38 years - hard to believe I have been collecting vintage big band recordings and classic jazz records for that long! This has been quite a year of ups and downs due to the COVID-19 issue, unrest and riots, an upcoming Presidential election, as well as a few personal transitions I will be discussing at greater length in a future visit here. Today though is September 30, and it is the eve of my anniversary of collecting records for all these many years. As October 1st dawns in about 12 more hours from the time I am writing this, I have a lot of things to update regarding my collection.
First, let's get the stats out of the way. As of tomorrow, my collection will have a grand total of 1352 CD recordings, 1116 LP records, and 121 DVDs of various vintage big band movies, concerts, documentaries, "Soundies," and the like. Add to this around 400 or so 78 RPM records and a handful of 45's, the collection has grown quite dramatically. I wasn't anticipating this much growth this year, but to be honest I wanted to go ahead since I had the ability to do so and finish up my records I wanted to get, including a very nice gem I will talk about more momentarily.
As mentioned, this collection year was about vinyl LPs for the most part, sort of carrying over from the previous year. I was able, for instance, to get a large number of the Reader's Digest boxed LP sets I had been wanting, and I have pretty much all of those. I also focused as well on some individual LPs of stuff I once had in the original collection that was lost in storage back in 1993. I am at the point now where pretty much all the vinyl collections I was after are now in my collection, and the numbers show as I gained over 200 of them this year alone. However, one of those sets stands out, and I want to take some time discussing it.
When I was in my 8th grade year at around 15 years of age, the Franklin Mint Record society released a monumental set that I literally drooled over then and I have been after for years since. That set was The Greatest Jazz Recordings of All Time, and it was a 100-record set consisting of individual discs of red vinyl, and the collection was one of the most comprehensive of its time. Franklin Mint used to issue a lot of very historic music on record - the other set I was after then, The Greatest Recordings of the Big Band Era, I acquired in 2006, and it was an equally valuable prize to land when I got it. The jazz set though has proven to be even better than I originally thought it was, as it features (with a couple of exceptions) practically every notable jazz recording made between the years of 1906 and 1985. The set I was able to get I found on EBay, and the gentleman selling it - an elderly man from Virginia - was an amazing seller. He was iffy about shipping it, so he and his wife drove here and delivered the set personally, which for me was totally amazing - and, he was also a really nice fellow to meet, him and his wife both. The set cost me just under $400, and it came with a lot of bonuses too - one was a nice little wooden cabinet that originally was part of the complete collection, and that was something new for me. Also, the index of the recordings was impressive as well - although the spines of the individual boxes the records are in (4 records to each box, 25 in total) have the major artists featured in that particular volume, there is a lot more in them too - I was blown away when I got to really see what I had landed in my collection, and it was worth the 34 years waiting to get it. That was the collection that put my vinyl numbers over the 1100 mark too, and it was well worth the investment.
The Franklin Mint Jazz set in its cabinet, sitting in my office now with my CD recorder on top of it.
The massive index of the Franklin Mint set included in Album 25, the last volume
The Franklin Mint jazz set may or may not be my last LP acquisition, as at this point I have no collectible prospects now that I have gotten pretty much everything I was looking for. But, it is definitely one of the pinnacles of the LP collection for sure.
As for CDs, it was a good year for those as well. Among my CD acquisitions were complete collections of Stan Kenton's early Capital recordings (in a boxed Mosaic set), as well as some of his classic Capital LP's from the late 1940's and early to mid-1950's. Additionally, I also have a complete set now of Nat "King" Cole's early trio recordings starting from 1938 or so. I also broke down and got a Frank Sinatra collection on CD - not a spectacular one, but it has many of his best sides on it. I also focused as well this year on things such as Christmas recordings of big bands, an entire collection of legendary society bandleader Griff Williams' vintage LPs on CD, a good Ozzie Nelson 2-disc collection, and also a few more recent things - I have added some modern experimental big bands, such as the Vienna Art Orchestra and Toshiko Akiyoshi, to the collection as well. And, some other unique Stan Kenton collections - his experimental mellophonium sound of the early 1960's, a live road show with June Christy and the Four Freshmen, and a DVD of his last live concert in 1978. Speaking of DVDs, it has been a good year for those as well - a Spike Jones documentary, the 1981 Benny Goodman Tivoli concert in Copenhagen, and a few vintage big band movies among other things. Overall, not a bad collection year.
I also did a little something different this year with my collection as well, as I got a personal token for it. As I have mentioned in many past discourses about this, my first record was bought on October 1, 1982, and Mom had gotten it for me from the local "Rio Mall" in Rio, WV, for a quarter. It was nothing that really was relevant to my current collection, as it was a Harry Belafonte LP, but I wanted to do something special and get it for posterity. I purchased an album frame for it, and in the frame I included a picture of the "Rio Mall" and some historical detail. When all of the dust settles from some rearranging of the house in a few months, I intend to mount that on the wall in the room where my music collection is. I was going to wait until Year 40 in a couple of years to do that, but then figured that I needed to strike while the proverbial iron was hot, so I did. I think it was a good decision honestly, and it is going to look nice on the wall along with some other decorations I will be adding at a later date.
The framed 1955 Belafonte RCA-Victor LP, representative of the first record I ever got in my collection
Any rate, "it was a very good year," to quote a later Sinatra classic recording, for my collection. So, what does the new year bring as far as collection prospects are concerned? I now want to briefly discuss that.
At this point in my music library, I really don't have a whole lot on the "bucket list" to get as far as existing availability is concerned, save a couple of very important jazz collections I have an eye on. The first is an import set called The Ultimate Jazz Archive, and it consists of 168 CD's of practically everything significant in jazz recorded between 1895 and the mid 1980's - it is roughly equivalent to the Franklin Mint LP set, but different chronologically. A second 100-disc set that is hard to find because not all of them have been reissued is called Jazz in the Charts, and it is also a Japanese import that features a chronological sequence of 100 discs covering the 1890's through the early 1950's. I want to eventually get both of those, and the first one will be easier as it is readily available on Amazon and EBay at a fairly decent price brand-new. I am also after still the 24-disc Duke Ellington Centennial set that RCA released back in the early 2000's. So far, not much success there, as I want to get those brand-new and most are actually used that are available. I don't anticipate the Ellington set being part of my collection for some time, so that is tabled. The other two sets though I will actively look for, as it is important to acquire those. There is also a third 500-CD collection which will prove seriously challenging to get, and it is practically a whole library in itself. That one we may think about later, but it is not urgent to get at this point.
The Ultimate Jazz Archive set - 168 CDs total
The Jazz in the Charts collection - 100 CDs total
The massive World's Greatest Jazz Collection - 500 discs total
These massive sets are reminiscent of the old Franklin Mint collections that used to be marketed in earlier decades, but they contain much more material than a 30-minute LP record can hold. If these sets were LPs, they would probably dwarf the Franklin Mint sets easily. Two of these collections are readily available, and the third may be in due time. But, they are also expensive and will not happen overnight either.
The focus of my collection will be shifting in the coming year from acquisition to maintenance and utilization, as I will be attempting to incorporate my hobby into other projects I work on. Given I am working on a Ph.D. in History right now, these could play a crucial role in class projects or even future historical documentary research, as it provides a cultural backdrop to many historical events and periods. It is time that I make this collection work for me, and I want to find creative ways to make that happen.
At 38 years, my music collection has exceeded my wildest expectations from where it started, and I am quite excited about it. By the time I reach Year 40 in a couple of years, it remains to be seen where we will be at then, but in the short term I don't foresee a lot of dramatic growth from this point in the collection. Also, I need to catalog it better as well - at present, I document every record and CD in a large binder as an inventory tool, but I want to really do a database of the collection that is more efficient. I started the hand-written inventory back in 2006, and it has an ordered numbering system and alpha arrangement for each item in the collection. In upgrading the inventory, over the next couple of years I want to do a two-step process:
1. The first step is to take all the inventory listings and put them on individual index cards, meaning that I can rectify any duplicate catalog numbers and also make them into a better organized order.
2. Once the card system is set up, the next step is entering them into an Excel spreadsheet and saving them. An electronic spreadsheet is much easier to enter new acquisitions, and it is also less cumbersome and I don't have to mess with my own scratchy handwriting.
As the catalog system is rebooted in the next few years, and as I find a better display home for the collection in due time, I am hoping that my collection will be something that will provide both enjoyment and education for years to come. And, as we go toward Year 39 now, I will be back to share any interesting insights when I make my annual reflection. Thanks again, and will see you soon.
