Category: Features

A Tale of a Few Vocalists

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I was perusing a Web site called Jazz.com the other day. They’ve been picking up a few of my posts here and there and sending traffic my way, which I appreciate. Anyway, they pointed to another feature from another post somewhere else in which the great drummer Jimmy Cobb was asked to list his six favorite records. Anyway, there was Miles Birth of the Cool and, of course, Kind of Blue, on which Cobb played. Then there was an Oscar Peterson and, incredibly to me, a Wynton Marsalis. I won’t comment on that one. The two that struck me were the vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. This brought up a conversation I had with a friend last weekend. He had made the point that he believed there were three premium vocal stylists (in the jazz idiom, of course) in the 20th Century. They were:

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New Study Confirms The Truth: Jazz Fans Are Cool

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There’s this new study from the University of Cambridge that concludes that people make assumptions about other people based on their musical tastes. Classical music fans, for example, are expected to be dumb and boring. Rock fans: emotionally unstable. Who fares best in this study? Jazz fans, of course. We are regarded as imaginative, peace-loving individuals with friendly and outgoing natures. In other words, people think we’re cool. Sounds about right to me. Of course, if they really knew about the obsessive side of us jazz collectors, perhaps they might alter their view.

Does Jazz Really Need Saving?

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There was an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day entitled “Can Jazz Be Saved?” It cites a bunch of statistics showing that the audience for jazz in the U.S. is both dwindling and aging, which is not a good combination. It’s somewhat of a sad commentary on the state of the jazz scene in America, but it does ignore the other reality that jazz is still revered and treasured to a much greater degree in Europe and Asia. It also talks about jazz following the route of classical music, in the sense that it is now viewed a an art form of high culture. I thought it might be interesting to share with everyone. In a way, the article supports what we’re seeing in the jazz collectibles market — the belief that jazz is a high art form and its history should be cherished and preserved: Thus, the subsequent rise we’re witnessing in prices for the original artifacts.

JR Monterose In Action, Redux

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Got two notes recently from Jeff Barr, a long-time jazz writer, DJ, collector, producer and seller of rare vinyl. The first note was asking to inform my readers about his site, www.jazzrecordscene.com, which is worth checking out because there’s some very nice vinyl there. I’ve added a link to this site from Jazz Collector, so you can find it easily from the home page whenever you come to visit it, which we hope is quite often. Jeff also posted a comment giving some more history on the J. R. Monterose In Action LP that I wrote about last week. Here’s Jeff’s comment, which will also come up as a comment on the previous item:

“Peter Jacobson and Jeff Barr started VSOP in 1980 in Washington DC, where Barr was a jazz disc jockey and record seller, and Jacobson was on the staff of the Smithsonian as a legal consultant. The deal to acquire the license to reissue J. R. Monterose, on the Studio 4 label, was reached after contacting Jimmy Sota, the original producer of the LP. Jimmy was coming off a run of semi-successful low-budget spaghetti westerns in Italian with subtitles, and was glad to let us have the deal…we paid $1750.00 to get the rights and the tape, and, oh by the way, two boxes of unused originals…which in 1980

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Win A Free Collectible: Blue Note Cover Art

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OK, we’ve been putting up some interesting posts, but we’re not getting all that many comments these days, aside from Michel and Rudolf and a few of our other consistent (and always compelling) contributors. That means it must be time to give away another free collectible.

So, here it is, a new free giveaway contest from Jazz Collector, and it’s a Blue Note (no not an original copy of Candy by Lee Morgan, or even a second pressing of Newk’s Time by Sonny Rollins). It is (drum roll, please):

BLUE NOTE: THE ALBUM COVER ART

This is a 128-book of album cover art from the Blue Note catalogue, first published in 1991 by Chronicle Books. It features page after page of classic Blue Note covers from the 1950s and 1960s, featuring so many of the great designs by Reid Miles and photos by Francis Wolff. The book also includes a foreward by Horace Silver, which I will present in a separate post later in the week. 

Best of all, the book will be given away FREE to one lucky reader of Jazz Collector. To be eligible to win all you have to do is

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Why Do We Collect?

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Ye ask, and ye shall receive. Bethellodge asks on another post that we start a conversation on the topic: “Why do we collect?” 

Here’s my story: I started out, probably like most of us, loving the music for the music’s sake. I remember the sound of jazz in my living room, from my father’s collection, and listening to John Coltrane in between classes at Queens College, and going back and discovering Bird and Dexter and Sonny and Clifford and Ella and so many of my heroes. The albums I found early in my searches are so often among my favorites and the albums I put on the turntable most often. Last night I had a half hour to kill and put on Oscar Peterson, West Side Story. It was like getting together with an old friend. In the beginning it was just about the music: Who cared if a pressing was original, as long as I could listen to the music? At some point, however, it became about more than the music, about finding the original pressing and building a collection. In my case, I know part of it is– and always has been — the thrill

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Mrs. JC Sounds Off

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Mrs JC, Incognito

Mrs JC, Incognito

We turn the post over to Mrs. Jazz Collector:

 “I really have just one question: Are you all as crazy as my husband?

When our kids were growing up, every family vacation we would drive around looking for record stores. In Boston, LA, San Francisco, Toronto, London – wherever – we’d search for record stores, Al would run in and leave us sitting in the car, no matter what the neighborhood. He’d go away on business trips and come back loaded with records. One time he went to Chicago and bought 300 78s and had to buy an extra piece of luggage just to lug them home.

Where we live is always a function of whether there is room for Al’s records. We bought one house because it had a huge living room with high ceilings. Al had floor-to-ceiling cabinets built, with a rolling 

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Free Advice For eBay Sellers

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From the archives:

Here’s advice I gave recently to someone looking to sell jazz records on eBay:

1.     Buy a professional record cleaner and clean every record before you grade it and sell it.

2.     Grade your records accurately/conservatively. You want to develop a good reputation and leave your customers satisfied so they’ll feel confident buying more from you.

3.     Have a no-questions-asked return policy. If someone is not happy, pay to have the record shipped back and refund his money. If a buyer is consistently unhappy, politely stop doing business with him.

4.     When you ship records, package them professionally and carefully and don’t scrimp on using high-end boxes and packing material.

5.      Be accurate in your descriptions and include as much information as possible. Learn about the details that are important to buyers, such as the address on labels, colors of labels, distinguishing characteristics such as the deep groove and anything else that will make your listings clear and informative. Include the label and number. Try not to be too wordy: English may not be the first language of many buyers, so keep your listings concise and uncomplicated.

6.     Get a good camera and take clear pictures, showing as much detail as possible.

What do you think? Do you have any other advice for sellers of jazz records on eBay? 

Another From the Archives: A JATP Jazz Bash

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Here’s another item we found of interest from our Downbeat collection. It’s a review by D. Leon Wolf in the Nov. 18, 1946 issue of Downbeat. The headline: Granz Bash a Caricature on Jazz: Everything Bad in Jazz Found Here.” Here’s how the article starts off: “Of all the wretched music ever inflicted upon this earnest devotee of le jazz hot, nothing, I regret to say, has yet to equal Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic concert the night of Oct. 24. Everything that is rotten in contemporary hazz was to be found in this musical catastrophe.” 

Wolf’s view of some of the musicians:  Illinois Jacquet: “The lousiest tenor in the country making over $50 a week, barring none.” Rex Stewart: “Granz, if he had the guts, should have yanked him off the stage during his second number, the most sickening and Read more

Bird And Diz And Downbeat, 1946, 1947

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In addition to vinyl, I collect jazz books, magazines and other ephemera. Once in a while I go through my old copies of Downbeat. Here’s something I pulled a few years ago:

The Dec. 16, 1946 Downbeat offers a prime example of the divergent fortunes of the two leaders of the be-bop movement. On the front page there is a picture of Dizzy Gillespie having fun and joking around. On page six, at the top of the page, there’s a small article with the headline: “Parker Fund Does Fine at L.A. Benefit.” It was a four-paragraph item, noting that a benefit for Charlie Parker in Los Angeles raised a total of $500.86. The purpose of the money: “To assist Parker, upon his release from a sanitarium, to secure instruments, clothes and what Read more

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