Tag: Bill Evans

Watching High-Ticket Jazz Vinyl on eBay

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I hopped on eBay last week and put a few rare items in my queue, starting with this one: Don Pullen and Milford Graves in Concert at Yale University. This one doesn’t have a label and has a hand painted jacket. The seller was our friends at Carolina Soul and they graded the vinyl in VG+ condition and the cover in VG++ condition. The main reason I put the record on my watch list was the price, which was already above $6,000 at the time. I wasn’t the only one to notice, obviously, but I did get the following note from our friend Daryl, who wrote the following: “Carolina Soul – what is this album? Will it fetch this dollars from a music (plus cover) perspective? Will it top the $9,000-plus sale from December 2022 as found at Gripsweat? We’ve written about that one before, Free Jazz (And More) at a Price. Per Clifford on that earlier post, no more than 100 copies of this record were produced. Anyway, based on the picture, this doesn’t look like the same record that got the $9,000-plus price. This one sold for “only” $6,100. Read more

Coming to You Live (Sort of): Jazz Collector Radio and Podcasts

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I just got back from taping my seventh Jazz Collector Live radio show in the studio of WTBR-FM in Pittsfield. I’ve really enjoyed doing the show, but I have to admit that it has taken away time that might otherwise have been devoted to posting here at the Jazz Collector web site. Hopefully, I will soon be able to strike a better balance, especially because doing the radio show is getting me more involved with my collection and listening much more attentively. For example, today’s show was devoted to John Coltrane, as a leader, playing standards, on the Prestige label. Soultrane, Settin’ the Pace, Lush Life, et al. Great stuff. Last week, I did Bill Evans as a sideman, and the week before the show was devoted to Thelonious Monk. Sound interesting? Well, the shows are now available to be downloaded as podcasts. Go to this site: WTBRFM.COM. There’s a tab for shows, and under the tab for podcasts you will find the familiar Jazz Collector logo at the very bottom. Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 5

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On Feb. 4, 2023 I turned 70 years of age.

Yada, yada, yada . . . on Feb. 7, 2023 I sent an email to Carolina Soul Records to see if they would be interested in buying a portion of my collection. So, yeah,  you could say turning 70 was a bit of a tipping point for me. Why did I reach out to Carolina Soul as my first choice? We’ve all been watching over the past few years as they have come out of nowhere to be one of the premier sellers of jazz vinyl on eBay. They seem to grade the records fairly, they must have a strong coterie of loyal customers, they get good prices, and they keep getting these pretty amazing collections of jazz records. I also figured, with the money they’ve collected in some of these auctions, they might have the wherewithal to actually pay cash up-front for the records. Plus, there were a few comments on the Jazz Collector site that pointed me in their direction, alluding to their reputation for being “very favorable” on consignment payouts, as Clifford mentioned the other day a comment on the first article in this New Adventure in Jazz Collecting. Read more

A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 3

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The pix with these posts are copies of some of the records to be auctioned. The real pics will be with the listings.

I trace the roots of this latest chapter in The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown back to a post I wrote on Jazz Collector on July 28, 2022. It was simply called Updates. In this midst of writing about a bunch of records on eBay, I went off topic based on a comment from our friend Maarten Kools — the idea of spending time with the records and enjoying them while also enjoying the process of thinning them out. Then, I wrote this: “If someone would have the wherewithal to buy one of the world’s greatest jazz collections in one shot, you know where to find me.”

The next day I received an email. The sender said he did, indeed, have the wherewithal to buy a collection like mine. Henceforth, I will refer to this individual as KC Ken, short for Kansas City Ken, which is neither his real name nor real location. Anyway, I checked him out on LinkedIn and it didn’t take more than a minute to determine that yes, he did have that kind of wherewithal. I wrote back and suggested we chat. Read more

Heavy Hitters: Monk, Duke, Evans, Dorham

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Here are some of the rare Jazz LPs I am currently watching on eBay, starting with Thelonious Monk Plays the Music of Duke Ellington, Riverside 12-201. This is an original white label pressing with the original cover. The seller doesn’t offer a grade, but it looks like the record is in nice shape and the cover looks really clean. This is a cool record, with the original cover, great music and the first record in the Riverside 200 series, signifying the label’s shift to modern jazz and, in particular, its very fruitful relationship with Monk. I would love to have an original pressing of this record and, unfortunately, I passed up an opportunity to buy one for $100 at the Jazz Record Center in New York about 30 or so years ago. This one has a start price of $940, which is too rich for my sensibilities. I took a look over at Popsike and, to my surprise, this record has sold for more than $1,000 at least two times. Perhaps this will be a third? Read more

Booking

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Sorry, yet again, for the long gap between posts. Been very busy around here. Plus, my computer crashed for a few days. Very disconcerting, when you are wondering whether you are going to be able to recover all of your files and settings, which I was able to do, fortunately, with tremendous online support from Apple. Now that we’re safely back in action, let’s catch up on some of the stuff we were watching on eBay before we were so rudely interrupted, starting with Booker Ervin, Groovin’ High, Prestige 7147. This was an original blue label mono pressing that was part of the Jazz Record Center auction we were watching. The record and cover looked to be in M- condition and the final price was $360, which was a new high for this record, according to Popsike.  I am somewhat surprised to see the demand for these blue label Prestiges to have increased so much in the past few years, but I am also pleased to see it for a player like Booker Ervin, who, in my view, is quite underrated and always produced some very nice records. Read more

Four For The New Year

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Happy New Year. This week we are watching a new auction from the Jazz Record Center in New York. Seems like the seller Carolina Soul has become the predominant seller of rare jazz vinyl on eBay in the past year or so, but the Jazz Record Center is still a gold standard as far as I’m concerned. This week, we have a couple from Kenny Dorham, starting with Kenny Dorham, Quiet Kenny, New Jazz 8225. This looks to be an original pressing that would probably be in M- condition for the record and cover, were it not for a drill hole through the cover and label. The item is new to eBay and doesn’t close for more than six days. The starting bid was $1,000 and there is already one bidder.  Also, there is Kenny Dorham, ‘Round About Midnight at the Café Bohemia, Blue Note 1524. This is an original Lexington Avenue pressing that looks to be in M- condition for the record and probably VG++ for the cover. Very nice copy, I’m sure. Like Quiet Kenny this auction closes in more than six days and already has a bid at $1,000. Read more

Explorations in Jazz Vinyl

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I had some time a few evenings back to sit down and listen with The Lovely Mrs. JC. With my wife, I know I can’t go wrong with Bill Evans and I put one of my favorites, Explorations, on the turntable. The music was great of course, but there were some ticks and some static in my copy that were just a bit annoying. To me. The Lovely Mrs. JC didn’t care, or didn’t notice. Anyway, my immediate thought was this: I have to get a better copy. But you look on eBay and you’re easily talking $500 or more for a clean copy. I can afford it, but I still have some very old and some would say very dated notions about how much I am willing to pay for a record. Read more

A Modern Jazz Quintet

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Let’s go back to the eBay watch list and catch up on some jazz vinyl auctions that may be of interest to the Jazz Collector masses, starting with Chet Baker, Chet, Riverside 299. This looked to be an original blue label deep groove pressing featuring, among others, Bill Evans on piano, which usually seems to generate added interest from collectors. This looked to be graded in EX condition for the record and the cover. The final price was $1,187.  Per Popsike, this is the second highest price ever recorded for this record. In 2018 a mintier copy sold for $1,225.

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Another Pretty Nice Batch of Sides

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As I’ve been perusing eBay since my return from vacation, I’ve been randomly filling my watch list with items to write about for Jazz Collector. And as I’ve been doing that, I am finding that most of the records I’m saving this week have a common seller, which would be Carolina Soul.  I’m a little bit in awe, and a little bit in envy, of the huge collection of Blue Notes, Prestiges and others they have up for auction this week. Not sure if the awe/envy is about the money that will be coming their way in just one week’s worth of auctions, or if it’s the fact that they seem to have a virtually endless supply of interesting/collectible jazz records. Anyway, here are some of the items in my queue, starting with Thad Jones, After Hours With the Prestige All-Stars, Prestige 7118. This one caught my eye because of the cover: I have a copy of this record with the New York yellow label and a different cover. My cover has a generic picture of a city nightscape. This cover, as you see, has a picture of Thad and (I think) Frank Wess. With Prestige it’s challenging to figure out which cover came out first and why they would change it so quickly after the initial release of the record. If I were to guess, I would say the cover I have would be the first cover, but that is just a guess. The reason is that the orange cover has The Prestige All-Starts underlined and that strikes me as an idea that a marketing person would come up with as a way to boost sales by making a slight adjustment to an existing product. In my real job, I spend way too much time talking to marketing people, so I could be completely wrong. Rudolf will know for sure which was first, as will others out there in Jazz Collector World. Anyway, this copy is probably in VG condition for the record and VG+ for the cover. Bidding is in the $125 range, with four days left on the auction. Read more

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