewelry cases. I will say that the owner had an interesting mix of music. Clearly some of his favorites coincided with some of mine. There were lots of Bill Evans and Sonny Rollins, Chet  Baker, Monk, Miles Davis, Brubeck and more. I decided I would keep these, even if I had my own copies. I felt like I was the curator of a collection that the owner clearly treasured, and I would always know that these CDs came from someone who loved them. All in all, I kept about 100 CDs and they are now sitting on a shelf behind me as I type this.

Next. The CDs in jewel cases I decided not to keep were artists that didn’t appeal to me. Grover Washington Jr. was one, Willis Jackson was another, and there were also rock and pop CDs that were not in my sweet spot. I did think about offering these up on Jazz Collector but, at the time, I was really busy with my life and, frankly, didn’t want to go through the hassle of listing them, packing them, mailing them, etc., etc. If you are reading this and disappointed with that decision, I apologize.

I have a good relationship with the owner of one of the record stores in my general area, Spike’s Record Rack in Catskill New York.  I know Spike sells CDs, so I called him and he said to stop in. He wasn’t interested in the mix tapes, but he was interested in some of the CDs, so I exchanged them for a store credit and picked up a few Beatles collectibles that I will always remember came to me as a result of the CD collection I accidentally inherited in White Plains New York. Looking for some good karma here.

The mix tapes – should I call them mix CDs? – were a separate issue because they were very particular to this one man’s taste. I painstakingly went through all of the magazines to see what was there, take them out, and organize them. I bought a couple of 200-capabity CD folders to hold them, so any interested party could go through them. The radio station wasn’t interested. But in my local community we have a couple of places where they could go to find a home, or several homes.

At our town dump, which we euphemistically call “the transfer station,” there is a small building affectionately called “the swap shop” where people drop off stuff they don’t need and other people in the community can just pick it up free.  The swap ship is often used by the residents of a neighboring facility that caters to individuals, mostly young adults, suffering from mental health issues and/or drug-related issues. These residents often use the swap shop for books, music and other things – for example, in the past I’ve donated a guitar, blackboard and other items. I’ve also picked up lots of good stuff from the swap shop, including, incredibly, a bunch of original Mosaic boxed CD sets. I wrote about this score on Jazz Collector 10 years ago, almost too the current day. More good Karma for me, and for the owner of the CD collection. The next day, I went back to check out the mix tapes. They were all gone, hopefully finding homes or a home where they will  be appreciated.

So, I eventually found homes for all of the CDs, fulfilling the commitment I made to the man’s brother.  There was also this commitment: “All I want is that you mention in your blog that he loved the music and is now giving his 30 + year collection to those like him.”

In one of the CD boxes was the following note written on a small memo pad from St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital:

“John R Brooks

Bridgeport CT

Tax lawyer – 25 years

IRS tax law instructor 6 years

Single. Died at age 77”

I can add that John loved jazz, clearly knew his stuff, and had a real passion for both the music and the joy of collecting.  And, among other things, he had a loving brother. Rest in peace.

The post Another mini-adventure in Jazz Collecting first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]> https://jazzcollector.com/features/another-mini-adventure-in-jazz-collecting/feed/ 5 9619 https://jazzcollector.com/blue-note/the-artificial-intelligence-version-of-jazzcollector-com/ https://jazzcollector.com/blue-note/the-artificial-intelligence-version-of-jazzcollector-com/#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:39:02 +0000 https://jazzcollector.com/?p=9350 Have any of you tried ChatGPT for artificial intelligence? I have been using it for a work project, and it’s been a pretty fascinating experience. [...]

Have any of you tried ChatGPT for artificial intelligence? I have been using it for a work project, and it’s been a pretty fascinating experience. I can see that the type of work of been doing for the past 16 years, basically writing about the convergence of business and technology, will likely be almost completely taken over by AI within the next few years.  I am using ChatGPT 4, which is the most sophisticated version. I am bringing that up because my system stopped responding for a few minutes this morning, so to get it restarted, I typed in a topic I know quite a bit about: Jazz Collector. I asked two questions: What can you tell me about JazzCollector.com? Who is the main person responsible for JazzCollector.com. The response came back in less than one minute. I thought you might all be interested, below. BTW, the picture accompanying this article has nothing to do with the article. Just thought I’d post a picture of one of my favorite covers, so as not to mess up the format. Anyway, here’s what artificial intelligence has to say about Jazz Collector and me:

“JazzCollector.com is a website dedicated to the world of jazz music, particularly focusing on jazz record collecting. It offers various features such as recent posts, podcasts, and comments from its community of jazz enthusiasts. The site regularly updates with content like “Podcast: Jazz Standards Playlist,” “Catching Up on Some High-End Blue Note Vinyl,” and other topics related to jazz vinyl collecting.

“The website also features links to other jazz-related resources, including All About Jazz, All Music Guide, Blue Note Discography, and several others, offering a comprehensive web of information for jazz fans and collectors.

“One of the key aspects highlighted on the website is how the internet has revolutionized jazz collecting. It discusses the dynamics of buying and selling in the digital age, noting how the internet has democratized information flow and connected buyers and sellers globally. This change has significantly impacted both buyers, who now have a vast selection at their fingertips, and sellers, who can reach a worldwide audience. This shift in dynamics is crucial for understanding current trends in jazz record collecting.

“Additionally, the site explores the experiences of collectors and their adventures in acquiring jazz records, such as the pursuit of original Blue Note pressings. These personal stories provide insights into the nuances and excitement of jazz record collecting, showcasing the passion and dedication of those involved in this community.

“Overall, JazzCollector.com serves as a valuable resource for those interested in jazz music and vinyl record collecting, offering a blend of practical information, personal experiences, and a connection to the wider jazz community.

“The main person responsible for JazzCollector.com is Al Perlman. He is known for his extensive knowledge and passion for jazz music, particularly in the realm of vinyl record collecting. Perlman has been recognized for his insights into the Blue Note collectors’ market and the factors contributing to the popularity and value of these records. His expertise and contributions to the jazz collecting community are well-regarded, especially in understanding the nuances that make certain jazz records, like those from Blue Note, highly sought after by collectors.

“For more detailed information and insights from Al Perlman and his work with JazzCollector.com, you can explore the website itself and related resources in the field of jazz record collecting.”

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