Guest Column: Dancing in Your Head
Greetings to all. I’m Lenni Bukowski, whose comments under the moniker of Lennib you may have read, although recent ones may have been anathema as they dealt with dissolution rather than accumulation. I have also been emailing Al on the matter of disposing due to his post of May 3rd, 2015, titled ‘See You in Brooklyn? Not Anymore.’ He suggested “Why don’t you write a post or two on your experiences…how to find a place in our lives for the passion we get by collecting, listening and playing jazz.”
I believe I have always been a collector of some sort, of something. Baseball cards, books, stamps, coins, toy soldiers. And looking back, I outgrew all of them over time. Being Chicago born, I had always been riding the subway or buses when I was old enough to and on one such journey of exploration in 1963 or ‘64, I walked into the Jazz Record Mart, 7 West Grand, and immediately heard a sound that would stay with me always. I asked the clerk, dig now, a hipster for real, red haired, goatee’d, all in black, beret’d, what was playing over the speakers. The reply came, with hipster hauteur, “That’s Bird, man.” Seeing a look of befuddlement, he took pity on a youngster and said that’s Charlie Parker.
And off I went.
Charlie Parker led me to others, Coltrane and Louis and the AACM, it was all about the sound I heard, the musicality not the collect-ability. I didn’t know deep groove from deep dish, and the significance of West 52nd and Lexington Ave. meant nothing to me. With increasing awareness came the accumulation urge, perhaps innocent at the beginning, trying to get all Bird records or buying the new Coltrane when it came out, which soon led to getting everything. For when we’re young in something, everything is new and we want it all. Soon obsession came, and intrinsic value began to enter the picture. All jazz albums, bebop and beyond, were wanted now, 78’s included, and I’m searching for obscurities along with those that had the right pedigree, deep groove, RVG, right label, right address, right cover. Right music? Who cared about the music at this point.
I also owned a record store in Chicago for some five years, which led to intense obtaining of records for value rather than music and in 1997, found myself with some vinyl/shellac holdings of some 8,000-plus items. And also found myself on the cusp of a move. Several moves.
I’m in Jupiter Florida now. Each move saw me decreasing holdings, moving 2,000-plus 78’s? No thanks. However I still collected. What I owned grew and shrank; having owned a record store helped me look upon records as a commodity and thus easing some of the emotional value. So by June of this year I was still sitting on some 2,500 lps, 500 cds, 90% jazz.
I retired from being an elementary school teacher on June 6th, 2019. On the 7th, to establish a routine, us teachers know routine, I began walking four miles every day. And on these walks I began to think of what I wanted to do now. A new beginning, new awareness. I really no longer was driven to ecstasy over records, and buying no longer thrilled me. I had been selling on eBay, and sold direct to others and one day walking I realized I could let go. Just sell and sell and stop the drive to accumulate and stop the drive to buy records/cds again for the second, fifth, ninth time. You dummy, there’s a reason you sold this in the first place.
Yes, I had played this selling game before, now it all was for real. Because it’s time. Because I no longer was held by a desire to buy music continuously. Instead of selling in dribbles and drabs, I began boxing records and shipping them to sell to a dealer. Done.
The records I never thought I’d let go are gone. Sold to friends, and thus I know where they are. At 67, I’m determining what is happening to the remnants of what I collected and this, in turn, gives me great satisfaction.
The decision to dissolve my holdings was aided by knowing the music was still accessible. If I could somewhere/how access the music again, via internet, a friend, I could get rid of the physical item. I had records I bought in 1980 and when I pulled them from shelves, I realized they have been moved three times and I haven’t played them in 39 years. Why keep? Bye bye. I was a DJ in Chicago/Detroit, that ain’t happening no more, why keep a record for one cut? Why hold on to something that has become meaningless?
A saxophonist/mentor in Detroit, Faruq Z. Bey, told me ‘if you really hear something, if you are really open and listening, then that which you heard stays with you always. It’s there, you can recall it.’ I still have perhaps 200 records and cds left. All genres, and they also are going. I don’t need them. I don’t. I have no desire to buy, to accumulate, I find myself realizing I could be content with those few, 25 come to mind, that link me to the start.
And at some point, I could perhaps be happy with just one record, that very first Jazz record I bought and still have. There’s no collectable value to it, a MGM Verve pressing. But I just have to drop a needle on it and I’m walking into Jazz Record Mart at 7 West Grand and young Lenni has no idea what is going to happen, but the world is all a glorious adventure and he is ready.
A touching story Lenni..thanks for sharing.
Interesting read Lenni. You are showing the road we all have to take in our (ex) collectors life, sooner or later. It does not make sense to sit on a treasure and leave your inheritors exposed to dealers, whether unscrupulous or not.
You are right, selling is fun too.
So in the end, the initial thrill of acquiring items by bits and pieces and build a collection, is mirrorred by the disposing process. Once you are in a selling mood, it gives satisfaction.
The question of how many to keep in the end is a difficult one to answer, but one, as you suggested, may be too extreme.
I’m in the exact situation as Lennib, and same age. I’ve just begun selling and I don’t regret what is gone. the problem is with what is around yet. most has its story, going back to the sixties when I was a teenager. I can’t think of leaving one record alone on my shelves. I still enjoy listening, touching and feeling good with my music but I’m, slowly, selling. in the meantime I’m buying some yet…
While I’m nowhere near this point of no return — and I will likely hand my records over to my kids when my time has come (with proper instructions for how to sell them) — I sometimes imagine what life must be like without these several thousand pieces of of vinyl taking up an entire room in my house and in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I still absolutely enjoy my records, and even though Spotify is always at the tip of my fingers when I’m not at home (a comforting thought indeed), I still get a kick out of the sound, look, feel and smell of a vintage jazz record, and the ongoing search for more. But I do wonder what it must be like to feel the type of freedom that Lenni now enjoys, being able to move around without moving thousands of records, without the constant concern for my collection, without the urge to hunt and find more vinyl. Just enjoying life without them, and the music in a different sphere, sounds appealing as well, so who knows … maybe one day I’ll change my mind and start selling as well.
“Who cared about the music at this point”…. you almost had me until the truth of the matter showed up.
Nice story Lenni.
I’m more n the DJ Pari camp so far. I’m 51 so we will see when it might turn. I sometimes tell my wife that I will start selling/dealing as a hoppy when I retire but she gives me the sly smile and say “You will never sell”. My kids 20 and 18 are very moderately interested in jazz and records so if they are going to pass os as inheritance and cared for by them I don’t know. If not interested it’s better for them to sell with instructions – but who knows what will happen really?
In the spirit of collecting vinyl, wouldn’t the most appropriate thing be to piece the collection out in antique stores all over the country and allow collectors to stumble upon them for cheap. If anyone goes with that strategy, just let me know, and which stores please.
“I didn’t know deep groove from deep dish.” = Genius
Thanks for sharing. Charlie Parker was also my first was my first Holy $#@! moment and how I came about collecting Jazz.
Bravo. Great piece.
I’m 26, collect and listen to jazz like a fiend, and own a record shop in Des Moines. Even at my age, I struggle with the thoughts of “when will I actually listen to this? How often?” or wondering how long I should continue collecting and keeping at all. If I never brought home another record, I’d have a near-lifetimes worth of listening in my collection as it is, let alone my stores inventory.
I already put all my rock and most other genres in the shop, because realistically I’m never more than a month distant from finding another copy of “Harvest” or “Troubadour” by JJ Cale, which I can listen to and be satisfied by until the next one comes along. I could do the same with many jazz records, but it’s not as easy to let go, yet.
Great story. I also started collecting by going into the Jazz Record Mart on Grand Ave. Have some great memories of that store as well. You might be familiar with some Chicago collectors such as Jim Neumann (great guy!) and Raffe Simonian (everyone who knew him has some interesting stories about him) .A few years ago I had 3000 lps. I’m down to about 1700 now. My goal is to get to around 500 over the next 5 years. Lenni… what was the name of your store in Chicago and where was it located?
This is a great story and makes me realize that there indeed does come a day when divestment will become a reality to face. I have reached the point where I am no longer adding records to the collection and it was a terrific struggle to do that. The thought of selling them off is difficult to face. I found Jazz when I was a lad of 16 while working in the town library. One day a donation of approx 3K records was received and it became my job to sit in a room with a record player and a large table in front of me and to clean them all and listen to them to check for flaws that were too severe for putting records in library’s music section. ALL of the records were Jazz lps so I spent an entire 4 hour shift listening to Jazz. All my peers were busy with Beatles stuff whilst I was all by myself absorbing Jazz like a sponge. My first purchase was to go to the local record shop and grab ten of my most favorites which I still have 51 years later (the obvious: Kind of Blue, Coltrane’s Sound, A Love Supreme, a six eye columbia mono Mingus Dynasty etc etc). This wonderful story lets me know that it has been a long sweet ride but that it might be time to start “downsizing” a bit. I recently moved all of them (2k small by some standards) from CA to Tennessee and I don’t think I could ever do that again. Jazz is the most rewarding music to listen to and, yes, to collect but there comes a time…
Great story. I also grew up in Chicago and have fond memories of the Jazz Record Mart on Grand. I also am selling off some of my collection. I still have about 2000 lps, and would like to pair this down to about 500. Did you deal with Chicago collectors like Jim Neuman and Raffe Simonian? Also… What was the name of your Chicago store and where was it located?
I do not know if an English version is available, maybe with subtitles, but I would like to invite you all to have a look at an amazing Italian documentary called ” Vinylmania – When life runs at 33 1/3 rpm”. You can find it even on YouTube under the tile “Vinylmania – Quando la vita corre a 33 giri”.
Thanks for reading and your comments. Such has made my heart smile. Blessings to you all. There is a part 2 and it will be on its’ way to Mr. A by Wednesday for his okay.
Lennie, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think it is good to be light ! I’m 51 and already sold many records, including heavy ones. I’ve downsized my collection to around 300 records and i’m fine with that. No more compulsive buying, no more focusing on rarity, just looking for NM original press i really want, what i really enjoy listening to.
Lennie,
Thanks for the great read. Looking forward to part two, when you re-kindle the flame and find a load of deep dish Blue Notes!
Mike
Great read, very thought provoking.
I also can share a Jazz Record Mart story. I’ve been there once, on my second visit to Chicago in 2001. And from what started as a dull visit, it turned into one of the better scores I had at record shops.
When I was actively collecting jazz records, a period that lasted from 1995 to early 2000s, I usually tried to avoid such bona fide places as JRM or JRC in NY. Why? Because practice showed those specialist places lacked the element of surprise.
The word “digging” is now very popular with record chasers and in this sense, I didn’t believe one could have a good score in one of those places. Everything had been “pre-dug” for your arrival. All the gems had been found, appropriately priced, and the affordable records would be those that could be found cheaper elsewhere.
On my first Chicago visit a year earlier, I made every effort to avoid JRM. The city was full of other great shops with strong selections that, in my opinion, would rival if not beat those in NYC on an average day. But on that day, I had a little time to kill before a group dinner in downtown Chicago, so I popped into JRM.
I was making my way through lots of overpriced records in the bins that looked like they had been there forever. I got tired, slightly annoyed and distracted. My theory seemed to prove itself. I started just walking around the place and ended up in the back room.
At the long counter, an older (well, in comparison with other employees) gentleman was going through a couple of big piles of jazz lps. My blood rushed to my brain when I had just one glance at the piles. I asked whether those were available. The owner (it was likely him) said no, but also he seemed to be in the good mood at that moment, and he said he might as well just start pricing those. So, he began, right in front of me, and I was free to take the records straight from his hands. What a treat!
There were a few Blue Notes, Chet Bakers and others on PJ, some more obscure Atlantics like Lee Konitz “Inside Hi-Fi” that I had been chasing for a while, and so on… Most were really, really clean. What stunned me the most was that the prices he was putting on the records right in front of me seemed ridiculously low in comparison to what I had just seen in the bins. At one point he said: “If there’s a record that should be $85, it’s this one”, and he put the sticker on the Jane Fielding Jazz West 5. That record looked only VG+ to me so I passed, holding on to the pile where everything was cheaper, mostly way cheaper than that. The most expensive item in my pile was one of the Jutta Hipp at the Hickory House volumes, a beautiful flat edge Lex with the frame cover priced at the whopping $75. Everything else was downhill from that.
I ended up passing on the PJ Chet Bakers only to be pulling my hair for years after that. You know, those copies were super clean in great clean unsplit covers (which are the bigger challenge in the early 12″ PJ series) but I constantly encountered those clean early PJs with the strange glare to the grooves, which always made me suspect the groove wear. I passed on many over the years due to that fear but now I think I wasn’t right about the wear. Those Chets were priced at $50 each, which was on a higher end in my view at the time. In retrospect, those ended up being the cleanest affordable copies of the “and Crew” and “in Europe” that I had ever held in my hands.
Customer service was not the strong side there. I made my way to the checkout only to be told after I paid my $450 total that had it been $500, they would have given me 10% off. Really, I thought, you telling me now??? There was plenty left in the piles but I was already 30 minutes late for the dinner, so instead of arguing, I dashed several blocks south to the restaurant squeezing a thick back under my arm…
A couple of weeks later I mentioned my score to Jack Brown. He asked what was the best record I got. I said it was the beautiful copy of the Soul Station. “How much”, he asked? $50, I said. He almost swallowed his sigar. “Are they nuts!?”, he said. “It’s a $500 record.” Yes, I knew I had done well…
Any relation to Charles ?
Would enjoying hearing more about your Chicago days. Just back from there and a visit to Bob Koester’s store. At 87 he’s there everyday. What a treat. As was your story and thoughts.
Many thanks Lenni AND the others leaving comments for putting things into perspective, and describing a ‘full circle’ moment/process. Personally I am nowhere near that point.. slightly below 50 in age and with a modest 2+ meters collection of mostly non-collectibles I am sort-of on the safe side. ..But, the search for new treasures DOES feel endless.. And maybe it IS time to definitely switch from ‘quantity'(/broadness of collection) towards ‘quality’ .. Anyway: thanks again. Enjoy the music and the process.
Again, thanks to all for your reading my words and your comments. Part two is in Mr. A’s hands.
I’ll answer some queries: Bill W., store name was The B Side and was on 53rd st. in Chicago’s Hyde Park area. And of course Raffe and Jim Neumann are collecting legends and I knew them. Mike, part 2 may not be want you expect. Kem, no relationship to Charles, actually did ask this of him, however my ancestry kinfolk are from Poland, his are from Germany. Terry Knapp, my telling more tales is dependent on Al. If he would accept more copy from me, I can deliver.
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Since Kem already asked if Lenni had any relation to Charles….let me submit my lifelong favorite quote…Bukowski, or otherwise…and particularly relevant in these times.
“The problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence”
Lennib, just read this given your referral on my recent (Sept, 2020) comment. This is exactly the sort of column I hoped you would write when I saw your collection was now under 100 items. As an educator, I am doubly connected to your tale. As I began collecting afresh about 8 years ago, I’d limited myself to six crates, always replacing the VG for the VG+. Realizing that my overflow box had turned to two more crates in the garage, I am now poring over every lp in the collection; if I have not listened to it, I do. If it does not thrill me, it goes in the “sale” box. Selling is tougher than collecting… but necessary. Thanks for the great column, my friend!
Daryl, it’s now January of 2021 and I just saw/read your comment. Thanks for the kind words.
In 2002 I did as you, said I’d limit collection to four record cabinets, two shelves each, plus a record chest or two. Well, that grew into 14 plus cabinets in no time!!!
Yes, selling was harder than collecting, to quote Macbeth, “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.”(Hamlet Act 1, Scene7). And once started with determined intention, selling became easy.
I moved to Chicago during a really cold winter in January 1986. I met Lenni when he was selling records at his B Side Record Store located on 53rd Street in Hyde Park. I would visit most weekends as he had a wide variety of good music to discover. In the mid-1990s I worked a couple blocks from the Jazz Record Mart and would visit during my lunch hour and return to the office with an arm full of records. The owner, Bob Koester, would price the used LPs very low. So low that people like Lenni and the buyers from Dusty Groove would buy some of stock from JRM and resell them at their shops with a reasonable markup. I’m 72 years old and still buying used LPs but not in the City, but in the suburbs as there is an non-profit environmental education center that accepts book and record donations that they resell for $2 each no matter the condition or estimated value. I buy records today for $2 that I used to find at JRM back in the mid-1990s.