Posts Tagged "Articles"

Confessions of a Vintage Jazz Record Collector, Part 2

While I have never felt apologetic about my sincere adoration for music, sometimes I do struggle with feelings of guilt related to how important collecting is to me. I spend a lot of time thinking about and partaking in this hobby, and my propensity toward anxiety and obsession has made my active participation difficult at times. At this point in my life, some of the old challenges have compounded and new ones are presenting themselves… More→

Making a Case for Rudy Van Gelder’s Importance to the History of Jazz

For regular readers of this blog, recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder needs no introduction. In fact, aside from the musicians themselves, he is probably more known by jazz record collectors than any other figure in the music’s history. For collectors then, any question of Van Gelder’s importance will surely seem puzzling if not … More→

Deep Groove Mono’s Great 78 Adventure

In my time collecting vintage jazz LPs I have always been curious about jazz from the bebop era, which for the most part was originally released on 78 R.P.M. shellac disks. Listening to digital reissues of music from artists who thrived in the 1940s like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Lester Young was … More→

Deep Groove Mono and the Great Groove Width Mystery

Before stereo sounded the death knell of the mono format in the late 1960s, mono records were made with the intention of being played with a conical stylus measuring one thousandth of an inch, also known as 1 “mil”, at its longest radius. On the other hand, stereo records have always been made … More→

Mono Vinyl Playback on a Modern Stereo Audio System

Since its introduction in the 1950s, the stereo audio format has become an inseparable part of listening to recorded music. This two-channel standard has been implemented on such a universal scale, the terms “stereo” and “audio system” are virtually interchangeable today in everyday language. The original theory of sound recording was a little … More→

Thelonious Monk: A Collector’s Discography

When I first began listening to Thelonious Monk, it didn’t take me long to pick out my favorite songs. As I explored his discography more though, I realized that he recorded most of his compositions multiple times over the course of his life. Wanting to hear every version of each, I created a … More→

The Deep Groove Mono Picky and Broke eBay Buyer’s Guide

Since its rise to dominance in the late ‘90s, eBay has firmly established itself as the world’s premier marketplace. A gift and a curse to collectors of all types, eBay has proven successful at making the things on your wish list that much more accessible while simultaneously pooling buyers together to drive up … More→

Confessions of a Vintage Jazz Record Collector

Vintage jazz record collecting…ah, the highs, the lows, the insanity of it all. A lot has changed since I started collecting, but the biggest change is probably that I don’t feel the desire to maintain any sort of image for the sake of respect or credibility anymore. The following post should provide a … More→

Groove Wear: The Elephant in the Record Store

(Updated April 5, 2018) Although I have been collecting records of all types for over twenty years now, I have been a persistent collector of vintage jazz records for the last six. While I’ve managed to hunt down some original pressings in that time, I’ve often had to settle for reissues. The hobby … More→

How They Heard It: Blue Note Records and the Transition from Mono to Stereo

Several years ago, when I first became a collector of vintage jazz records, I was confused. Original mono copies of albums from Blue Note’s classic catalog were significantly more expensive than their stereo counterparts, yet virtually all the talk online was of the original “stereo” master tapes for these sessions. Why then were … More→