So my casual inquiry was with an undisclosed purpose: I wanted those two records. I knew, if they were still there, Kendra would have no clear way to sell them since the auction was over and she wasn’t about to go on eBay or open a record store. Perhaps she could have sold them to one of the other auction winners, but I felt we had built a nice rapport. It turns out that the records, indeed, were still sitting there with no bids and no visible interest from any other buyers. So, I said, how about if I give you twenty bucks for the two records? She paused for just a second, looked at the records sitting off by themselves, smiled and replied, sure. So I pulled out a twenty dollar bill and added those two records to my pile.

Now I finally get to the reason I wanted to write about this last piece of the story. It is because Billy Bauer is responsible for perhaps the only true musical accomplishment/accolade of my life. I will set the stage and I will try not to steal the thunder from my best friend Dan, because I am mostly a supporting character in this story and the best parts of it belong to him and he is writing a book telling his own version, and it is an awesome book, which I know because I’ve read it.

So, let me tell it from my side. This is back in the early 1970s. I am still in my teens and have been playing guitar for four to five years with very little distinction and not a great deal of talent. But I loved music and I at least made an effort. Dan, who lived down the block, was a prodigy. We were both into jazz, but only one of us could actually play it. By this time Dan was studying with Billy Bauer, and I was basically smoking a lot of pot, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to get laid, playing a lot of poker and going to the racetrack day and night. To put it mildly, I was not in a good place. Jazz became a refuge for me.

Dan and I would hunt records together, pore through my dad’s collection and go to clubs and concerts regularly. We’d also play guitar together. My repertoire was limited to the blues, Summertime and a few other tunes, but we sounded great because Dan was great and could do anything. If I made a mistake or hit a wrong chord, he could adjust on the fly. As his own repertoire expanded, he started teaching me more jazz chords and more songs so that I could do a better job accompanying him. It turns out, I may not have had great ears, but I could swing. I kept good time and I had a feel for jazz, having listened to it all my life.

At one point I must have been pretty pleased with myself because I suggested to Dan that we get a gig somewhere. He was already a professional musician working every weekend and he kind of laughed, thinking I was either joking or totally out of my mind. So, perhaps to humor me, he said, sure, if you get a gig, I’ll do it. So I went out and got a gig. Monday and/or Tuesday nights at a local wine and cheese bar not far from us on Union Turnpike in Bayside, Queens, where we grew up. I’m not sure how I actually got the gig. I probably just walked in, told them I had a band, and, they probably had nothing else going on Mondays, so they said, why not?

Now that we had a gig, though, we had a problem. How were we going to fill an entire evening? My repertoire was still limited and, because I knew nothing about music theory and didn’t have great ears, I couldn’t just follow Dan and figure out which chords to play (not that it would be easy even if I did have good ears). And Dan didn’t want me to have a fake book sitting in front of me because he was a professional and he felt if we were going to do a gig and play in front of people, he wanted us to look and sound like pros.

So, we came up with an idea. Dan would write the chord changes down on little index cards, and I would surreptitiously put the cue cards down on a stool or something so I could see them, and that would solve the repertoire problem. Dan would call out a tune, I would fumble through a little green tin box with the cue cards, find the right song – You Say You Care, Time After Time, If There is Someone Lovelier Than You, Have You Met Miss Jones, With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair – and, boom, we’d be off. I’d play the chords, Dan would solo, pretty much the whole night, for three hours. I still have the little green tin box and the cue cards right now, sitting on a shelf behind me as I type this. They are important; next time Dan comes up here to The Berkshires, I guarantee we will pull out those cue cards and start playing pretty much exactly as we did nearly 50 years ago.

Which finally brings me to my Billy Bauer moment. As I said, Dan was studying with Billy, who had a very strong teaching practice on Long Island. One evening, before we were getting on stage, Dan turned to me and said that we should try to turn it up a notch because Billy was coming to see us and he was bringing a bunch of his students. Oh, the pressure. This was the night I couldn’t miss any chords, couldn’t lose my place in the middle of All the Things You Are, couldn’t play a C Minor 7 when the tune called for a C Minor 7 Flat 5.

So we got up on the tiny stage at The Rainy Night House on our two stools and we dug in. Dan called out a Tal Farlow-inspired set because he had recently discovered the Tal Farlow Album, 10-inch on Norgran and it changed his life. I was pretty sure I nailed it that night. After the first set, we went over to Billy’s table to say hi and Danny introduced me to Billy and the other guitarists. After Danny got his well-deserved accolades, Billy turned to me and said something on the order of, “And I was just telling my students to carefully watch what you were doing because you were really swinging and providing the perfect accompaniment to Dan, supporting him without getting in his way.”

And that was it for me. A compliment, completely genuine and unforced, from a real jazz guitarist. It has stuck with me all of these years and perhaps I have embellished it or changed some of the details these decades later, but that’s how I will always remember it. So, getting the Billy Bauer album in this stack meant something personal to me; the fact that the Tal Farlow Album was also among these records was icing on the cake because it was the Tal Farlow Album that helped inspire Dan to become a great jazz guitarist and it was Billy Bauer who introduced Dan to Tal, who became his great friend and mentor. But that one truly is Dan’s story and is not for me to tell here.

One last thing: I think I have posted this before, but I can do it again. Here is what we sounded like back in the day playing All the Things You Are (Dan really gets into it around two minutes in so stick with it, with me responsible for the Yeahs in the background and a few words from The Lovely Mrs. JC right before we get started)

and Donna Lee.

These were recorded on a little cassette in my living room a few years later, but it’s a pretty accurate depiction of what we may have sounded like at the Rainy Night House playing for Billy Bauer and company.

Red Rodney, Signal 1206. This is an interesting one because of the condition. There’s a nice clear picture of the cover, which may give the impression that the cover is in nice condition. However if you look closely and read the description, the cover is in only G condition. And the vinyl is only VG. Despite the condition issues, however, the bidding is already more than $400. I guess this LP is in greater demand than I would have realized.

This is another one that’s getting up there in price, somewhat to my surprise: Booker Little, Time 52011. This is an original mono pressing with the deep grooves and gatefold cover. The record is in M- condition and the cover is VG+. The bidding has already topped $250 and the auction closes later today. Perhaps my previous comment about a soft market was premature.

Blue Mitchell, Blue’s Moods, Riverside 9336. This is an original stereo pressing with the black label. The record looks to be in VG++ condition and the cover is probably VG+ or slightly better. Bidding is in the $270 range and there are still more than two days to go.

Billy Bauer Plectrist, Norgran 1082. This is an original yellow label pressing. The record is listed in VG++ condition and the cover is VG. The start price is $150 and so far there are no bidder. I’ll be interested to see if this sells at that start price. There’s always been a kind of separate market for jazz guitar LPs — not just the jazz guys, but the guitar guys and especially the jazz guitar players. I wonder if there is still that interest in a guy like Billy Bauer and/or of there’s still strong interest in Norgran as a label. Something we’ll keep an eye on for the future as well.

“Billy Bauer told me he was in the Royal Roost in the early 50’s and Stan on a break returned to the bandstand and without accompaniment daven’d Little Girl Blue and when he was done there wasn’t a dry eye in the club.This ’56 live  Basin Street Cafe rendition (Shelly Manne, Oscar Pettiford, Dick Katz)  evokes a bit of that beauty- if you wanna post.”

stan-getz-little-girl-blue

A few words of explanation. Dan uses the word “daven’d.” This would be something of a Jewish colloquialism, although I’ve never heard anyone else use it precisely in this context. I think it generally means prayed, but in this case

it means something more, something quite personal and other-worldly, which is quite accurate, in my view. Also, Billy Bauer was a jazz guitarist often associated with the Lenny Tristano school of jazz and he was at one point Dan’s guitar teacher and the person who introduced Dan to Tal Farlow, who became his good friend and mentor. There was a time when Dan and I were doing a gig in Queens — I played rhythm guitar (sort of) — and Billy Bauer came to see us and therein lies a story for another day. In the meantime, enjoy this vintage Getz.

Sahib Shihab, Conversations, Polydor 623257. This was an original pressing in M- condition. Price: $256

Billy Bauer, Let’s Have A Session, Ad Lib 5501. This was an original pressing with the red label. The record was in M- condition and the cover was VG++. It sold for $160. I have two personal Billy Bauer stories. Back in the early 1970s, I had a gig as a rhythm guitarist accompanying my friend Dan Axelrod. My musical talents are, to be generous, modest at best, but Dan taught me enough chords to support him while he soloed. At the time Dan was taking lessons from Billy Bauer and one night Bauer came down to see us with a group of his other students.

And, during our first set, Bauer told all of his students to keep a careful eye on what I was doing because I was swinging so well and doing what a good accompaniest ought to be doing. It was, and still is, the highlight of my musical career. Fast forward 30-something years, I’m standing in Tower Records in Westbury, Long Island, browsing in the magazine section. Some little old man comes up to me and asks if I’ve seen the latest issue of Guitar Player Magazine. I point him towards it, he thanks me and says they just did a profile of him. Really, I say. Who are you? Billy Bauer, he replies. A few weeks later, sadly, I got a call from Dan: Billy Bauer had passed away.

Back to the records:

The Return of Art Pepper, Jazz West 10. This was an original pressing. The record was VG and the cover was VG+. Price: $162.50

Booker Ervin, That’s It, Candid 8014. This was an original pressing in M-/M- condition. Price: $255

Here’s that Roland Kirk record I mentioned the other day: Roland Kirk, Third Dimension, Bethlehem 6064. This was an original pressing in M- condition. Price $338

Finally, here’s that Jackie McLean record I threatened to bid on: Jackie McLean, Jackie’s Pal, Prestige 7068. This was an original pressing. The vinyl was VG and the cover VG+. Price: $202.50

I’ll be back with more later. Stay tuned.