Guest Column: (Mis)Adventures in Jazz Hunting, Southern Style: Goats, Garlic, Grief and Gordon

By Dave S.

As I have promised Al over the years, I will continue to submit for his approval, my journeys into the unknown of crate diggin’ we call the Twilight Zone. This week’s episode takes us to Birmingham. Not Birmingham, England, but Birmingham, Alabama. You might ask why Birmingham, Ala., generally regarded as fertile hunting grounds for Southern Fried Rock such as the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd, but certainly not for our favorite genre.  I was heading there for a business trip so I thought I would go where no jazzman has gone before (sorry for the weak TV references) and see what I could find.

I put an ad in the Birmingham craigslist website a couple of weeks before my trip and drummed up some potentially promising leads. In previous posts, I have documented my screening techniques. I don’t like to ask too many questions or ask for too many pictures before I see the goods. Just enough information to validate that jazz means something other than Enoch Light or Jackie Gleason, and that some of my favorite labels and/or artists are there. I especially like to ask about the history of the collection and the provenance. That often tells me about the likelihood of finding some hidden gems. With this screening approach, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

Tyrone, a man in his mid 60s, told me about a collection of records he had from his deceased father who was originally from Chicago. Yes it was all jazz. And yes it was convenient to where I was working in Birmingham. We arranged a time for me to stop by his house. I don’t like traveling to unknown places and meeting with strangers while carrying large amounts of cash, but that is an occupational hazard in this line of business.  I arrived at his house and went in. I patiently waited for 15 minutes while I heard Tyrone rummaging through his basement. He came back up with a stack of only 10 records.

Strike one. Where was the promised Chi-town bounty? He handed me the pile and not a jazz record to be found, not even by the most generous definition of jazz. Whitney Houston, Grover Washington, and Stevie Wonder. Strike two.The topper was when I began the cursory examination of the vinyl I undertook so as not to offend him. Unfortunately, even that small undertaking was not possible. You see, he had obviously never actually looked at the records and none of them had contents. Just 10 empty jackets. Strike three.

He appeared genuinely remorseful and apologized. As I headed to the door, he said he had more records around back in his car. Gulp. I sucked it up and went to his garage. Moving the gallon of antifreeze and jumper cables off the records, there was more of the lack of the same and I quickly said my good-byes. An hour later I got a text from Tyrone apologizing for his lack of preparedness and saying that his wife found more records and promised me better pickings. I thanked him and vowed to myself that even if he later sent me a picture of a DG True Blue, our relationship was finished.

My next stop was Mrs. Smith. She appeared to be a little old lady on the preparatory email exchanges.  She sent me pix of some Verve Oscars and Stans. A Liberty Jazz Messengers.  A Best of Cannonball. Nothing exciting or collectible. But then it appeared. A Dexter Gordon Doo-Tone red vinyl Blows Hot and Cool. I actually already have a VG+ copy of this one and Mrs. Smith’s seemed a little rougher, but what the heck. Certainly worth a trip, if nothing else. Unlike my earlier visit with Tyrone, Mrs. Smith was more leery of me than I of her.  She didn’t want me to come to her home and we arranged to meet in the parking lot of a local Starbucks. Mrs. S appeared, zipping into the parking lot driving a bright red Toyota Scion and popped the trunk.

No little old lady. She was whip smart and spritely. She had about 50 records, including the ones in the pictures. Mrs. S. I quickly learned, was a local dealer and even had a Discogs account. Ouch. So much for me thinking I would get a sweet deal. Thankfully, she said she only sold sealed records online and these records hadn’t been listed. I pulled out a  Donald Byrd Blackjack, an early Sarah Vaughn on Mercury, a Shepp on Impulse I didn’t have, and an Oscar Petersen on Prestige. And there  was the Dexter. I casually plucked it out and put in the stack.

“That one’s gonna cost you,” indicated Mrs. Smith. “It’s really rare.”

“And not worth much in that shape,” I quickly retorted now that I knew she was a professional trader.

She smiled back.  “I played it yesterday and not a skip,” she countered.

Mrs. Smith did not look like the type who played her records with a $5,000 jade cartridge so the prospects of groove wear did come to mind. But I let it pass. She evaluated the records and said, “How much are you thinking for the five of them?” Ah. A seasoned negotiator cornering me to make the first move.

But I was not giving up the fight. “Ladies first” I replied. She smirked and said $125 for the bunch.  I had already come to the party thinking the Dexter was worth about $100 to me, especially as I already had a copy. I countered with $100 for the five and we shook on it.  A fair deal between experienced players. Yet, as we were parting, Mrs. Smith dropped a little tidbit.  “And I will call you when my 80-year-old friend from Cleveland finally sends me that Blue Note collection.” Always leave them wanting more, Mrs. S. Always give them something to hope for.

My next stop was outside of Birmingham. As they say in the South, it gets pretty country pretty fast and, trust me, 60 miles outside of B’ham can get real country. Joan lived on a country road outside of Attalla, which has the town motto “Gateway to Northeast Alabama.”  Our phone conversations were interesting.  Her father was a radio DJ in Birmingham in the ‘50s.  Yes! She had over 1,000 records. Good start. And she was the nanny for Jimmy Cobb’s children when he lived in Upstate New York. The lady had her bona fides. She did say that most of the records were not jazz, but if I considered Art Blakey or Miles Davis or Cannonball jazz then she probably had something if I was willing to pick through it.

Joan’s place was not easy to find on Google Maps, but eventually I found her mailbox. As I drove up the gravel road, I was swarmed by over 100 animals. Chickens flew in front of my car. Several dogs ran alongside and there were even a few ducks and cats about. Joan had neglected to mention that she lived on a working farm. I slammed on the brakes. “Don’t worry,” she yelled as she came around. “They usually move away. Just drive past the tractor.”

Joan was a real sweet person and after I parked the car and was acquainted with her five dogs, she directed me into the open-sided hay barn. “Here you go. Start anywhere you like.” And here I was. There were as many records as she indicated, stored in musty boxes on the ground, exposed to the elements for years. As I approached the first box, a blur entered my field of vision and a tiny goat jumped on top of the records. Unfortunately, I was too stunned to take what would have been a picture for the ages for the Jazz Collector website.

“She just wants to have fun and this is her playground”, Joan assured me.

“Wonderful” I murmured.

Thankfully, the records were easy to sift through and I got more knowledgeable then I ever thought possible with the easy listening tastes of the 1960s, when light classical, Reader’s Digest box sets, Martin Denny and the Lettermen ruled the airwaves. I was too tired to even ask for a price on the four potential buys I contemplated and simply thanked Joan for her time. On my way out she did say, however, that she felt bad I drove all that way for nothing and gave me a braid of 10 garlic bulbs from her garden to take home. There’s a first time for everything.

My Alabama journey was almost complete. One more stop.One more chance at gold. What took me to Kevin and his small town with literally seven BBQ joints and one coffee shop? The potential score of a lifetime. Kevin indicated that he inherited a collection of records and memorabilia from his great uncle from Detroit who used to work for Irving Mills Publishing in the ‘30s and ‘40s as a publicist for Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway, and continued into the business through the ‘60s. I Googled his uncle’s name and it came back legit. He said he tried to sell the items to various universities, but they would only take it as a donation and he needed the money.

I said that while Duke and memorabilia were not really my thing, I would be interested in other artists. I sent him a sample list of 50 artists of interest and record labels. A day later, he replied that many of these were represented. Dreams of audition copies of pristine BNs danced in my head. We arranged to meet at a storage unit where he had the items.  Even better. Too much stuff to fit in his house!  As I was driving there, I got a text from him. “Wow. I started looking these records up on line and they are worth more than I could have imagined. I even found some first pressing Rolling Stones records worth $400 each. We are expecting our first child and my wife really needs a car.”

Crap. I promised myself I would not spend more than a $1,000 on records but Kevin’s text had me stop off at an ATM and withdraw another $500. We met at the storage facility. He remarked how he was so happy that the unit was climate controlled given the value of the records. He pulled up the metal door and inside the unit were two boxes of 30 records each. Surely there must be more. He said he owned the next storage unit too. Maybe he was just testing my legitimacy before he brought out the heavy hitters. The first box was filled with 29 Capitol Rainbow label Frank Sinatra records. “These are nothing special, he said. “Maybe only worth $50-60 each.”

I belched up my sweet iced tea consumed on the drive up. I didn’t say anything regarding his exorbitant pricing methodology and pulled the solitary turquoise label first pressing out just to be a good sport. He pointed to the next box. “Now here’s why you drove all the way up here.”

And there it was. A box of crap. Weather Report. Della Reese. Six Ella’s, three sealed Pablos  and a couple of ECMs. I was incredulous. The mentioned Blue Notes. A 45-RPM by Horace Silver was all there was. Where were the Parkers, Miles, Monks and Sahib Shihabs he promised? Oh, there. All in a collection of five Europa Jazz comps from Italy. I cursed myself for thinking I was smarter than I was. I should have asked more questions and gotten pictures.

Yet I hate buying nothing if I can avoid it. I pulled out a shrink-wrapped Ella on Decca, Grant Green Mainstream on Kudu, Gary Peacock on ECM and a McCoy Tyner on Milestone.  A look of dejection crossed Kevin’s face. “Is that all you want?” That and the Sinatra I replied.  How much are you offering he asked. I thought about it a good long time. Quite honestly, I didn’t want any of these records.  It was what I called a Mercy Buy.  A non-tax deductible donation to the cause. “$50” I said which was $35 too much in mind.  And to this day, I swear a small tear trickled down his cheek.

“Seriously?” he asked. I nodded yes.  “But my wife… the car,” he softly said.  He thought about it for a few minutes. “How about $65?” Now usually I am a soft touch but after Tyrone, Noah’s Ark and the two-hour drive to Kevin in the 90-degree heat and humidity, I was not feeling very generous. “Sorry.  $50 is it. I truly don’t need these records and I am really not playing negotiating games.”

“OK.  I’ll take it”, he said, “I have to come home to my wife with some money after I took off work today.”“You know these records are worth a lot more”, he said after I paid him.

“Not to me,” I replied.

He whipped out his phone and pulled up Popsike.  “See this Chet Baker Quietly There on World Pacific you passed on? Someone in Germany paid $40 for it. And the Ella and Duke at Cote D’Azur on Verve went for over $100 in Japan.”  He was right.  Someone did pay for that much for those records. But I wasn’t going to. And then the dagger to my hardened collector’s heart. “I was up all night pricing these records. I had to pay $20 to subscribe to Popsike because I was researching so much. And look at this.”

He pulled out a small notepad. There were all 60 records listed with high and average prices over the past five years documented, and the grand total on the last page was $2,450, his estimate of the value of the collection. In another time and place, I might have put my arm around his shoulder and nestled his head close to my bosom and gently stroked it helping to ease his pain. But that was not the time or place and it was getting late.

“eBay, my son. Try selling on eBay.”