Catching up on Some Nice Collectibles

Here’s a long list of records we’ve been watching:

Hank Mobley, Mobley’s Message, Prestige 7061. This was an original pressing in VG+/VG+ condition. Price: $679.58. That’s a pretty steep price for a VG+ record.

Speaking of steep prices for records in VG+ condition: Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus, Prestige 7079. This was an original New York pressing in VG+/VG+ condition. Price: $1,475

And yet another in VG+ condition: Jackie McLean, Swing, Swang, Swingin’, Blue Note 4024. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing. The record was VG+ and the cover was VG+. The price was $749.99 Read more

Some New Items For the Price Guide

Sorry I haven’t posted since yesterday morning. I’ll do a couple tonight to catch up. Meanwhile, I’ve been updating the Price Guide with some new entries. Here are some of the items I’m putting in, no links, just the items and their prices. Keep an eye on the site for a view of upcoming eBay items as well as a review of what happened over the weekend.

Dave Bailey, Reaching Out, Jazztime 003. This was an original pressing in VG+/VG+ condition. Price: $348

Bill Evans, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Riverside 9376. This was an original stereo pressing with the black label in M-/VG++ condition. Price: $296 Read more

This Weekend on eBay, Part 2

We promised to show you a few more interesting items on sale this weekend on eBay, so here we go. We’ll also follow-up on all of these items during the week to see what happened with them. And, we’ll also include them on our Price Guide, which now includes more than 3,500 entries. 

The seller bluenotesound, which I’m pretty sure is affiliated with Mosaic Records, has several interesting Mosaics on sale, including: Andrew Hill, the Complete Andrew Hill Blue Note Sessions 1963-1966, Mosaic MQ10-161. This is number 0006 of a limited edition of 5,000. This seller has several other nice Mosaics, so be sure to look at his other items. Read more

This Weekend on eBay, Part 1

We promised to point out some of the interesting items coming up this weekend on eBay, with some appropriate (and pithy) commentary, as always. Here’s the first batch. We’ll do follow-up posts as the weekend progresses, so stay tuned:

Once in a while I run into albums I’ve never seen before and here’s one: Bob Gordon, Moods in Jazz, Tampa 26. I know this is a record from the 1950s, but I have to ask about that cover: Is that Sarah Palin doing who knows what to a moose? Click the link for a better view, but this is definitely one weird cover.

Roost seems to be an under-valued label, but we’ve seen this one go for decent prices in the past: Beverly Kenney with Jimmy Rowles and the Basie-ites, Roost 2218. This one is currently under $20, in decent condition. Read more

Catching Up on eBay, One More Time

Here’s an update on some of the items we’ve been watching lately on eBay:

Kenny Dorham and Jackie McLean, Inta Somethin’, Pacific Jazz 41. This was an original pressing in M-/VG++ condition. We had targeted this is a potential bargain. It sold for $71. What do you think? Definitely a very nice record.

I have a feeling this one also may have been a bargain: Eric Dolphy, Out There, Prestige New Jazz 8252. This was an original purple label pressing in M- condition. Price. $103.51

Charles Mingus at the Bohemia, Debut 123. This was an original pressing in M-/VG+ condition. We expected it to go for a high price and it did, also beating the dealer’s reserve. Price: $460 Read more

Sonny Rollins: A Birthday Tribute

Tuesday was Sonny Rollins’ 78th birthday. Happy Birthday, Newk.

First time I saw Sonny was in the early 1970s at the Village Vanguard. Sonny wasn’t playing live when I first got into jazz. He was in one of his several retirements. I’d go to clubs in the city and see Bill Evans and Monk and Roland Kirk and Elvin Jones and Jim Hall and they were all great. But Sonny was my hero, and he was the one I was aching to see in person.

So I was quaking with excitement that first gig at the Vanguard, a dark, rainy, gloomy Tuesday night. Who knew what to expect? Read more

Some Hot LPs For the Weekend

When we were doing the jazz blog regularly back in 2004 and 2005, we would often look ahead to give our readers a peak at some of the interesting upcoming items on eBay, particularly heading into a weekend, when a lot of people are perhaps off doing other things. This is a tradition we’ll try to resurrect as we begin blogging regularly again. So, here are a few items and sellers to look at this weekend. As always, when you look at an item, try to look at the seller’s other items as well, since many of these sellers are posting some nice rare records.

Herbie Nichols Trio, Blue Note 1519. This is an original pressing being sold by a dealer in France who has some other very nice items this weekend. Another one from this seller Read more

Song For My Father

A Jazz Memoir By Al Perlman

Jazz was always in my life. It was my father’s great love. I grew up in a tiny first-floor garden apartment in Bayside, Queens, five of us with one bathroom, a small kitchen, two bedrooms, two closets, a living room and another family living in equally cramped quarters directly above us. There wasn’t much space and my mother made it even smaller by banning us from the living room. This was our “show” room to be kept in pristine condition and used only when we had guests: We weren’t permitted to sit in it or talk in it or eat in it or do anything in it. My mother kept plastic on the furniture and took it off only when there was company. The one exception was when my father was home and wanted to listen to jazz. That’s where he had his great big Fisher console with the hi-fi and radio.  Read more

A Few Items To View

 After a few days off, I finally got to catch up a bit on eBay this week. Here are some of the items worth looking at today. If you check out the first item, from Atomic_records, you should also look at “View Seller’s Other Items.” As is often the case, this seller has a lot of nice records for auction this week.

 

Jackie McLean, New Soil, Blue Note 4013

 This is a new seller that has some interesting items at fairly high starting prices. This one, for example, is in nice condition, but it’s not an original pressing: Miles Davis, Cookin’, Prestige 7094.

 Here’s one that might be a bargain: Sonny Rollins, Sonny Boy, Prestige 7207. This is an original pressing. For some reason, this LP doesn’t command a high price. Some of the material was issued earlier, but some of it is new, including a beautiful version of “The House I Live In.” Does anyone know of  any other jazz version of this song?

Illinois Jacquet and his Tenor Sax, Aladdin 708.

Reflections From Sonny Rollins, Part 2

Yesterday we offered a quote from an interview by Joe Goldberg with Sonny Rollins from Downbeat August 26, 1965. Here’s a second quote from the same article.

 “The thing to do is to work on myself, so I can play me. The audience can tell that. I remember one night, on the first tune, something went wrong with the rhythm section I was working with. They weren’t together at all, not with me, not with each other. We were playing Lover, I think, and there was this shambles behind me, and all I was trying to do was keep things from falling apart. I was playing as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get anything going; I didn’t play a thing. Finally we got through it, and I’ve never heard an audience applaud like that. I thought about it later, and I decided that they felt how hard I was trying, and they responded to that. It’s the same thing when an audience is talking and drinking while you’re playing. It’s a challenge to make them stop and listen. You can do it with tricks, but I’ve learned that it’s better to do it by playing something you really mean. Then they’ll listen. I can usually accomplish that, when I try.”

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