I knew Richard Hayman for a short period of time. I met him when his wife responded to an ad I placed looking to buy record collections. I came to his apartment on Fifth Avenue in the 70’s. A beautiful sprawling apartment with a terrace overlooking the Avenue that he must have bought in the sixties. There was a grand piano in the living room. The walls were covered with his personal music memorabilia, awards, photos, gold records and book shelves wall to wall. In cabinets, closets and storage areas, he had thousands of lps. Finally, we was ready to let them go he said. This was the well kept collection of someone who had spent 50 years in the music business making records and working in A&R for the major labels.

I spent many days coming back to go through the collection lp by lp. Each visit was mostly me sitting on my hands and knees flipping records and pulling the cream of the crop. We had many friendly conversations about his life and music. Even though he was successful for selling millions of mostly easy listening records, his tenure at Mercury records among other labels gave him opportunities to work with many of the biggest names in sixties music. As rock wasn’t his taste many of the rock and psych records had never been played and I sold them to collectors. I found many great covers, lots of great jazz and vocalist lps too that I still have.

(30 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

 Loading ...

At one time Soupy Sales was very big. Beginning in the 1950’s he spent three decades on TV, talking to kids and often getting a pie in the face. He cut a few records. This one was his entry into the early sixties dance fad explosion — “the mouse.”

On a more serious note, there’s an incredible clip on youtube of Soupy introducing the great jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown on his show in 1956!

(16 votes, average: 3.13 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Norman Granz. Clef Records. Jam Session #4 Side one: “Oh Lady Be Good.” Side two: “Blues for the Count.” All-star jazz ensemble including Count Basie, Sweets Edison, Stan Getz, Wardell Grey, Buddy DeFranco, Benny Carter, Freddie Green, Buddy Rich, Willie Smith and John Simmons.

Another classic David Stone Martin cover illustration.

(18 votes, average: 4.72 out of 5)

 Loading ...

“Breezing” (1960) by Sonny Red with Yusef Lateef, Blue Mitchell and Barry Harris on Jazzland records. This is a great jazz record and “Brother B” – the first track is one of my favorites.

Orin Keepnews produced. Cover designed by Ken Deardoff.

Jazzland was an offshoot of Riverside. I once bought a collection of 200 original Riverside jazz records in absolutely mint condition from a guy in Avon, Connecticut who said that he had worked at the label 30 years earlier. It was one of the best discoveries of my record hunting days.

(11 votes, average: 4.64 out of 5)

 Loading ...

The pinnacle of style and grace, Blue Note records set the bar for lp cover graphic design, photography, typography and quality.   The label also produced many of the greatest jazz recordings of the fifties and sixties and featured a roster of the music’s greatest composers and musicians.   Owners Francis Wolff and Alfred Lion together with producer and engineer Rudy Van Gelder and art director /graphic designer Reid Miles helped define jazz visually as well as musically during the music’s greatest period of innovation and achievement.   Wolff photographed every session and his pictures were most often used on the covers.

(43 votes, average: 4.70 out of 5)

 Loading ...

What a nice portrait of the beautiful, soulful, jazzy, political and proud Nina Simone deep in thought. The photo is uncredited, but there’s a good chance it was done by Burt Goldblatt who did many for Bethlehem at this time.

Nina Simone and Her Friends (1959) is actually a compilation album of Bethlehem recording stars including Simone and her label mates Chris Connor and Carmen McCrae. The Nina Simone tracks were recorded in New York City in 1957 with Simone singing and on piano, Jimmy Bond on bass and Al Heath on drums. Her four songs here are “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,” “I Loves You Porgy,” “For All We Know” and the instrumental “African Mailman”.

(13 votes, average: 4.54 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Cover photo: Charles Stewart Notes by: Ralph J. Gleason

“A wild, swinging, demoniac, funky, hilarious, way-out, continental, down home, home-cooked, volatile, expoobident, grooy, bombastic, stoned, risque, hip, incredible, orgiastic, superstitious, finger-popping, rabelasian, didactic, crowd-pleasing, recherche, humanitarian, nitty gritty, spontaneous, unspeakable Sunday Afternoon with Babs Gonzales at Small’s Paradise (1963) on Dauntless records.

Babs Gonzales (vocalist and raconteur) with Johnny Griffin (tenor sax), Clark Terry (trumpet and flugelhorn), Horace Parlan (piano), Buddy Catlett (bass), Ben Riley (drums).

Babs passed away in 1980 in his home in New Jersey. Try to find his book “I, Paid My Dues.” (Good times – no bread, a story of jazz). Expubidence Publishing Corp., East Orange, NJ. 1967.

(9 votes, average: 3.78 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Jazzbo Collins tells fairy tales to put hip kids to bed.   Dig-arooni?

(12 votes, average: 3.58 out of 5)

 Loading ...

“Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. And start all over again.” This was one of my stepfather’s records and I pulled it out of his small collection when I was about 14 (maybe the cover piqued my pubescent interest).   Anita O’Day remains maybe my favorite female jazz vocalist. When I first moved to New York, I hitchhiked to see her at a small club in New Jersey and sat and spoke with her for about an hour.

Cover photo by the great Herman Leonard. Buddy Bregman arranges and conducts.

Anita O’Day, the last surviving member of the pantheon of great jazz singers (whose ranks also include Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan), passed away Thanksgiving morning at the age of 87. Born in Chicago, O’Day gained national attention as the girl singer with drummer Gene Krupa’s orchestra on the hit record “Let Me Off Uptown.” After two tenures with Krupa and one, inbetween, with Stan Kenton and his Orchestra, O’Day became a solo star and, along with Fitzgerald and Vaughan, a founding fore-mother ofmodern jazz vocals. Known for her inventive scatting as well as her touching balladeering, O’Day recorded several dozen classic albums, mostly for the Verve label in the 1950s. Ms. O’Day was often as flamboyant visually as she was innovative vocally, evidence of which can be found in the films “The Gene Krupa Story” and “Jazz On A Summer’s Day. A survivor of both heroin and alcohol addiction, she was also the author of one of the great jazz memoirs, “Hard Times, High Times” and the subject of a full-length documentary film, ‘Anita O’Day – The Life of A Jazz Singer’ which is currently in the final stages of completion. –Will Friedwald November 23, 2006

(13 votes, average: 4.46 out of 5)

 Loading ...

The Modern Jazz Quartet. John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath and Connie Kay. Atlantic Records 1265 (1957) Featuring Medley: They Say It’s Wonderful/How Deep is the Ocean/I Don’t Stand A Ghost of a Chance with You/My Old Flame/Body and Soul; Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea; La Ronde: Drums; A Night In Tunisia; Yesterdays; Bags’ Groove; Baden-Baden.   Cover photo: Fabian Bachrach / Recording engineer: Tom Dowd / Supervision: Nesuhi Ertegun / Liner notes: Nat Hentoff

(16 votes, average: 3.94 out of 5)

 Loading ...