Jazz Vinyl Countdown: John Coltrane, Ballads

No, I am not thinking about getting rid of one of my all-time favorite records. No, this is a question about what to do with multiple copies. As noted in the headline, the record is: John Coltrane, Ballads, Impulse 32. I have had two original pressings of this record, one a mono and one a stereo. To me, this makes sense. But recently I purchased a second stereo copy of the record, this one a reissue. I have to be honest. The reissue sounds as good as the original. So I’m going to sell my original stereo pressing, and I’m going to first offer it here at the Jazz Collector site. It’s not a high-end collectible like Blue Train, but it’s a wonderful record, beautiful and romantic with a great selection of songs. It features Trane with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones.

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The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown: John Coltrane, Settin’ The Pace, Prestige 7213

As you may expect, the whole idea of permanently and arbitrarily shrinking my record collection, which has taken close to 40 years to accumulate, is causing quite a bit of trauma around here, around here being inside my very guts. So, if you’ll excuse me, I will ease into the process over the next few days before undertaking any gut-wrenching decisions. Therefore I shall start with one of my all-time favorite records: John Coltrane, Settin’ the Pace, Prestige 7213. This is a great record, probably my second favorite of all the Coltrane Prestiges (right behind Soultrane). The first “Arthur Schwartz” side, with the amazing ballad “I See Your Face Before Me” and the incredible “If There Is Someone Lovelier Than You” is all-time great Trane. The challenge is not deciding whether to keep this record for a collection of 1,000 — if the collection were to be shrunk to 20 records, this would probably still make the cut. The question is merely

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Jazz Collector’s Essential Cannonball Adderley

Blipp asks on an earlier post if we can make any recommendations on Cannonball Adderley’s earlier material, in particular the Mercury records. We can certainly do that, and we’re sure others in the audience will be happy to weigh in as well. First, we will give our own Jazz Collector version of our top five Cannonball LPs altogether. Blipp has been listening mostly to the Capitol stuff, he says, and we don’t think any of those records is going to make our list. Here goes:
1. Cannonball Adderley, Know What I Mean with Bill Evans, Riverside 433. Evans and Adderley obviously had a great rapport from their days with Miles and the addition of Percy Heath and Connie Kay made for a more lyrical setting that suited both Evans and Adderley quite well. And, as one might expect, within that lyrical setting they both swing like crazy.
2.  Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco, Recorded at the Jazz Workshop, Riverside 311. The ground-breaking early quintet with Bobby Timmons and the great tracks of “This Here” (with Cannonball’s engaging introduction) and “Hi-Fly,” plus a very swinging “Spontaneous Combustion.” This LP captured the energy of the group

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A Bargain At Under $1,000?

If a record should sell for more than $1,000, perhaps this would fit the bill: Sonny Rollins, Tenor Madness, Prestige 7047. This was a beautiful, New York pressing in mint minus condition, for both the record and the cover. Sonny and Trane together, an early Prestige, great cover. It’s got it all. This one sold for $832. As great a record as this is, this is the highest price we’ve ever recorded for it. The previous high in the Jazz Collector Price Guide was $543.  I actually think this one would have sold for a higher price with a better picture. Someday soon we will be adding a copy of this to the $1,000 been, we are quite sure.

A Sonny Clark Not For $1,000; Another Bulls-Eye

Here are a few interesting records we’ve been watching the past couple of days:

Sonny Clark Trio, Blue Note 1579. This one looked to be VG++ for the record and mint minus for the cover. Given the prices of Blue Notes lately — and Sonny Clark Blue Notes in particular — this one looked like a cinch to join the $1,000 bin. It didn’t, but it sure came close: It sold for $909.

Back to John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. This is the one with the bulls-eye cover. While we’ve pretty well established that this is not quite a first pressing — that would be a black label — this pressing seems to be catching on with eBay bidders. This one was in what we would probably call VG++/VG++ condition and it sold for $457.50. To give credit to the dealer, he notes that it is not as desireable as the black label.

And another Blue Note:

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Catching Up: Mobley, Mehegan, Morgan, Trane

Time to follow up on some records we’ve been watching.

Remember that 10-inch Hank Mobley record on Blue Note from yesterday: Hank Mobley Quartet, Blue Note 5066? When we spotted it, the price was around $65 with a couple of hours to go. The record was in VG- condition and the cover was just VG, barely. We figured it may go as high as $100? It sold for $274.

On the other hand, there was this record: John Mehegan, Casual Affair, TJ1. This record features Kenny Dorham and has always been a nice collectible. When we spotted this one it was at $7 with an hour or so to go. We put in a bid of $41.41 and it was topped at $42.41. I assume if the seller had done a better job with the listing, it could have sold for a bit more. We don’t have it listed at this point in the Jazz Collector Price Guide, but we’ve seen this record sell for more than $100 in the past.

Also, that copy of John Coltrane, Blue Train, Blue Note 1577:

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Today on eBay: Willing to Gamble?

Watching some items on eBay this morning. There’s a seller with some good records, but challenging listings. She doesn’t give clear indications of the condition of the records and the prices are quite high, so it’s a bit of a risk: You may be getting something great, you may not. Consequently, some of the prices are not what they would be if the records were listed even in VG+ condition, if indeed that would be accurate. I’ll point out a couple, but you can also check out the links and look at some of the others as well: John Coltrane, Blue Train, Blue Note 1577. This seems to be an original pressing. The words used to describe the condition are “very nice” and “pretty nice.” It asks for serious bidders only and the start price is $199.99. So far no takers. Here’s another: Lee Morgan, Lee Way, Blue Note 4034. This one is listed in is listed in excellent condition, so it sounds better than the Trane. It also has five bids and a price of $200. It will be interesting to see the final price. You should take a look at the seller’s other listings. They may be worth a gamble.

Also coming up today is this:

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More Today on Ebay: Jutta, Jazz West, Trane

Here are a few more nice items to watch today on eBay:

Jutta Hipp at the Hickory House, Blue Note 1515. This is an original Lexington Avenue pressing. The record is in M- condition and the cover is VG+. The current price is $630. I’m keeping an eye on this because I have a copy in my collection in similar condition and I’m thinking about selling it. Perhaps I’ll offer it first on Jazz Collector before going to eBay.

Lawrence Marable, Tenorman, Jazz West 8. The record is listed as VG+ and the cover is VG. The current price is $360.

To this listing we say “ugh.” It’s another copy of John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. It’s quite reputable seller, but somehow this myth of the bulls-eye label is being perpetuated. The seller lists this as

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All Things Considered, Some Surprising Prices

Time to catch up with some of the items we’ve been watching this past week. We will do this in a few posts throughout the weekend. We’ll start with some of those items sold by the seller bobdjukic, who’s clearly got something going on that enables him to get wacky prices as well as staggering numbers of page views.

We’ll start with Thelonious Monk, Monk’s Music, Riverside 1102. This was a later stereo pressing, with that gold stereo stamp that many of the Riverside’s carried. Clearly not an original, which was a white label mono. One time on eBay, an original copy sold for more than $3,000. We chronicled it on Jazz Collector and it created quite a stir. See here. In any case that price for a mono was an aberration, just as we feel the price here for a stereo is an aberration. This copy, in M- condition for the record and cover, sold for $413.55. The seller actually wrote this in his listing: “Monstrously rare stereo pressing, many times rarer than the mono.” Yikes.  The other amazing thing about this record: It had more than 1,700 page views in eBay. Yikes again.

Speaking of second pressings, there was the copy of John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. This was the one with the bulls-eye label, that was characterized as being of the same provenance as the black label. This record

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