Blue Note LP originals. Why the record $ highs with all new reissues?

Here's the thing though, btf: what is the demographic of fine art collectors like in comparison to the demographic of Blue Note collectors??

 

There are common ones. And then there are the rare, desirable ones that were touted in journals like The Absolute Sound.

Circa 1993, a batch of mint RCA Shaded Dogs came into my record shop in Evanston, IL. I picked them up for a song (I think $75 for slightly over 100 LPs), then called noted collector/reseller Gerry Cantor to come down and take a look. He wound up writing me a check for $1500 for eleven of the LPs on the spot.

These were not titles you'd generally see in a thrift shop when the Classic Records reissues came out.

 

Demand is high, supply for original Blue Notes is low. Most of these LP discs were never pressed in very high numbers to begin with. Most Blue Note titles then were slow but steady sellers (3,500-5,000 average sales of most titles save for a few then). Add to that the fact that most of these were played on heavy tonearms and changers then and many got heavily played so estimate that maybe 20 percent of these LP discs survived in near mint or even VG Plus condition .

 

No doubt about that, there is something very fun about listening to those original masterings. I said it in another thread, but hearing a vintage mono Blue Note Jimmy Smith LP on replica Western Electric speakers was one of my audiophile highlights.

The irony is that jazz wasn't invented with Blue Note, if what you are saying is true many of the jazz giants that paved the way will be forgotten. Most of them not recorded on collectable media or labels.

 

Hi again, hv. To be clear, I wasn't speaking about the music in general, I was specifically speaking about the potential for the records being studied as tangible works of art in the future.

 

Records are more a craft than art. They are commercially produced artifacts created by an industry that once was. I look at a record as akin to (amongst other things) commercially produced art; posters, murals, book and magazine covers, the travel industry and so on.

 

IMO for someone with that interest, an original is an artifact from that specific time, a realization of events that belong to only that window of time of which it is carbon dated. It has the time stamp that a reissue, desirable as it may be, can never have.
The rest is the old demand & supply law.

 

Blue Note records are about as close to art as a commercial product can get. The music itself, created by the best jazz musicians of the time, can be considered art. The fact that Blue Note allowed the musicians to rehearse before recording the performances certainly raised the quality of the recordings above other jazz labels on shoe-string budgets. Add to that the quality of Rudy Van Gelder's engineering. Add to that the very cool covers designed by Reid Miles that often used the outstanding photography of Francis Wolf. Each of these people were at the pinnacle of their respective fields and are still an inspiration today. When you add it all up--the quality of the music, the engineering, and the cover art--you have a product that sets itself apart from everything else by embodying the highest quality in every respect. That's what I find special about Blue Note records. That's why I think they have enduring value.

 

Right. A great commercial endeavor embodies the talents of individuals working together. With records, theres the artist(s), the cover artist(s), a producer, studio engineer(s), a songwriter or lyricist behind the artist. A record is not fundamentally that different than those that built iron truss bridges. Its a craft with artistic elements.

And I don't limit this to jazz records or blue notes. I find the sort of song crafting talents that were (could be) prevalent in the music industry prior to the 1970's every bit as artistic as the proverbial solo artist trying to keep exclusive control over their own work.

 

I agree with this 100%

Record in general, and Blue Note records in particular, are a slice of time captured on vinyl by a wonderful engineer of great musicians then enhanced by superb photography and cover art. And yes, there is an element of supply and demand as Blue Note's were never pressed in great numbers to begin with and over time, those few pressings still in NM condition have been whittled down considerably. But then, isn't fine art also a case of suppl;y and demand?

 

^fine art even more so as there is only one (1) original, and so prized among its collectors

 

This is slightly off-topic, but didn't artists like David have their students copy their paintings, in which case there are several "copies" (paintings) that might be considered "originals"? Obviously this is not a perfect analogy since this may have been done a handful or a dozen times in comparison to the thousands of copies of original pressings of an album, but I thought it was worth briging up.

 

Hands down, the 45RPM. In print. "Dert cheep"
http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/48801/Hank_Mobley-Hank_Mobley-45_RPM_Vinyl_Record

 

Doh! Not sure what I was thinking. I knew that!

thank you sir!