The record store in question was Hudson Valley Vinyl in Beacon, New York, which is somewhat along the way from Manhattan to The Berkshires, and it was pretty easy to convince The Lovely Mrs. JC that, “oh, wouldn’t Beacon New York be a lovely place to stop for lunch. Oh, and by the way, there happens to be a record store there.” It’s a very nice store, well organized, a nice inventory and fair prices. I can see where Clifford is a big fan, because they have a fantastic selection of free jazz. I am less of a fan and collector of that genre of music, but the store has a broader selection, and I like buying records, so I bought a few, because, well, that’s what I do.

There was a copy of Pres and Sweets on Verve, and I thought I could upgrade my cover. I put the record on when I got home. Is it just me, or does Pres sound pretty bad on this record? Like, they were happy to get a few takes out of him, but he certainly was not playing his best. I also got a mono pressing of Lookin’ at Monk! By Lockjaw Davis and Johnny Griffin. This was an upgrade for me and when I put the record on the turntable, I was not disappointed. Solid record. Finally, I picked up an original Fantasy record of Fatha Hines playing Fats Waller.  This was an original red vinyl pressing from 1956, very nice cover, liner notes by Ralph J. Gleason, and, what the hell, it was only $10. Also a nice record, with some surprisingly refreshing guitar by Eddie Duran.

Anyway, it was fun to go to a nice record store. As for the rest of the day, we never did have that lunch in Beacon New York. I guess we’ll have to do that next time.

He has always had a decent stock of  jazz records at fair prices, so I was curious what might strike my eye. I have also recently set my sights on upgrading my Beatles collection. A couple of years ago, I purchased reissues of some of the U.K. Parlophone records, which I did not own growing up in Bayside, NY. Some of the later pressings were issued as “audiophile” issues and they sound fine, but the reissues of the earlier Parlophones sound like crap and I have decided I want to have original pressings. I know I diverge from the theme at Jazz Collector and, for those of you who didn’t realize that I am also an avid Beatles fan, now you know. Also, for the record, James Taylor.

Anyway, Spike and I were both wearing masks, although Gordon, being a canine, was spared. No original Beatles Parlophones in Catskill, NY, but I found a vinyl copy of the Beatles Anthology 3, which I don’t own, so that made the pile. In jazz, I pulled out a VG++ copy of Cannonball Adderley and the Poll Winners to upgrade the condition of my record, but somehow I left it behind. I did take a few jazz records, including an original Buddy Rich on Norgran because the copy was really clean, the personnel was strong including Sonny Criss and Ben Webster, and, frankly, the sight of the yellow label Norgran was just too compelling to pass up for $15. I also grabbed a couple of Riversides, Paul Serrano and Don Friedman, because the condition was strong and the price was right and I don’t own these records and because, fundamentally I like buying records and I want to support stores I like. Will I ever listen to the Buddy Rich, Don Friedman or Paul Serrano records? I am going to make a concerted effort to do so.

I did pass up some decent collectibles, mostly because I already own them and I already have more duplicates than I would like. There was a Gene Ammons on Prestige, as well as one of the early James Moody yellow label Prestiges. There was Jimmy Smith House Party, a couple of nice Monk records, a couple by Roland Kirk. There were more, but they all didn’t register because I didn’t buy them. And, of course, Cannonball Adderley and the Poll Winners, which I expected to see in my pile when I got home but somehow had left behind in the store. I want to blame Gordon the dog, but he insists he had no role and was locked in a traveling bag the whole time. I guess it means I’ll have to make a return appearance to visit Spike in the near future.

But I knew the music wasn’t going to knock my socks off and it didn’t. I had a much better experience with the Mulligan Plays Mulligan record on Prestige, which I probably hadn’t listed to since I first purchased it more than 30 years ago. Great record, both sides, the tentette as well as the quintet/sextet. It’s hard to believe the ensemble sides were recorded in 1951, they still sound so fresh and innovative. And Allen Eager was a mother. It was eye-opening to sit back and really listen to him play. So that inspired me to put on a bunch of other ensemble records, including Miles Davis Birth of the Cool and Benny Golson The Modern Touch, two of my favorites. All in all, I spent a couple of days listening to new records, sorting out duplicates and following the inspiration from discovering a new record then moving to a record in my collection and generally having a good old time just listening.

This, of course, inspired me to take another trip back to Spike’s Record Rack to see what I may have missed and that was the inspiration behind the second story I posted on Jazz Collector, Feeding the Obsession, Yet Again, in which I wound up reorganizing all of my 78-RPM records and my 10-inch records and generally making a mess of things, what with slicing the paper sleeves of 300 78s and stuffing the records onto my shelves. The second visit to Spike’s brought a new round of records, including the 10-inch Blue Note James Moody and His Modernists, as well as a few others that filled gaps in the collection. Writing about the trips to Spike’s Record Rack also elicited an invitation from the owner of another record store in the general area, Hudson Valley Vinyl in Beacon, NY, and, of course, how could I pass I an invitation to a record store I had never before visited, particularly one that had previously been recommended to me by our friend and sometimes contributor Clifford Allen.

So a few days later I was back in the car with Marty the dog on my way down the Hudson River to lovely Beacon NY to look at more records, the results of which can be seen in the picture at the beginning and end of this post. For me, the highlights of this excursion were the Gene Ammons Prestige and the Dave Brubeck Plays Leonard Bernstein. The Ammons was only $8, which felt like a bargain, considering that the condition was excellent. It is one of the only records that features John Coltrane on alto sax and, for that reason alone, is a worthy addition to any collection. I listened to that one first when I got home and was also pleasantly surprised. Coltrane on alto is quite interesting, and you can hear that he kind of approached it the way he later approached the soprano, with a lot of energy, hard blowing and a lot of notes. He doesn’t really sound like any other alto player you could readily identify.

I was pleased to get a copy of the Brubeck record because 1: It was an original pressing and sealed and 2: It has become one of my favorite listening records, the side with the West Side Story music, and I wanted to have a copy for my studio apartment in New York. Call me greedy, what can I say. For $20 it was well worth it. I’ve become swept away by the creativity of Paul Desmond’s playing over the past few years and he has become one of my absolute favorite artists, and he shines particularly well on this record. I also want to commend the owners of Hudson Valley Vinyl – nice store with an excellent collection of jazz vinyl at fair prices. I would recommend that Jazz Collector readers go there, although that belies my general instinct to keep these places to myself, although in this case I know it’s way too late to harbor any such illusions. Seems like I’m the last one to know about this store.

I am now a couple of weeks past these sprees and I have many more records to place on the turntable and perhaps I am not done yet with this latest round of purchsasing. There is still the local guy with 1,500 records who is not returning my calls and a collection of 10-inch LPs and 78s somewhere in the middle of the country that may have some promise. Stay tuned.

I was not disappointed on any level. It was a sunny day, late afternoon, and the scenery was absolutely spectacular, particularly going over the bridge, where you could see the fall colors in all of their brilliance for miles and miles up and down the river. Then I crossed the bridge and made my way to Catskill, just a couple of miles south. I remember Catskill from about 25 or 30 years ago as a really depressed, downtrodden, sleepy town that seemed to be headed toward oblivion. I had known that Hudson, NY, had undergone a gentrification transformation over the past dozen years or so, but I had not realized that Catskill fell into a similar category, starting a bit more recently. What had been a really rundown town is now quite vibrant with nice restaurants, artsy shops, a bookstore, even a theater. And, of course, it’s very own record store. Again, referring to Chronogram, Catskill is becoming to Hudson, what Brooklyn is to Manhattan. That is, a bit cooler and a bit hipper, still on the rise, not quite settled yet, but brimming with potential.

Anyway, I was able to park across the street from Spike’s and walked into a small but very neat, tidy and well-organized shop. I noticed the jazz right away towards the back on my left. There, above the several rows of records, was a wall display that was quite impressive: Max Roach and Clifford Brown at Basin Street; a nice Stan Getz on Norgran, and a few others. To be honest, I didn’t make more than a mental note of the wall display because they were all records I already own. But, the fact that each one on the wall was a true original collectible gave me cause for encouragement. No Blue Notes, but, nobody’s perfect, right?

I started going through the bins, the “New Arrivals” first and I was amazed at how many original pressings were in the lot, one after another, a bunch of Cannonball Adderley’s on Riverside and Mercury, some Gene Ammons. Again, I didn’t take much note of specific records because I had them. But then I started coming upon a few records I didn’t have. I checked out the prices on the back, and, they were actually quite fair. Not cheap, but not outrageous the way you see in some stores, where the owner has no idea what he is doing with jazz and just takes the older volumes of the Goldmine Price Guide or the highest prices on Popsike and tries to milk each record for all it’s worth.

At this point, I decided it was time to introduce myself to the owner and mention, casually, that I happen to do a Web site focused on jazz records. The owner’s name, you guessed it, is Spike, and we got along quite well. Of course, he was there to sell records and I was there to buy records, so we had a bit of a shared mutual interest from the outset. But he seems like a very nice, self-effacing guy, excited to finally have his own store after years of selling records on eBay and other online venues. You can see that he has put a lot of care into the store and, in chatting, we realized we had at least one mutual acquaintance, Joe Schwab of Euclid Records in St. Louis and New Orleans.

Anyway, Spike and I were chatting as I was sifting through the bins, and he mentioned that he had purchased a big jazz collection earlier this year, including a bunch of beautiful, mint Blue Notes that he had already sold, some in the store, some on eBay. He said the owner of that collection stored the records on shelves that were protected by Plexiglass doors, so they were pristine, including the covers. It was obvious in going through the bins, that many of the records from the collection were still in the shop, judging by the condition of the original pressings. I mentioned to Spike that I thought his pricing was fair, not underselling, but not trying to oversell. He said he generally goes by Discogs, but sticks to the more conservative end. To me, this makes sense because it keeps potential buyers coming back to the store, knowing they can do better at the location than they can do on eBay. Of course, not everyone has easy access to Catskill, NY, so there is downside to that approach as well. But, I suppose, if I had a brick-and-mortar store, I would do the same, trying to build a base of loyal customers and becoming a bit of a destination for collectors who may be in Albany, The Berkshires or even New York City.

As we were talking and I was pulling records from the pins and starting to pile them up, Spike mentioned that he also had 10-inch LPs from the same collection, but he doesn’t put them out on the shelves because no one is really interested. Now, of course, this was music to my ears, so I asked if they were in the store and he reached under the counter and pulled out a pile of very nice, 10-inch records in excellent condition, Pacific Jazz, Clef, Norgran. There was even a James Moody 10-inch Blue Note, which I already own.

As I continued piling up records, I asked Spike if we could do some kind of package price and he seemed amenable, which sparked me to add a couple of records I might not have put into the pile. In going through this process, I realized that I still have something of a jones for some of the old Norgrans and Clefs. It’s not necessarily the artists, but the packaging, the heavy vinyl, the Stone Martin covers. I’d pick them up and think about putting them back, but then I’d look at the price and it was too tempting, so I’d just put them in the pile, Louis Bellson, Flip Phillips, Charile Ventura. Records that would be of little interest to me musically, but would give me great satisfaction, looking at the covers as I peruse my collection. I guess I’m a sucker. There were some nice Clef and Norgran records, including a 10-inch Stan Getz Plays, but the price was too much to spend just to have a duplicate copy, so I left it behind for someone else. No Lester Youngs, Birds or Billie Holidays to my recollection, for those I might have gobbled up, even to have duplicates.

In the end, I wound up with a pile of 15 records, many of which I just don’t have, including a couple of Gerry Mulligan 10-inchers, as well as the afore-mentioned Bellson and Phillips LPs. There was also an absolutely pristine copy of Mulligan Plays Mulligan on Prestige, and the price was right, so that also ended up in the pile, upgrading the copy in my collection. The 15 records are pictured at the beginning and end of this post and I thought I did well for myself and by Spike, paying an average of about $25 per record. He started off with fair prices and was very easy to deal with. I left behind a few records that I would have liked, but by this time it was getting late to pick up The Lovely Mrs. JC and, having spent nearly $400 on records, keeping her waiting was not a good idea.

Back home, I’ve listened to a few of the records at this point, about what would be expected. I put on the Flip Phillips Clef record and was kind of amazed at how poorly recorded it sounded. It was as if the musicians were in a room with the door closed and someone was taping it from outside the room. Certainly not a Van Gelder, but also not up to the standard I would normally expect from this label. By contrast, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised by the Ammons record on Moodsville. He was never a favorite of mine, but this album is all ballads and he certainly knows his way around a ballad. Not quite Dexter, but quite capable and listenable.

I am looking forward to listening to all of the records, and also to visiting again with my new friend Spike. I just found out that The Lovely Mrs. JC has a train ticket for two weeks from Friday so, if you want to beat me to the punch, you have two weeks to make your way to Catskill, New York.

to the counter and the prices were reasonable but all just a little bit more than I wanted to spend. A couple of examples: He had a copy of the Charlie Parker Plays Cole Porter Verve LP, a trumpeter label, and I had noticed recently that the copy in my collection was not in great shape. I figured I’d upgrade if the price was right. I figured, based on what I see on eBay, $30 was about the right price. He wanted $50, so I passed. There was also a really clean copy of Sarah Vaughan in the Land of Hi Fi, the one with Cannonball Adderley on Emarcy. Again, this is not that much of a collectible – not like the one with Clifford Brown – and you can generally find copies on eBay for $25 or $30. This one was in real nice shape but, again, the price was $50 and I decided to pass. There were also a Bill Evans Verve and a Oscar Peterson Verve and it was the same deal: The prices were around market value, but just a drop higher than I wanted to spend for that particular record. Perhaps if I didn’t already own the Bird LP or the Sarah, or perhaps if I didn’t think I could find a better price on eBay . . .

Anyway, I think that’s the extent of my record shopping for this trip. I do have to figure out a way to do a good shopper’s guide here on the site because, perhaps, there was a better use of my time, although this was an interesting experience and definitely worth a visit.

Hi Al,

These record shops are downtown Amsterdam. With collector’s items I mean LPs worth  $50 and up:

Concerto Amsterdam
Utrechtsestraat 52-60
Amsterdam,The Netherlands
Tel: +31-206235228

Large shop. Also CDs(large collection!) /DVDs/books: New LPs audiophile, japanese pressings, second-hand jazz/rock/punk/pop/classical. Good store, some collector’s items.

Record-Palace
Weteringschans 33-A
1017 RV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
+31 20 6223904

Only secondhand and japanese/audiophile: Large store with rock/pop/jazz and collector’s items

www.recordfriend.com
Sint Antoniesbreestraat 64
1011 HB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
+31-651643022

Only LPs. Almost everything is new: Box-sets, audiophile, Japanese second-hand pop/rock/sixties/jazz/punk/classical. Good jazz department. Lots of collector’s items, especially sixties

Waxwell Records
Gasthuismolensteeg 6
1016 AN Amsterdam, The Netherlands
+31-206271600

Small shop only second-hand LPs. Pop/disco/soul/jazz. Lots of collector’s items in jazz and soul/disco

FLESCH Records
Noorderkerkstraat 16
1015 NB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
+31-206228185

Beautiful small shop with beautiful second-hand LPs. Avant garde/european/jazz/classical. Jazz collector’s items and maybe the largest collection of rare collector’s items regarding classical music in Europe. Knows almost anything on record/label history (and also sells biological fruit from his own land and restored hi-fi gear from the 50’s and 60’s)

RECORDMANIA
Ferdinand- Bolstraat 30
1072 LT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
+31-206209912

Only second hand large store with rock/pop/jazz/latin/classical: Some collector’s items

Swingmaster
Kruitlaan 21
9711 TW Groningen, The Netherlands
+31 50 3124020

This one is not in Amsterdam but in the city of Groningen (northern part of Holland) but they have a large collection of blues and jazz collector’s items. Specializes in old jazz and blues, also 78’s

De Zwarte Schijf (the black disc)
Hogestraat 13
4001 ET Tiel, The Netherlands
www.zwarteschijf.nl
Tel: +31 344-635333

This one is also not in Amsterdam but in the centre of Holland. They have about  50,000 78-RPM discs, jazz and classical

Al, sorry for spelling mistakes or weird lay-out, but hopefully of some help for somebody traveling The Netherlands. Keep up the good work with your AMAZING site, Al!

Regards,

Maarten Kools