Category: Features

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

Heroes: Musicians and Their Influences

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From our our archives, here’s an interesting item from June 18, 2004.

If you’re looking for a good read, pick up the July issue of Downbeat. It’s being promoted as the “70th Anniversary Collector’s Edition” and the focus is a feature called “Our Heroes” in which more than 70 musicians talk about their primary influences. Here are a few highlights:

 Sonny Rollins on Coleman Hawkins: “I first saw him play on 52nd Street. I used to put eyebrow pencil on my lip to make a fake mustache so I could get in. We’d stand in the back, and it was like looking at a god playing.”

 Joe Zawinul on Art Tatum: “He always sounded like two piano players. The story goes like this:

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The Blue Note Story

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So the other day I was reorganizing my records, which I do every couple of months, and I took out an old Sidney Bechet record on Blue Note and inside the sleeve found this great little pamphlet, called The Blue Note Story. It’s a four-pager on a coated paper and it clearly dates from 1955 — it talks about Blue Note starting in 1939 — 16 years ago. It is written by Leonard Feather and measures 8-1/2 inches high by 5-1/2 inches wide, which is basically a standard 8-1/2-by-11 sheet folded in half. I will post the entire contents of this pamphlet momentarily. How this rates as I collectible, I have no idea. I do know that, in my view, it’s a helluva a lot more interesting than the Bechet record. I must have three or four dozen Lexington Avenue Blue Notes in my collection — including 10-inch and 12-inch LPs — and I’ve never found this pamphlet in any of the others.

So here’s what it says:

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And The Winner Is (Part 2) . . .

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Yes, Barack Obama. YAY!!!!!! Not quite as important, we do have a winner of our latest record give-away. Early this morning we asked our lovely bride, Mrs. Jazz Collector, to pick from the seven names who entered our contest to give away the record, Wayne Shorter, Adam’s Apple, Blue Note 84232. And the name she picked — Michael Haensch. So Michael if you’re out there, you can send an email to me at al(at)jazzcollector.com with your mailing address and contact information, and we’ll send you the Wayne Shorter LP. We’ll be posting another item in the next day or two giving away yet another record. Why? Why not? Stay tuned.

What Happened at the WFMU Record Fair?

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Sorry we haven’t posted in a few days. We sold some records at the WFMU Record Fair on Friday. There were good crowds, maybe about 3 percent were interested in jazz, and, from what we sold, the bulk went to a couple of dealers, one from Japan, the other from Belgium. In walking around, we didn’t see a great deal of high-end collectibles — we didn’t bring any from Jazz Collector.  Most dealers save those for eBay these days. We did see Joe from Euclid Records and he apparently had a few high-end Blue Notes, including Cliff Jordan Blowing in From Chicago, Blue Note 1549, and one of the early Lee Morgans.  Joe, if you read this, let us know how you did. Also, we see that Jason Sweet, one of our other readers, commented elsewhere, so if you were there and would like to share your impressions, please feel free to comment on this post.

See You At the Fair?

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Sorry we haven’t been posting the past couple of days. We’ve been buried in our basement, cleaning and pricing records for this weekend’s WFMU Record Fair, which begins on Friday and runs through Sunday. Click here for details.  Jazz Collector has a table on Friday:  Our location is F5, if you want to stop by and visit. We had hoped to be there all weekend, but it sold out pretty early. We’ve worked one of these shows once before and it’s pretty good — definitely the best record show in the New York area. It brings out a lot of good dealers and a lot of collectors and it’s definitely worth the trip. If you’re going to come, it’s always best to get there early, when the doors open at 4 p.m. on Friday. If you know a dealer and can get in earlier than that, then it’s even better.

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A Tribute to William Claxton

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Claxography


I opened up my New York Times this morning to the news that the great jazz photographer William Claxton had died at age 80. Claxton was one of the great jazz photographers, mainly on the West Coast, and he was most noted for his great, almost obsessive, work in shooting the young Chet Baker. His first jazz photography was in album covers, and he was something of a house photographer for Pacific Jazz Records. In some cases, the value of some of the top collectible records are, in part, a tribute to his innovative and interesting covers. One that comes to mind, in addition to the Baker LPs on Pacific Jazz, is Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West on Contemporary, with Sonny notably dressed in a 10-gallon hat and holster with his tenor slung at his side like a weapon, which it was in Sonny’s hands. Read more

Record Stores, A Birthday, And Some Nostalgia

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I miss record stores. There was a time, living here in the New York area, I could sneak out of my office at lunchtime and visit a different record store every day of the week, for several weeks without repeating myself. Just in my area of Long Island and Queens, there was Titus Oaks in Hicksville and Huntington and, if I wanted to be adventurous, Brooklyn; and Radio City in Hempstead, and later another one in Hempstead; and Infinity in Wantaugh; and several Mr. Cheapos; and a guy named Kenny who had one on Union Turnpike in Fresh Meadows and another on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica; and one on Northern Boulevard in Little Neck, and several more, whose names and locations are all muddled together in my memory. Read more

From the Archives: A $38,000 Bill Evans Letter: A $129,000 Trane Manuscript

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Here at Jazz Collector, we usually focus on jazz records, mostly what’s bought and sold on eBay. There are lots of reasons for that but, fundamentally, the reason is that we believe eBay sets the market’s prices. What’s more it’s a public market, so everyone can see it and monitor it and decide if he or she wants to participate. And finally, it’s a true worldwide market. Check out The Great eBay Debate for other opinions. But there are, we recognize, other places for jazz collectibles, and other objects d’jazz than vinyl. We were reminded of this as we were going through our archives and came across this article from 2005 referencing a huge sale of jazz collectibles by the auction house Guernsey’s. I’ll repost the whole item below, but note just a couple of items: The Bill Evans letter to John Coltrane that sold for more than $38,000 and the original manuscript and text for Trane’s A Love Supreme, which sold for more than $129,000.   Read more

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