JR Monterose In Action, Redux

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

went for $400-900, up to $1,200 or $1,500. So the record was in the black. We did the same thing when VSOP secured the rights-to-release and original tape for the two Elmo Hope Trio LPs on Beacon and Celebrity (Here’s Hope and High Hope). The deal was done in the offices of a couple of tune traders who made their money off of “Sesame Street”…$1,500 was the fee for the license for each, but we got 37 fresh originals that had been acquired from the estate of the producer, Joe Davis, who was famed for putting buxom nudes on the covers of Wurlitzer organ solos and marching bands…The Hope reissues weren’t recognized in the profuse vinyl market of the day and only sold in the low 1,000s, but the 37 originals were all immediately purchased by Barr’s network of worldwide jazz collectors.”

Thank you Jeff.

Before closing . . . I’ve also got another hot item on JR Monterose, which I’ll be posting in the morning. Please stay tuned, you’re gonna love this one.