Meanwhile, back in the world of eBay the pickings are slim among high-end collectibles. I’m watching just a few, including Donald Byrd, Byrd in Flight, Blue Note 4048. This is an original West 63^rd Street deep groove mono. The record and cover are both listed in VG+ condition. The bidding is in the $160 range with more than five days left on the auction. Also Mal Waldron, Mal/3 Sounds, Prestige New Jazz 8201. This is a purpose label mono pressing, but I’m not seeing deep grooves in the picture so not sure if it is an original. The record and cover are listed in VG+ condition, but the picture of the cover looks VG top me. The bidding is in the $215 range with about a day left on the auction.

Finally, I see the mentions of the death of Bob Koester. He received quite a nice obituary in The New York Times. I was about to tell the story of when I went to the Jazz Record Mart for the first time in the mid-1980s and wound up with a suitcase-full of Prestige 78s. I just counted and reorganized them and the final number was 130, which was a bit more than I remembered. In any case, here’s a link to the story: End of An Era.

I believe I have always been a collector of some sort, of something. Baseball cards, books, stamps, coins, toy soldiers. And looking back, I outgrew all of them over time. Being Chicago born, I had always been riding the subway or buses when I was old enough to and on one such journey of exploration in 1963 or ‘64, I walked into the Jazz Record Mart, 7 West Grand, and immediately heard a sound that would stay with me always. I asked the clerk, dig now, a hipster for real, red haired, goatee’d, all in black, beret’d, what was playing over the speakers. The reply came, with hipster hauteur, “That’s Bird, man.” Seeing a look of befuddlement, he took pity on a youngster and said that’s Charlie Parker.

And off I went.

Charlie Parker led me to others, Coltrane and Louis and the AACM, it was all about the sound I heard, the musicality not the collect-ability. I didn’t know deep groove from deep dish, and the significance of West 52nd and Lexington Ave. meant nothing to me. With increasing awareness came the accumulation urge, perhaps innocent at the beginning, trying to get all Bird records or buying the new Coltrane when it came out, which soon led to getting everything. For when we’re young in something, everything is new and we want it all. Soon obsession came, and intrinsic value began to enter the picture. All jazz albums, bebop and beyond, were wanted now, 78’s included, and I’m searching for obscurities along with those that had the right pedigree, deep groove, RVG, right label, right address, right cover. Right music? Who cared about the music at this point.

I also owned a record store in Chicago for some five years, which led to intense obtaining of records for value rather than music and in 1997, found myself with some vinyl/shellac holdings of some 8,000-plus items. And also found myself on the cusp of a move. Several moves.

I’m in Jupiter Florida now. Each move saw me decreasing holdings, moving 2,000-plus 78’s? No thanks. However I still collected. What I owned grew and shrank; having owned a record store helped me look upon records as a commodity and thus easing some of the emotional value. So by June of this year I was still sitting on some 2,500 lps, 500 cds, 90% jazz.

I retired from being an elementary school teacher on June 6th, 2019. On the 7th, to establish a routine, us teachers know routine, I began walking four miles every day. And on these walks I began to think of what I wanted to do now. A new beginning, new awareness. I really no longer was driven to ecstasy over records, and buying no longer thrilled me. I had been selling on eBay, and sold direct to others and one day walking I realized I could let go. Just sell and sell and stop the drive to accumulate and stop the drive to buy records/cds again for the second, fifth, ninth time. You dummy, there’s a reason you sold this in the first place.

Yes, I had played this selling game before, now it all was for real. Because it’s time. Because I no longer was held by a desire to buy music continuously. Instead of selling in dribbles and drabs, I began boxing records and shipping them to sell to a dealer. Done.

The records I never thought I’d let go are gone.  Sold to friends, and thus I know where they are. At 67, I’m determining what is happening to the remnants of what I collected and this, in turn, gives me great satisfaction.

The decision to dissolve my holdings was aided by knowing the music was still accessible. If I could somewhere/how access the music again, via internet, a friend, I could get rid of the physical item. I had records I bought in 1980 and when I pulled them from shelves, I realized they have been moved three times and I haven’t played them in 39 years. Why keep? Bye bye. I was a DJ in Chicago/Detroit, that ain’t happening no more, why keep a record for one cut? Why hold on to something that has become meaningless?

A saxophonist/mentor in Detroit, Faruq Z. Bey, told me ‘if you really hear something, if you are really open and listening, then that which you heard stays with you always. It’s there, you can recall it.’  I still have perhaps 200 records and cds left.  All genres, and they also are going. I don’t need them. I don’t. I have no desire to buy, to accumulate, I find myself realizing I could be content with those few, 25 come to mind, that link me to the start.

And at some point, I could perhaps be happy with just one record, that very first Jazz record I bought and still have. There’s no collectable value to it, a MGM Verve pressing. But I just have to drop a needle on it and I’m walking into Jazz Record Mart at 7 West Grand and young Lenni has no idea what is going to happen, but the world is all a glorious adventure and he is ready.

I asked the question the other day: Does anyone out there collect 78s? No one replied, so I figured I would get the ball rolling.

The answer to the question, for me, is that I don’t collect 78s. I do, however, have more than 1,000 78s. The reason I say I don’t collect 78s is because if I did collect them, I’d be obsessed about them and worried about filling in my collection and getting all the Blue Notes and searching for 78s and hunting them down on eBay. That is what I do with my LP collection. I have never done that with 78s. Yet, through the years I have accumulated them.

It started back in the 1980s. There was an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper. A guy had a collection of jazz 78s and wanted to get rid of them. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, but I was curious: What if there were some original Bird 78s on Dial? So I called him and, indeed, there were some original Bird 78s on Dial: Yardbird Suite, Moose The Mooche, A Night in Tunisia. Holding these in my hand, it really felt like I was holding a piece of jazz history. The guy had about 1,000 78s and wanted $100 for them. That night I walked into the house and began unloading crates of 78s. Mrs. JC just looked at me and sighed.

Then, of course, I had to get a 78 player. I still have the first one I ever purchased: A crank-handle

RCA. It sounds great. I eventually purchased a used Thorens turntable and hooked that up to my regular stereo system, but that didn’t sound good at all. Through the years, I’ve discovered that the best players for 78s are the ones that were designed to play 78s in the first place, with the heavy tone arms and 78 needles. Right now I use an old Califone record player that they used to use in public schools (perhaps they still do) and I find that it is terrific. They are readily available on eBay, usually for $50 or so.

Anyway, I had these 1,000 78s back in the 1980s and I figured that was it for me. I had a few Birds, and Coleman Hawkins’ Body and Soul, and some Billie Holiday and Ella and Louis Jordan and, really, what more could I want? Then, in the early 1990s I went to Chicago for business and, a few blocks from my hotel, there was the Jazz Record Mart on Grand Street. I went there and the prices for the LPs were a bit too high for my tastes, so I kind of browsed and saw this huge section of 78s, rows and rows and rows. And, on the bottom row, near the floor, I pulled out a mint copy of Twisted by Wardell Gray on Prestige. It was priced at $1. Cool. So I looked some more and, literally, there were hundreds of Prestige 78s all in mint, unplayed condition, all priced at $1 each. I called my friend Dan Axelrod and told him what I’d found. “Bring them home,” he said, “And bring some for me.”

So I went out and bought a rolling carry-on suitcase and went back to the Jazz Record Mart on Grand Street and bought a couple of hundred mint Prestige 78s and I loaded them into the suitcase and rolled them back down Grand Street to the Hilton Hotel. The toughest part was lifting them on the plane and putting them in the overhead rack. A couple of hundred 78s is quite a load.

Now, I really thought I was done with 78s. Why would I ever need more? I had Bird and Hawk and Billie and now Prestiges with Miles and Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt and Ammons and Wardell Gray. But it’s never enough, is it, with us collectors? Whatever we have, it’s never enough.

So, through the years, I’ve accumulated more and more 78s. A few Blue Notes here and there. A few more Billie Holidays, and Louis Jordans. An Ike Quebec boxed set on Blue Note (see the picture with this post). There was a guy who had a store – really more like a museum – in the Empire State Building. His name was Morty Savada. It was said he had something like a million 78s. I went there one day. Just to look. Of course I came home with a pile of records.

Wouldn’t you?