But I knew the music wasn’t going to knock my socks off and it didn’t. I had a much better experience with the Mulligan Plays Mulligan record on Prestige, which I probably hadn’t listed to since I first purchased it more than 30 years ago. Great record, both sides, the tentette as well as the quintet/sextet. It’s hard to believe the ensemble sides were recorded in 1951, they still sound so fresh and innovative. And Allen Eager was a mother. It was eye-opening to sit back and really listen to him play. So that inspired me to put on a bunch of other ensemble records, including Miles Davis Birth of the Cool and Benny Golson The Modern Touch, two of my favorites. All in all, I spent a couple of days listening to new records, sorting out duplicates and following the inspiration from discovering a new record then moving to a record in my collection and generally having a good old time just listening.

This, of course, inspired me to take another trip back to Spike’s Record Rack to see what I may have missed and that was the inspiration behind the second story I posted on Jazz Collector, Feeding the Obsession, Yet Again, in which I wound up reorganizing all of my 78-RPM records and my 10-inch records and generally making a mess of things, what with slicing the paper sleeves of 300 78s and stuffing the records onto my shelves. The second visit to Spike’s brought a new round of records, including the 10-inch Blue Note James Moody and His Modernists, as well as a few others that filled gaps in the collection. Writing about the trips to Spike’s Record Rack also elicited an invitation from the owner of another record store in the general area, Hudson Valley Vinyl in Beacon, NY, and, of course, how could I pass I an invitation to a record store I had never before visited, particularly one that had previously been recommended to me by our friend and sometimes contributor Clifford Allen.

So a few days later I was back in the car with Marty the dog on my way down the Hudson River to lovely Beacon NY to look at more records, the results of which can be seen in the picture at the beginning and end of this post. For me, the highlights of this excursion were the Gene Ammons Prestige and the Dave Brubeck Plays Leonard Bernstein. The Ammons was only $8, which felt like a bargain, considering that the condition was excellent. It is one of the only records that features John Coltrane on alto sax and, for that reason alone, is a worthy addition to any collection. I listened to that one first when I got home and was also pleasantly surprised. Coltrane on alto is quite interesting, and you can hear that he kind of approached it the way he later approached the soprano, with a lot of energy, hard blowing and a lot of notes. He doesn’t really sound like any other alto player you could readily identify.

I was pleased to get a copy of the Brubeck record because 1: It was an original pressing and sealed and 2: It has become one of my favorite listening records, the side with the West Side Story music, and I wanted to have a copy for my studio apartment in New York. Call me greedy, what can I say. For $20 it was well worth it. I’ve become swept away by the creativity of Paul Desmond’s playing over the past few years and he has become one of my absolute favorite artists, and he shines particularly well on this record. I also want to commend the owners of Hudson Valley Vinyl – nice store with an excellent collection of jazz vinyl at fair prices. I would recommend that Jazz Collector readers go there, although that belies my general instinct to keep these places to myself, although in this case I know it’s way too late to harbor any such illusions. Seems like I’m the last one to know about this store.

I am now a couple of weeks past these sprees and I have many more records to place on the turntable and perhaps I am not done yet with this latest round of purchsasing. There is still the local guy with 1,500 records who is not returning my calls and a collection of 10-inch LPs and 78s somewhere in the middle of the country that may have some promise. Stay tuned.

When morning came I had to get ready for the WFMU Record Fair. I already had 14 boxes of other records in my cramped apartment. I started looking through the Baltimore collection to see if there was anything obvious I could pull out and possibly sell at the record show. I found a few items: There were three Sonny Rollins Blue Notes I now had in triplicates; the copy of Mating Call was an upgrade from my copy; I already had two mint copies of Study in Brown, so I could sell a spare. Same with John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio, Prestige 7123, and one of the Bud Powell Blue Notes

I put those records in a separate box and brought them to the fair. I set up my table at about 2:30 and by 4 p.m. most of those records were gone, sold to a couple of dealers from Japan. By the end of the day Saturday, they were all gone.

The rest of the records in my apartment were sitting there, still unplayed through the weekend. I was still just looking at them, marveling at their condition, trying to figure out what to do with their packaging. Many were still in their original rice paper sleeves and loose plastic outer sleeves. These sleeves were all more than 50 years old. I couldn’t really keep the records in those old, dirty sleeves, could I? But they looked so good in those sleeves and it really did give me the feeling of walking into a record store and perusing the bins in 1957 or 1958. I moved some of the records to new inner and outer sleeves, especially those that didn’t have inner sleeves to begin with, and they certainly looked safer that way. But I didn’t go all the way. Even now, as the records sit in my living room nearly two weeks later, some of the records are in new sleeves, and some are still in the original packaging from the 1950s.

There was one other important matter, of course. My niece’s Toyota Highlander was sitting on 81^st Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with 15 boxes of records from the era of classic jazz recordings, including three boxes of 78s whose contents were a mystery to me. And there was to be a point soon where my niece needed her car back. There was no room in the apartment for these records. The only options were to bring them to storage or bring them to my house in The Berkshires, where there is plenty of room. The decision was easy: If I put them in storage, I wouldn’t really get to go through them. The plan was to drive to The Berkshires and, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, November 26, Marty and I got in the car and headed for the country.

I had a conference call with a client when I got there, then I was on deadline to do three other writing projects. But the records were too powerful a presence to ignore. I unloaded them all from the car, put the 12-inch LPs in one corner and isolated the three boxes of 78s that I hadn’t previously explored. Remember, I didn’t even know these records existed until I arrived in Rob’s apartment in Baltimore.The boxes containing the 78s were the same types of Home Depot boxes as those that had the LPs. They were not sturdy and were, literally, coming apart at the seams from the weight of the 78s. I opened the first one. There a bunch of 78s, no sleeves, wrapped in an old cloth, probably the same cloth wrapping for more than 50 years. Nothing special in this batch. A lot of gospel music, which didn’t interest me.

As a dug deeper into the Home Depot box, the findings become more and more interesting. A whole group of Prestige 78s, all in perfect, unplayed condition. As I was digging through the boxes, I realized I wanted to share this with Dan, who, like me, has a passion for 78s. I called him up. I’m going through the 78 boxes now, I told him. Then, as I kept going through records I would read him the titles. A bunch of Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt and even a few Sonny Rollins 78s on Prestige, and then, finally, the first of the familiar blue and white labels, the Blue Notes. Bud Powell, Tadd Dameron, Miles Davis. All in pristine condition.

As I was going through these records, with Dan on the line, there was one obvious gap that we both realized: Where were the Bird records, specifically the Dials? Uncle Bruce must have had at least some of the Birds. I told Dan I had to go, but would call him back if/when I found the Birds. Sure enough, five minutes later, I discovered an old Capital Records carton. On the outside, in Uncle Bruce’s now familiar handwriting, were the words:

“Chas Parker, Assorted Mercury, Dial, Savoy, 1-1-54”

I opened the box and called Dan.

What happened next? Stay tuned for Part 7 tomorrow.

The box of 10-inch LPs had a bunch of other Blue Notes and about an equal number of Prestiges. They were all in similar condition, all with the now-familiar writing of the date on the back cover. Some were worse than others, unfortunately, such as the MiIes Davis Quartet, Prestige 161, with all of the seams completely split. They weren’t all gems. There were a few Stan Kenton 10-inch LPs, and a Jackie Gleason 10-inch LP.  There was also The Fabulous Thad Jones On Debut, which I had never seen before, and Lee Konitz Originalee on Roost, which I had also never seen. All in all, it was quite a pleasant box of 10-inch LPs.

Then I turned to the other boxes. The first one was all Sinatra. A full box of Sinatra. Not in such great condition either. The next box was mostly Carmen McRae and other vocalists. Nothing exciting here, either. Then bit by bit in other boxes I started pulling out jazz records to put into the boxes I had brought with me from New York. The first, I think, was a Gene Ammons on Prestige, Funky. Then Jammin’ in Hi Fi. Nice records, but not what I had driven down for. Then I started hitting some of the big ones: Tommy Flanagan Overseas, Mobley’s Second Message, Saxophone Colossus.

In looking at these records, I remembered something Rob had told me earlier: That Uncle Bruce seemed to favor some records over others and had put them in plastic sleeves. Actually, that was only partly correct. What Uncle Bruce had done was to KEEP the records in their original loose plastic sleeves. In looking at these records, I got the sense that Uncle Bruce bought them, opened them, put the date on the back, perhaps played them once or twice, and then put them back in the jacket with their original rice paper inner sleeve and the original loose plastic sleeve that was used to package them in the 1950s.

For the most part, these were like new records, what you would have seen on the shelf if you had walked into a record store in 1956,  1957 or 1958. Just to give you an example, here’s Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, an original pressing with the blue and red writing on the back, just as it appeared in Uncle Bruce’s collection, with the loose plastic sleeve and the original promotional material from Contemporary inside the sleeve.

The record and cover are in perfect, new condition, except for the date written in ink on the back, 6-7-57. The Flanagan, Mobley, Colossus, Jackie’s Pal, Jutta Hipps, and most of the others, all like new, all with the original loose plastic sleeve, some with the original rice paper inner sleeve, some, like the Pepper, with no inner sleeve at all, which is how I imagine it was originally sold. It wasn’t all perfect, however. The copy of John Jenkins on Blue Note had water damage. The Giant Steps was a later pressing. Some of the Blue Notes were second pressings. But it was nice. And it was a wonderful score for me as a collector, since it filled in so many of the hard-to-fill gaps in my collection.

I filled up the five boxes I had brought and sat down at the dining room table in Rob’s apartment. It was now after 8 p.m. I had been looking at the records for about an hour and a half, going through each of the collectibles and putting them into my boxes, leaving the others untouched in the boxes where Rob had been keeping them. It was time to talk price. I made a fair offer in between my minimum and maximum and we shook hands. I handed Rob three certified checks I had brought with me to Baltimore. The records were mine. Together Rob and I hauled the boxes down the stairs, down the corridor and into the car. I went back to the apartment one last time to make sure I had taken everything, including the three boxes of 78s, and to get Marty the dog, who had been patiently waiting in his crate the entire time.

At about 8:30 p.m. I shook hands with Rob, got into the car and pulled out of the driveway, my niece’s Toyota Highlander boggled down with the weight of more than 1,000 records, including some quite precious jazz collectibles I was thrilled to now own. I called The Lovely Mrs. JC. I told her I had the records. She was happy for me. I called Dan. He was happy as well. I had a big smile on my face the entire three and a half hours back to New York. I pulled up in front of my apartment, grabbed a cart from the doorman, and piled onto it the five boxes I had filled, plus the box of 10-inch records still in Rob’s original box. I unloaded them in the apartment and sat down on my sofa, happy and content.

What happened next? Stay tuned for Part 6 tomorrow.

So one problem was the lack of sleep. Then there was the idea that if I were somehow able to get the records before Friday, I could bring some of them to the WFMU Record Fair and recoup some of my investment immediately. The Lovely Mrs. JC was a strong proponent of this idea. Wisely, she has always been the one managing money in our household. If it had been me in charge, we would likely have 30,000 records, and not just a mere 10,000 records. And we’d be broke.

But I still needed a car to carry the records. Fortunately my niece has a Toyota Highlander, which I had used previously to haul about 1,500 records. I arranged to pick that up on Tuesday, so I had the option of going down before Friday if I wanted. Wednesday was out of the question because I had work projects to complete, but Thursday was a possibility. I reached out to Rob in Baltimore. Thursday during the day wasn’t great for him. I wrote back: What about the evening? Sure, he said, anytime after 6:30 p.m. If I were to drive down and arrive at 6:30 p.m. and spend two hours looking at the records and loading them, then drive back to New York, I could expect to be back home in the range of midnight on the early side and 1 a.m. on the late side. But I’d have so much adrenaline flowing I probably wouldn’t even notice the drive. Besides, I wasn’t sleeping anyway, so getting home late, with the records in hand, was probably better for my health than simply staying home and obsessing about the records. So I sent Rob back a note saying that I would be there around 6:30 in the evening on Thursday. Fine, he wrote back. He was looking forward to it.

After another sleepless night on Wednesday, Thursday was finally at hand. At about 2 p.m. I put the leash on my dog Marty and got into the car and headed to the Lincoln Tunnel for the trek to Baltimore, which I figured to be at least 4 hours during rush hour. You may remember Marty as my good luck charm from when I bought the Iriving Kalus collection. No way was Marty staying behind. The trip to Baltimore was uneventful. I was able to grab a bite along the way and still arrive at Rob’s place at about 6:15. I called him up to tell him I was there and he said to meet him in the back. It was a small apartment/office building. I pulled up to the back and met Rob there. We went down a short corridor and up a couple of small flights of stairs. Not the best for hauling boxes of heavy records, but there was nothing we could do about that. Once I got to the apartment, I put Marty in his crate and took a look around.

The records were in brown boxes from Home Depot, the kind you might use if you were moving books. They weren’t all that sturdy and I was glad that I had brought five sturdy record boxes from home. I had counted about 200 collectible records from the list that Rob had sent me. My plan was to isolate the collectible records, put those in my boxes and bring them back up to the apartment when I got back to New York. I would leave the rest of the records in the car for a few days until I was able to drive them up to the house in The Berkshires, where there would be enough room to unload them and sort through them. I was going to use a separate car completely to haul records to and from the WFMU Record Fair.

I looked at all of the boxes on the floor. It looked like a lot more records than I had seen on the list. I could see immediately why Rob wanted to get rid of all of these boxes at one time. I could also see that they wouldn’t easily fit in the car. Before I even began looking at the records, I asked Rob if it would be OK if I didn’t take the classical boxes with me. I told him that I would just donate them to Goodwill anyway, so if he could do that, it would be very helpful. Sure, he said. No problem. The classical boxes were taken care of.

Oh, yes, Rob said, there were also these three other boxes. Boxes he had forgotten about and hadn’t included on this list. He wasn’t even sure what they contained. I opened the top of one of the boxes. I saw two things. A broken 78 and an intact 78. Both were on the Prestige label. I looked further into the boxes. More 78s, more Prestiges, all intact, none broken.  I asked Rob if it would be OK if I took the three new boxes instead of the classical boxes, assuming I had room in the car. Sure, he said. No problem.

Now I was prepared to look at the jazz records, which were on the other side of the room from the classical boxes and the boxes of 78s. One box was a little smaller than the others. I grabbed that one first. It was filled with 10-inch LPs. I pulled out the first record. Miles Davis, Volume 2, Blue Note 5022. My hands were trembling with excitement as I turned the record to its side, looked the cover over carefully on both sides, and pulled the record from its jacket. This would be the first test of whether the drive down to Baltimore was a complete waste of time or an opportunity to buy a jazz collection that I could potentially treasure for the rest of my life. I gently took the record from its cover and pulled it over to the nearest light.

What happened next? Stay tuned for Part 5 tomorrow.

I asked what they wanted to do with the records. She said they – she and her brother – probably wanted to sell them, but the only firm offer they had received was from a local dealer and it wasn’t anything near what they had hoped to get. She said if all they were worth was the price the local dealer offered, they would probably choose to keep them and eventually donate them. I figured the local dealer was Infinity, so I asked: It was, although it wasn’t Joey that looked at the records but one of the young workers in his store. I guessed that the offer was probably about $1 a record, but I didn’t ask directly. Instead, I repeated that there were definitely some valuable records in the collection and the best way to get the best value would be to try to identify the rare records through my Web site at Jazz Collector and then sell those records individually on eBay.

Neither Karen nor her son Adam looked particularly enthused about the idea of poring through each record and trying to figure out if it was collectible and then setting up a site to sell the records one by one on eBay. I watched their reaction and then out of nowhere I heard the following words blurt out of my mouth:

“If you would want to sell the whole collection, I would probably be interested in buying the whole thing.”

I could see right away they were interested. Then, again without thinking, I blurted out a number. It was a number without any real pre-ordained thought, but a number that was fueled by the intoxicating impact of just having held a clean original copy of Sonny’s Crib in my hands for the first time in my life and knowing that with the right number this record could be mine. There were something on the order of 3,000 records in the room and I was offering to buy all of them to get one. It was pure emotion and adrenaline and I was completely winging it at this point.

“Is that a firm number?” Adam asked.

“I think so,” I said.

Then I thought about it for another second.

“You know” I said, “let me look at the records for a few more minutes and I’ll tell you for sure.”

So I went back into the room with the records. I’d forgotten all about Marty the dog, who was still waiting patiently in his carrying bag. I went immediately back to the shelf where Sonny’s Crib and the Coltrane and Miles records were sitting and I started pulling records off the shelf. I looked at each one, checked to make sure the cover was original, pulled out the vinyl, looked at each label, felt to see if there were deep grooves, looked for the appropriate RVGs and ears. I must have pulled out about 40 original pressings. I never even looked at the other two shelves on the other sides of the room to see what was there. I thought to myself, do these 40 records along with the other later pressings Blue Notes and Verves justify the offer I had just made if, worse came to worse, I had to sell them all on eBay? The answer was a definite maybe. But there was Sonny’s Crib and the emotion took hold again and I went back into the other room and told Karen and Adam that, yes, this was a firm offer.

Karen said she was inclined to sell them to me and said she would talk it over with her brother and let me know as soon as possible, probably the next day. I smiled, thanked them both, packed up Marty and left the house thinking to myself: “Did I really do that? Did I really offer to buy this entire collection? What if they say yes? Where will I get the money?”

And then reality set in. The real unavoidable, inevitable, unenviable reality of realities: What would I tell The Lovely Mrs. JC?

Stay tuned for Part 5