Another Adventure, Part 2: Ornette, Monk, Dee and Me

Gerry Mulligan

It was probably mid-November when I made my way north to Dee’s. She lives up, up, up a mountain and, with the early snow in that part of the world, I was fortunate to have a four-wheel drive vehicle, otherwise there may have been no story to tell at all. Dee has this fantastic house that she designed and helped build, with views overlooking the mountains, and everything in the home is bursting with creativity and creative energy, including furniture that she also designed. Not to mention the vinyl.

Dee and I got along right off the bat, as you can probably tell. We’re around the same age and we both love jazz, so that was a good start. She told me a bit of her life story, I told her a bit of mine, we chatted, I got a brief tour of the house and then we went to the room with the records. There were 5-6 long shelves with records, I guessed about 1,000 or 1,200 records in all. They were not all jazz records. There were classical, a little rare gospel and blues, and a big section of contemporary Latin and Brazilian – her own carefully curated collection.

I told her I needed to check the records for condition and to determine whether they were original pressings. Otherwise I wouldn’t know if I wanted them, the value, etc. I told her I didn’t needed to look at each record, but the ones on Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, etc. would be of most interest to me. She wanted to be the one to initially handle them for my  evaluating their condition, and clearly expressed feelings of protective care, as the  “friends and relations” she had so long considered them to be. She had not only personally spoken with and known many of the artists, but had either photographed or played music with some.

So we came up with a plan. I would pull the records I was interested in so that they were sticking out on the shelf. She would handle them to show them to me and I would write down details, i.e., whether it was an original pressing, condition, etc. I was fine with that. I started in the Monk section and pulled out a bunch of records, Riversides, two Prestiges, both Blue Notes. The pianists were grouped together, and there was also a Bud Powell Blue Note and a few interesting Bill Evans Riverside. Some of the covers weren’t in great condition, but most were fine.

Gradually I came to another shelf and spotted Blue Train. As I pulled it out, I mentioned that this could be a really good one if it was an original. Then I came to the Clifford Brown Memorial album on Blue Note and said the same thing.  From then on Dee (grinning with mischievous glee!) wanted me to say “ding, ding, ding!” whenever I pulled out one of the higher value records. So I started doing that. Now, when I’ve told this part of the story to my friends and family, they thought it was funny, me standing there pulling records and going “ding, ding, ding!” For me, however, it didn’t feel unusual and I was happy to do it. It had the added value of giving me a sense of how many “ding, ding, ding” records I might be interested for myself.

We came to the end and there were probably about 50 records total that I had pulled out. We sat down for tea and amiably chatted some more. That’s when told me more about her photos (and showed me) and how she had access to all of those great musicians.

Loyal readers will probably find it hard to believe what happened next, but it’s true: I only pulled out five records for myself. They were a Freddie Hubbard on Blue Note, a blue label of Monk’s Brilliant Corners, the Kenny Burrell/Jimmy Raney on Prestige and a couple of others. I made a fair offer for these records and Dee accepted it.

The Blue Train was West 63^rd with no New York 23, so it was an early pressing, but not a first pressing.  The Clifford was also a West 63rd second pressing. They were both in nice condition. There were also original pressings of several other top-flight records, but I already owned copies. I was very happy to give Dee a sense of their retail value so she didn’t get ripped off by somebody else.

I took my five records and left, driving four hours straight home.

But that’s not the end of the story.

To be continued, but before doing so, a quick note about the photos: These are all Dee’s, all originals, all personal. I’m posting pictures of a lot of them, but there are more at her web site: creativemusicphotography.com. Also, I’ve updated Part One of this tale with a more complete set of the Count Basie autographed pictures, so you should pay another visit to Another Adventure, Part 1: Ornette, Monk, Dee and Me to see those.

Art Blakey and Billy Higgins

Gil Evans

Mal Waldron