My Favorite Things: The Winner Is . . .

Time to do the drawing for the winner of the great LP, John Coltrane, My Favorite Things, Atantic 1361. This is a near mint stereo pressing, not an original, but it sounds great and it’s one of the classics, despite the surprising criticisms from some of our favorite commentators. For me, this is a real favorite and one of the first records I fell in love with when I fell in love with jazz. I find the title track powerful and innovative and am a huge fan of the way Trane does “But Not For Me,” with an echo of his Prestige years, but the clear growth he had shown in Giant Steps. And then there is Everytime We Say Goodbye, which Mrs JC and I took for our wedding song. Speaking of Mrs. JC, here she is to select this week’s winner. As most of you know by now, the rules for our contests are simple: All you have to do to be eligible to win

Read more

Today at Jazz Collector: Trane Reigns

This is a busy day here at Jazz Collector, with a particular emphasis on John Coltrane collectibles. Some of the heavy-ticket items we’ve been watching are closing today, including that copy of Giant Steps, which is now more than $200; later today we will be announcing the winner of our contest to win a copy of My Favorite Things; and we are closing our last auctions for a couple of weeks, as we head off for a brief holiday. Have no fear, during the holiday we will still be doing our daily posts, and more, on Jazz Collector. Meanwhile, some of the items closing today.

Art Taylor, Taylor’s Wailers, Prestige 7117. This is an original pressing and the record features an all star lineup of John Coltrane, Jackie McLean and Charlie Rouse, among others. The record is in M- condition and the cover is VG++. The price is now about $450. This is one of those records in the batch being sold by Bobdjukic, which also includes the Giant Steps LP. What I find incredible is

Read more

Miles, Introducing Trane, On eBay, In Metronome

I was perusing eBay early this morning and came across this beautiful item: Miles, The New Miles Davis Quintet, Prestige 7014. I’ve always loved this LP, not just for the music and the great cover, but for the historic value as well: The introduction of the great Miles Quintet of the ’50s and, in particular, the introduction of John Coltrane. So, I put this item on my watch list and took a further look and it turns out to be a listing from Rudolf, our faithful friend and commentator. So we are happy to help Rudolf publicize this listing on the Jazz Collector site, but we also noticed a nice teaser in the listing, which notes that they album will be offered with a copy of Metronome’s July 1956 review of the album. Furthermore, the listing notes that the Metronome review is

Read more

Giant Steps: Black or Bulls-Eye or Both?

The real reason I was looking at the listings of bobdjukic was the copy he is selling of John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. This is a mono pressing with the bulls-eye label. Here’s what he says about the record: “Believed by many to be of the same vintage as the black Atlantic stereo label — in other words, as strangely as it sounds, one of two ‘co-equal’ first pressings.” This depiction is a new one for me, and I’m quite skeptical of its accuracy. A few years ago, I was scolded on this very site for purchasing a bulls-eye stereo copy of Giant Steps, even though I only paid $50. That’s my copy in the picture. The value has subsequently gone up. But this is the first time I’m hearing that anyone believes the bulls-eye and black labels are

Read more

More J.R. Monterose: Extremely Rare Recordings Available

Okay, I promised you something cool on J.R. Monterose.  I got a note the other day from a guy who has one-of-a-kind aluminum core acetate recordings J.R. made as a teenager. He got these from the estate of J.R.’s wife. They are 78s, of course, from the mid-1940s, and there are 12 altogether.  Well, I’ll just let you read the note he sent me:

“Hello. A few years ago I attended an estate sale in Utica NY of the late wife of JR Monterose. I purchased a stack of old records and in them were some aluminum core acetate (Wilcox Gay recording) albums of JR playing when he was a teenager. These are the only recordings of their kind for this artist (app.1944) I took the recordings to Syracuse University Belfer audio lab where they

Read more

Free Collectible Time: My Favorite Things (Really)

Is it possible someone could be reading Jazz Collector and not own a vinyl copy of John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things? Perhaps we’ll find out, because this is the prize in our next free collectible contest. We have a beautiful near mint later stereo pressing of My Favorite Things, Atlantic 1361, which we will be giving away to one fortunate reader of Jazz Collector in two weeks. This, of course, is a classic record and should be a staple of any jazz collection, even if your jazz collection consists of only five records. But maybe there are readers of our site who are newcomers to jazz and coming to learn, or who have somehow missed out on this record, or who would like a second copy to put in another room of their home, or perhaps one to frame and hang somewhere for perpetual inspiration. I, for one, have copies of this record in at least three different rooms in my house, plus another in my lake cottage. But, of course, I am certifiably insane. Nevertheless, if you would like to win a copy of My Favorite Things for any reason whatsoever, all you have to do is . . .

Read more

Et Tu, Johnny Griffin?

Here’s an interesting newcomer to the $1,000 bin: Johnny Griffin, Volume One, Blue Note 1559. This is a great record and, as a rare Blue Note with a great roster of artists, it is not surprising that this would sell for a high price tag. This particular copy, in M- condition for both the record and the cover, sold for $1,380. What was interesting to me about this record was the way in which the seller chose to list it. He listed it as “Blue Note 1559 Lee Morgan Hank Mobley.” He also purchased a subhead, which mentioned the presence of John Coltrane as a sideman. Notice how the seller never even mentioned Johnny Griffin, who was the leader on the date.

Read more

Soaring With an Alto Sax Legend (Not)

Sometimes it’s fun to browse through eBay, just for an occasional chuckle. Here’s one I like, on a record that’s closing this evening. The record happens to be John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Impulse 77. In order to drum up interest, the seller decided to spend an extra 75 cents or so on a subhead for the item, which he used as follows: “Soar Through The Heavens With Alto Sax Legend.” Yes, we all appreciate Trane as an alto sax legend, as we appreciate Bird as a tenor sax legend, right? Anyway, if you find listings or mistakes that amuse you on eBay, feel free to share them here at Jazz Collector.

More Peak Prices, Plus Miles, Sonny, Trane For Sale

In mentioning records reaching new price peaks, I inadvertently left out a couple of records among the ones I’ve sold recently. These aren’t records we’ve tracked often, but we haven’t seen higher prices for either of them:

Granchan Moncur III, Some Other Stuff, Blue Note 4177. This was a New York USA pressing. The record was M- and the cover was VG++. It sold for $223. 70.

Anthony Williams, Spring, Blue Note 4216. This was also a New York USA pressing in beautiful condition, M- for the record and VG++ for the cover. This one sold for $202.50.

We have a bunch of records up on eBay now, although none will fetch those kinds of prices. Here are a few of the records that are available:

John Coltrane (et al), Wheelin’ and Dealin’, Prestige 7131. This is an original pressing, with the New York

Read more

New To the $1,000 Bin: Giant Steps

We’ve been watching a bunch of records to add to the Jazz Collector Price Guide and one of them is a newcomer to the $1,000 bin: John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. This was a black label original mono pressing. The record was listed in M- condition — hardly played — and the cover was listed as VG++. It sold for $1,125 and had about 230 page views, which is quite a bit. This record may have sold for more than $1,000 previously on eBay, but, if it did, we weren’t watching. Our previous high for this item in the Price Guide was $690. By they way, as I was doing a search in the Price Guide for this record, I noticed that not everything is being listed in alphabetical order. I guess the database is structured so that when new items are entered, they automatically go in at the end. So if you’re searching for a record like Giant Steps, or anything else by Coltrane — who has three pages in the Price Guide — you should make sure to look at all of the Coltrane pages because after the first couple of dozen items, everything else is entered kind of randomly. I hope this is clear. I will talk to my Web and database associate to see if this is fixable. In the meantime, just do a lot of searching.

1 23 24 25 26 27 30