CD Sleeves

As a collector it doesn’t take all that long to reach the point at which your marriage is in danger and your social life falls apart, and all of that just because you are running out of space or, to say it differently, because your spouse has to retreat to the kitchen or your guests are caught out in the hallway. In short, your place is full of music, top to bottom, left to right … and inbetween.

The first solution seems to be the easiest for people not in the know. Invariably they’ll tell you that you don’t need 5000 or however many CDs you have, simply because in their minds, you can’t really have listened to all of them and will never be able to. Of course, we know better and being real collectors, we have serious problems parting with anything we have, even the crummy jazz reissue from some defunct budget label, the old scratched up one-hit-wonder recording we played all too often and now can’t stand anymore, the original CD release of some 80s band that has since been reissued three times (of course we have all three issues, just to compare), or the 60s hits collection which we actually have covered by three other 60s hits collections. So, another solution is needed. Continue Reading →

Dear Blue Note, Sony, and EMI

After many years of annoyance, today I have finally decided to stop buying your CDs. This decision didn’t come lightly and I can assure you that I thought long and hard about it, but the decision is final. I will neither buy, promote nor talk about your CD releases anymore.

Let me explain.

I am a music collector. In the past 20 years, I have bought thousands of CDs. In fact, now that I reorganized my entire collection, sold some items and got rid of some doubles, my collection spans roughly 38 meters of CDs (yes, I’m too lazy to count them). Each and every one is legal and was paid for, more often than not also at a considerable price. And I’m not even going to mention the positively large LP collection and the thousands of digital files I was stupid enough to purchase from you. If we lined those up, we could probably double the meters. Continue Reading →

The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia

God, I don’t know how often I hit the various online shops to check for prices … until I managed to snatch up a copy for 60 Euro on Amazon.fr. In December of 2004, Christmas came two weeks early to this household when “Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944)”, a ten-disc collection the size of a 78 album sleeve, arrived here in pristine-perfect mint condition.

Before I unpacked this stunning box, I opened one of the better wines I had left (a difficult-to-find 1992 “Puyfromage” from one of the smaller vineyards in southern France) and sat there sipping my wine while looking at the as-yet unopened Amazon package. Continue Reading →

Monty Alexander and Ray Brown

Once in a while CDs just sneak up on me. More often than not they have been lying around forever and suddenly, while crawling around in front of my jazz collection, which is housed in low shelves, CDs literally jump out at me. I just have too many CDs and when the bug bites me, I try to listen to sessions I haven’t heard at all or just sampled and shelved away for some reason.

I wonder what went wrong when I went on a Monty Alexander and Ray Brown buying binge and stowed the CDs away. I was probably hooked on some other stuff (I did buy the CDs discussed below just when I entered one of those retro fits after having purchased the remastered Status Quo back catalog, which transported me back to my childhood and lots of air guitar playing in my 9 square-meter room at the time, so that might be an explanation). Continue Reading →

Oscar Peterson Trio: London House Sessions, ‘61

I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” Well, color yourself happy and call me shallow or just – as I do – go for Seneca instead: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” No matter what, I was damn lucky, and in my present circumstances that is not something that’s lurking around every corner. Several stars must have been aligned just right: I stumbled into this godforsaken CD shop populated by people who did not really know what they were selling. The usual money-making machinery. It was early in the morning, just after they had opened for the day. They were shop-cleaning, removing Britney Spears to be replaced with, err, Mariah Carey. All in all, a perfect day for jazz lovers.

As I was leafing through their jazz section, which consisted mostly of no-name, cheap, and copyright-free CD re-releases of the worst quality, interspersed with some better stuff (none of it recent), I saw this thicker ring-bound CD collection sticking out. To be perfectly honest, I had no idea what I was looking at. The cover is rather weird and only upon closer inspection are the words “London House” and “Oscar Peterson” discernible – most of the rest is illegible at best. Considering the low quality surrounding this find, I didn’t really expect much but still, I decided to have a closer look. Continue Reading →

16,000 Tunes and Counting

If this isn’t the most daunting task ever, I don’t know what is. In 2009, Motown will celebrate its Golden Anniversary and by that time, all 12 projected volumes of “The Complete Motown Singles” are supposed to be available for those unable to track down the more than 800 seven-inch records or more than 16,000 recordings those 800 platters add up to. These stunning limited boxed sets (5000 non-numbered copies) will also certainly save you some space, and the remastering adds the final sonic touch to what is one of the most impressive back catalogs of the recording industry. It could be ALL yours if you have the cash. Continue Reading →

Absolute Distribution / Blue Sounds

The problem with Jazz is that it’s old and because of that, many of the recordings are hard to come by or, at worst, simply unavailable. Add to that the absolutely shoddy reissue policy of major labels as well as the sometimes unbelievable prices for limited releases by labels such as Mosaic and out-of-print copies on eBay, and you are left with trying to find alternatives to get your fix.

In Europe – and this is something that bothers serious collectors – copyright laws are a bit different from the ones in the US, and recordings enter the public domain after 50 years. The problem is not that the music is available – after all, we’re tyring to feed our addiction – but that labels such as Fresh Sounds and Definitive Records don’t pay anyone anything for the reissues they put out. It’s pure profit for them. If you then think about the many jazz artists who lived or died in absolute poverty or the estates trying to preserve their legacy, things begin to look a bit more gloomy. Continue Reading →

IKEA Ivar

As soon as this site went online, I was flooded with e-mails (please do use the comment function on the site if you have questions on a featured item or related issues). Enquiring minds wanted to know what I myself use to store my collection and what I could recommend. Well, despite my posts to the contrary, I use the ultimate budget system, a simple IKEA shelf system called “Ivar”, slightly “tweaked” to fit my needs. Before you read on: Ivar is not one of those Ikea products that you need an IQ of 200 and infinite patience for to put together. You don’t even need any tools besides a screwdriver, and the skills required to put it together tend towards zilch. Fact is, it doesn’t get much easier than Ivar (and I have lots of IKEA experience with other, err, less successful products in that regard). Continue Reading →