A Two-Piece Zoot For the $1,000 Bin

We decided to update the $1,000 bin and we found one that is new to us: Zoot Sims-Henri Renaud, Night Session in Paris. The label is Le Club Francais Du Disque 95 and it is a 10-inch LP. The record was in M- condition and it also came with a 12-page booklet. The price was $1,358. I’ve been collecting jazz records for 40 years and have never come across this one.

Zoot also made the $1,000 bin with this one: Jutta Hipp With Zoot Sims, Blue Note 1530. This was an original pressing with the Lexington Avenue address. It was listed in VG+ for the vinyl and VG for the cover. Despite the condition, it still sold for $1,036 and there were nearly 250 page views.

Watching eBay: Jackie, Farmer & Moody

Here are some items worth watching on eBay:

Jackie McLean, The New Tradition, Ad Lib 6601. This is the original, quite rare. The seller lists it in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. The price is a little over $200 but there are a few more days to go before it closes.

This one is already more than $100 with several days to go. Perhaps it will set a new high for this LP: Art Farmer Quintet, Prestige 7017. This one appears to be in M- condition, although the seller does make it complicated in his listing. We’ve watched this record several times in the Jazz Collector Price Guide and the previous high price was $204. We’ll see if that changes.

My experience with James Moody LPs is that they sometimes don’t get the prices of other original Blue Notes and Prestiges by other artists. Anyway, this one may buck that trend:

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Price Updates: Trane, Friedman, Blue Notes

Here’s a new one for the $1,000 bin: John Coltrane, Coltrane, Prestige 7105. This was an original pressing with the New York address. It is Coltrane’s first date as a leader, but it’s still surprising to see this one pass the $1,000 mark. This one was in M- condition for the vinyl and near-M- (?) condition for the cover. The price was $1,077.65.

This one almost made the $1,000 bin: Horace Parlan, Us Three, Blue Note 4037. The record and the cover both looked to be in VG++ condition. The price was $912.

I didn’t realize this one had such cachet as a collectible: Don Friedman, Circle Waltz, Riverside 431. The vinyl was M- and the cover was VG++. The price was $255.

This one falls into the same category: When did it become a $200-range record?

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Finding a Rare Lee Konitz, Right On My Own Shelf

I have many hundreds of records I’m hoping to sell and on rare occasions someone may come to the house to peruse them. I don’t necessarily encourage this, but if I know you from Jazz Collector I’m generally OK with it. Anyway, the other night I had one of our readers come over and it turns out he was an alto player who was associated with the Lenny Tristano school and had played with Sal Mosca, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Billy Bauer and others. He went through the records I was selling and didn’t find anything he liked and asked if I had an 78s I’d be willing to sell. I do have more than 1,000 78s and I have been willing to pare this down and among the more than 1,000 78s I happen to have about 100 Prestiges in mint, unplayed condition. I purchased these Prestiges on

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Catching Up On Some Sweet Blue Notes

Here are a few more Blue Note 1500-series beauties we’ve been watching:

This one goes into the $1,000 bin: Lou Donaldson, Quartet, Quintet, Sextet, Blue Note 1537. This was an original Lexington Avenue pressing that was in M- condition all the way around. A real beauty. It sold for $1,880.55.

Lee Morgan, City Lights, Blue Note 1575. This was an original pressing. The vinyl was listed as VG++ and the cover was listed as VG+. The price was $850 and it had nearly 200 page views, which means a lot of people were at least considering a bid. I know I was.

Paul Chambers, Bass on Top, Blue Note 1569. This was also an original pressing, although the listing was a little weird, advertising it as Bone and Bari, the Curtis Fuller LP. Nonetheless, whatever record this turns out to be it was listed in VG++ condition and it sold for $790.

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Mono or Stereo?

Generally I prefer mono pressings of my records, if they are available. I tend to like the sound better and, to me, they are more authentic. There are exceptions, though, and I discovered one the other day. When I was in Academy LPs last week in Manhattan I noticed a copy of this LP: La Vern Baker Sings Bessie Smith, Atlantic 1281. This is a great LP, if you are not familiar with it, featuring a swinging jazz band including Paul Quinichette, Buck Blayton, Sahib Shihab, Vic Dickenson and others. Anyway, I knew that my copy at home was a stereo pressing and the one in the store was a mono pressing with the black label, an original copy, and the price was fair, $20 if I recall. So I purchased it thinking I would upgrade the copy in my collection. I got home, cleaned the black-label copy, put it on the turntable and felt there was something missing. So I took out the stereo copy and it sounded better: Fuller, clearer and crisper. I am not an audiophile and I

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For the $2,000 Bin: Marable and Flanagan

Let’s update the $2,000 bin, shall we?

The Lawrence Marable Quintet, Tenorman, Jazz West 8. The vinyl on this was listed as VG++ and the cover was listed as excellent, which I generally take to mean either VG+ or VG++ depending upon the seller and the description. For this item, I would think VG++ would be appropriate based on my grading terminology. This copy sold for $2,024.99. I admit: I don’t own a copy of this LP. Generally the LPs that have the high price tags are not just rare, but the music is good as well. Anyone want to share a review/opinion on this LP?

Also entering the $2,000 club, again, was this:

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On eBay: Watching Some Prestiges

Here are some interesting items we’ll be watching this weekend.

Tommy Flanagan Overseas, Prestige 7134. This is an original pressing. The vinyl is listed in M- and the cover looks to be VG++. I went years and years without ever seeing a copy of this record, always to hear about it in legend as one of the rarest of the rare. It’s funny, isn’t it, how there seems to be a nice copy of this record on eBay every couple of weeks? I think it’s a function of eBay and potential sellers realizing that can get top dollar for the record, so they look to flip it. I don’t have an original copy in my collection, but I’ve survived this long without it, so I think I’ll be OK. This one is more than $1,300 and it still has not reached the seller’s reserve price.

Hank Mobley, Mobley’s Second Message, Prestige 7082. This is an original pressing and it looks to be in VG++ condition for both the record and the cover. This is being offered by Academy LPs in New York. It’ s funny, I went into their

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A Blues Walk & A Visit to A Shrine

Perhaps CeeDee started a trend this week with his guest column. Here’s another from our friend Don-Lucky:

A ‘Blues Walk’ in NYC…

“Lou Donaldson at the Vanguard on Tuesday April 6th, 2010 was one of the best sets I’ve seen there in a while and well worth the long drive down to NYC from Ottawa. The first set began with Lou’s theme song Blues Walk and escalated through a series of standards and into Alligator Boogaloo from there. He was accompanied by Randy Johnston on guitar, Pat Bianchi on the organ, and Fukushi Tainaka on the drums… It didn’t stop there, Dr. Lonnie Smith dropped in to pay his respects for the second set, along with a quick cameo by Roy Hargrove, and a few vocals by singer Champion Fulton. Definitely worth the trip. Although Lonnie seems to think I owed him money from the last time he was in Canada. Don’t ask me why !

As for the rest of the trip, I did manage to drop in on Rudy Van Gelder at his fabled studio in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,  on the way out Wednesday morning. That’s the studio in the picture above. Rudy wanted

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On eBay: Dex, Garland, Trane

I wound up taking a six-week hiatus from selling records on eBay after my mom passed away, but I am back now and have been busy posting records by the armful the past couple of weeks. Some of the items are records I’ve written about on Jazz Collector, so we can see whether my investments were wise or not so wise. Here are a few:

Stan Levey, This Time the Drum’s on Me, Bethlehem 37. This is a record that features some very rare Dexter Gordon from the 1950s. It’s amazing to think how infrequently Dexter was recorded during this period, when you would have expected him to be quite prolific. Anyway, I bought this record in a batch of other records and wrote about it under the title: Taking a Chance on Junk Vinyl. It was among a group of 25 records and the whole batch cost me $30. This is already at $40 on eBay and should sell for a bit more than that.

Red Garland with John Coltrane, High Pressure, Prestige 7209. This was one of the ones I purchased in the

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