Though this seven-inch EP only contains two songs, they are both outstanding picks from an album that shares the same cover art. I had an encounter with an original pressing of the full LP about a year ago. The European seller graded it NM/M- on Discogs and it played with absolutely terrible distortion on the trumpet. When I asked the seller about… More→
Last spring I got a Columbia GP-3, the workhorse portable record player made in Japan that has been serving beatdiggers and the like for decades. Finances were good at the time and I had been trying to find ways… More→
For a picky, minimalist collector like myself, collecting Monk on vintage vinyl has proved challenging. Never a fan of collecting compilations on vinyl, I have never pursued the early Blue Note LPs (BLP 1510/11). While the performances are undoubtedly world-class (and my… More→
I ignored this album for quite some time for a couple reasons. First, it was primarily comprised of standards and short on originals, but also because the album has rarely been reissued in mono and I kept reading about issues with the consistency of Rollins’ volume level in the stereo mix (apparently caused by the leader’s motion in the studio… More→
My first interaction with Curtis Fuller Volume 3 came when I bought a Japanese reissue at a local record store on a whim. The lineup looked good and I knew it was fairly rare in any format so I decided to take a chance. After an initial round of unfocused listens, I prematurely dismissed the album and sold it locally. Then about a year… More→
About a year ago, when I first sat down to work on my Rudy Van Gelder presentation, I compiled a (necessarily large) playlist on Spotify of albums he recorded that I hadn’t heard. Among those were maybe around a dozen recordings done between 1953 and 1955. Unlike other Van Gelder dates from around this time that are drenched in spring reverb, these… More→
When I first began collecting vintage jazz records, I quickly noticed that Sonny Clark’s Cool Struttin’ is a very in-demand album and considered by many to be a classic. Additionally, I noticed that original pressings fetched in the upwards of two thousand dollars. At some point I became aware that this third/fourth Liberty pressing with original mono Rudy Van Gelder mastering existed, but it still… More→
I don’t exactly remember what piqued my interest in this LP. I think it started when I came across a copy of Gil Melle Quintet, Volume 2. Tal Farlow is on that LP. I also think I was just getting into ten-inch LPs and Rudy Van Gelder’s earliest Hackensack recordings. This album is rare in any format. There’s only one track buried in an obscure Farlow compilation on Spotify and only two… More→
This hobby is all about patience. Several years back, a friend of mine who is almost exclusively a collector of rock and disco twelve-inches randomly scored an EX original pressing of this album for 30 bucks at a shop in Troy, New York, just a 15-minute drive up the Hudson from my native Albany. Try as I have to pry it from… More→
Back in 2010, I first got interested in collecting vintage jazz records by way of the Blue Note Album Cover Art book. Since then it’s been glaringly obvious that Larry Young’s Unity sports one of the most popular and timeless covers in the legendary label’s catalog — there’s even a copy of it on display (alongside BLP 1530… More→