Jazz Vinyl Countdown: The Joy of Sax

This is the record: Saxes, Inc., Warner Brothers 1336. It is not a major collectible and it started out with two strikes against it. Strike one — it doesn’t have a leader, which means it has to be filed under “Various” or “Miscellaneous” in the collection and those are always the records that get put away where you can’t reach them or see them and you wind up never listening to them. Strike two — it’s one of these “arranged” LPs with a lot of emphasis on charts and less on playing. Anyway, despite starting off with two strikes, this record, surprisingly, makes the cut and will be in the final 1,000. It’s actually an awesome record with great playing and great arrangements that really swing. It starts

off with Fugue For Tinhorns from Guys and Dolls and never lets up. There’s some great playing by Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Phil Woods and Coleman Hawkins, among others. You should be able to find this record cheap on eBay if you don’t have it. Check it out if you can find it — it’s worth it. Just goes to show that even here at Jazz Collector we can appreciate records that are not collectibles. Of course, it’s an easy record to keep — I probably couldn’t sell it for more than $10 on eBay even if I wanted to, so what would be the point of selling it anyway? Then again, that is the kind of thinking that got me so many records in the first place, isn’t it?