Collecting Vintage Blue Note Records

Dead wax refers to the area of a vinyl record between the grooves and the label, in this area, when you hold the record up to bright light you can see catalog numbers or "matrix" numbers, and many other little tells.

Why would collectors need this info? well to a serious collector, the original first pressings, or as close as you can get to it, is what those collectors strive for, It is a matter of taste of course, but I tend to agree with them, even some of the lesser condition original copies of Blue Notes I have, have a power and clarity not in later pressings, it is true, there is enough of difference to really notice it, In my own instance, the difference between Art Blakey 4003 original and say a NY USA copy was noticeable, but the NY USA copy still sounded quite nice.

Rudy Van Gelder was the main recording engineer at Blue Note after 1952, and many times his stamp will be in the dead wax, RVG. RVG STEREO, or just VAN GELDER will be in the dead wax, usually the plain RVG is mostly sought after, indicating this as an earlier pressing, all though any pressing with a Van Gelder stamp is worthy in my opinion, especially if your a drum freak, Rudy really new how to record drums, though many say that his recording of piano was sub par, in fact, Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage is possibly one of the worst of Van Gelder's masterings I have ever heard, Herbie's piano sound is way down in the mix, the sound is very thin, but normally the Piano sound is good enough to my ears.

Another thing you will see in the dead wax on an early Blue Note pressing is the "ear", or cursive p, this means the record was stamped by Plastylite, the pressing company Blue Note used prior to the Liberty Records Buy out of 1967, this also indicate a superior quality record

Also you must be careful if your looking for a true pre Liberty Blue Note pressing, after Liberty bought out Blue Note, They used all the inventory up on extra labels that were laying around, so sometime a Liberty pressing can have NY USA labels, but not have the cursive p in the dead wax, if that is an issue to you, keep that in mind.

Many collectors ignore anything released after the Liberty buy out, especially the more commercial organ soul jazz, But I have found Dozens of fantastic artists, Big John Patton, Brother Jack Mcduff, Lou Donaldson, and and Jimmy McGriff, all worthy of enjoyment, also Tyrone Washington, The mysterious tenor saxophonist who has almost completely disappeared from jazz, made one Blue Note in 1967, Natural Essence, an album that seems out of place on Liberty's Blue Note, a throw back to earlier in the decade, a mildly avant garde session that sounds more in line with what Jackie McLean was doing in the early to mid 60's, Natural Essence is one of my personal favorite Blue Notes, Why did Tyrone Washington only lead one session for Blue Note?

There are albums by Candido, Grant Green and Chico Hamilton from the early 70's that are stellar, plus some funk albums from Ronnie Laws and Bobbie Humphry that I have enjoyed quite a lot.

Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie of Mosaic Records fame, put out some fantastic 2fer reissues in the mid 70's of unreleased music in the blue note vaults, much of this same music has shown up in their award winning reissue box sets, I personally have almost all of these double albums, Freddie Hubbard, The Jazz Crusaders, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Thelonious Monk, Art Pepper, Jackie Mclean and many many more, all loaded with fantastic music, much of this music was released in single CD form, Lee Morgan's The Procrastinator and Freddie Hubbards Here to Stay come to mind, These 2fers have expanded liner notes inside the gate fold covers and can be found for usually 7-15 dollars, an incredible bargain indeed.

eBay, wow! you can really get overwhelmed there, especially when you do a completed listing search for Blue Notes recently sold, and search for highest price first, you will see many deep groove original pressings fetching well over a thousand dollars, some way up near five thousand dollars, these are way beyond my level, so I focus on finding bargains, taking some risks, and understanding, that lesser condition first press Blue Notes are not necessarily bad, in fact many time I have gambled on a lot of 5 or more, listed as very good minus, with some felt marks, one thing about these deep groove mono copies, they seem to withstand moderate wear quite well, many of these sound astonishingly good and almost always play better than they look.

just yesterday I found a copy of Hank Mobley's The Turnaround, Microgroove with the NY USA address on the label, it had moderate marks and scuffs, and 1 pretty good felt mark on side 2, it played well, with only a few ticks, these were recorded so well, that the defect never overpowers the music, I paid 3.99 for this records, a mint copy would have cost well above a hundred dollars, my point is, if you search, and realize that even a scratched deep groove Blue Note may still play fine, and will sound very good usually, it is a great way to get the real deal, even if it is lesser in condition.

One of the more frustrating aspects of Blue Note hunting on eBay is, the seller who lists a record with a generic VG, VG+ or EX, with no details what so ever, and just a cover shot, no pictures of the labels, you have no idea what pressing it is, and when you inquire about it, they have no idea either, so obviously you can't trust the record grading as well, so the main point is, just be careful, ask questions, ask about felt marks, did they grade under bright light? ask for more photos, sometimes this can work against you, if you give the seller all this info, very likely he is going add more photos, then the record you could have gambled on for 15 bucks, shoots up to 200 bucks, that has happened to me, so now I am a little more careful about asking too many question.