Music Memorabilia--Music Collecting Stories-continued

Music Collecting Stories - continued

Stockholm, Sweden Story

I am now a retired shipbroker and a quite a lot of my time is now spent on my record collection. There are many ways how to collect records. You can collect all the music that you like to hear and consequently you may have both classical records, jazz records, personality records etc.etc.

In my case it is jazz records that are of interest. In the beginning of my collecting time which started back in the 1970's I collected all jazz that I liked. And that was quite a lot. But since I am that type of a collector that wants to have everything of a particular artist I had to concentrate. I concentrated on the big bands from the swing era such as Ellington, Basie, Lunceford, Webb. Erskine Hawkins and a few more. But I soon realized that having the complete production of these bands was a costly venture. I had to concentrate even more. Finally I decided to concentrate on Erskine Hawkins and Duke Ellington. There is quite a difference between the two. If you define their record production on a scale from 1 to 100 Erskine winds up on 5 and Duke on 95. I soon was close to complete on Erskine, right now I am only missing one or two King 78s. However on Duke I would say it is impossible to become complete. His production spans from 1924 thru 1974 and new finds are still being found and reissues are frequent. In the beginning I was just after the music as such, meaning if a certain recording came out on a reissued LP I didn't bother to go after it because I had the music already. However, later on my completest ambitions grew and I wanted all records of Duke there was to find. I am especially interested in his early productions on 78rpm. This means I want all "A Trains" that have been issued on 78s anywhere in the world. I want them all !!!! When it comes to 78s I can see an end to my collecting ambitions because after all the 78s were only produced up to mid 1950s. LPs and EPs took over and were produced in great numbers up to say 1990 and then CD took over. I have no idea where the end of LPs and EPs lies but whenever I see a record I don't have I try to get it.

Now, how do I find my records ? In the beginning I found quite a lot of them in local stores. But soon those sources were exhausted. I then found international auction magazines such as VJM and Joslin Jazz Journal. They still produce interesting auction lists and I am a frequent bidder. Then there are many private dealers around the world. I am on their mailing lists and receive their offerings regularly. In my Duke collection I have right now about 1500 78s, 250 EPs, 1000 LPs and 250 CDs. In addition to them there are all doubles which I am trying to sell off. When I say I am collecting Duke I also include his sidemen such as Bigard, Hodges, Stewart, Cootie etc.

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