Leon Leavitt's Collection for Auction.

[garthsj]

For those of you interested, and with enough money, a significant portion of Leon Leavitt's famous collection is being placed on Ebay. I disposed of all of my vinyl several years ago, but seeing these albums listed makes me salivate ... treat yourself to the feast by clicking on the following:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZanthonype...osortpropertyZ1

Garth,

Houston.

Edited November 27, 2004 by garthsj

[wesbed]

garthsj: Thanks for the link. I enjoyed the eBay pictures for sure.

I've never missed the snap, crackle & pop of vinyl since I purchased my first CD in 1985. On the other hand, the photographs on the large LP covers, the covers that open, the colored inner-sleeves, the sound of the record as it slips out of the case... I do miss those things.

[wolff]

Anthony Pearson strikes again...

Wesbed...you could always start buying LP's again. No one says you have to play them. You'd have the nice covers, readable liner notes and you could fondle the vinyl 'till your hearts content. I could also give you a list of dead silent LP's, since you do not miss that aspect of the vinyl format.

[wesbed]

Wesbed...you could always start buying LP's again.  No one says you have to play them.  You'd have the nice covers, readable liner notes and you could fondle the vinyl 'till your hearts content.  I could also give you a list of dead silent LP's, since you do not miss that aspect of the vinyl format.

Oh, but then... LPs are so big and where would I store them? I can hardly find space for my compact disks.

Edited November 26, 2004 by wesbed

[brownie]

Wow

[DrJ]

Amazing collection, I wish I was independently wealthy!

[Jim R]

I remember looking at his (mail order) auction lists years ago, and always pretty much just using them for reference material, because the starting bids were so steep.

[J.A.W.]

He removed me from his mailing list in the early 1990s because I didn't meet his minimum bids.

[sidewinder]

Amazing list - looks like 'Riverside heaven'.

[J.A.W.]

His records were always impeccable (I did manage to win a few before he decided I no longer met his minimum bids) and his grading was accurate.

[JSngry]

Used to buy from him in the 1970s, back when prices were sane.

Has he died?

[Chuck Nessa]

I don't think so. A couple of years back Harvey Pekar called to ask if it was ok to pass my number on to Leon. He was in the process of replacing his lps with cds and wanted to buy direct from me. IIRC, Harvey told me to make sure I got "full price" since Leavitt could afford it. He bought one of each title.

[garthsj]

In 1995 I was lucky enough, through the good graces of a West Coast intermediary, to be invited to visit Leon's air-controlled mini-warehouse to see his collection. I had made occasional purchases from him in the past, but I was even then growing weary with the prices for quality used vinyl. (I also had a lot of "stuff"). I was not prepared in any way with what I encountered. I am not sure exactly how many LPs were in that specially built facility, but I would venture somewhere in excess of 75,000 LPs (almost all jazz) were neatly arranged on industrial-strength metal shelving. The filing system was pretty basic, mostly by artist's name. I was overwhelmed, literally. (My friend told me a story of a Japanese visitor who had a heart seizure while wandering among Leon's holdings, and had to be removed my ambulance .. he swore it was true.) I had several "test" records in mind that I wanted check to see the extent of his holdings. One of these was a very elusive copy of Hal McKusick's "Cross-Section Saxes" (Decca 79209) ... I looked for it, found it, and he had FOUR copies!! Another was Lars Gullin's "Modern Sounds:Sweden" (Contemporary 2505 ... a 10") ... he had 3 copies! ..... and so it went for everything I searched for. I stayed for about two hours, and left deflated. I was depressed (I could understand that heart siezure), because there was no way that I, or anyone else for that matter, could ever manage to even get close to that collection. As Jim and I settled in to our dinner drinks that evening, I expressed to him my feeling that somewhow, for me, much of the fun had been removed from the joy of "the search." I now knew that whatever I 'really' wanted was available merely by contacting Leon, and paying a large enough price.

I really stopped seriously collecting vinyl after that, and I sold my LP collection in 2001.

Garth,

Houston.

[DrJ]

Fascinating stories!

So the next logical question for me is - does Mr. Leavitt actually listen to any of his collection as far as people can tell, or is he basically in the "collecting for the fun of collecting" camp? That would be a real tradgedy in my view, but it's pretty common. Hopefully he loves BOTH the hunt AND the music...

And to get totally off-topic Garth: if you hadn't heard, Dusty Groove has a notice up about McKusick's CROSS SECTION SAXES supposedly pending reissue on CD in Japan sometime soon....and DG has plans to stock it.

[J.A.W.]

Great story, Garth. There was someone like Leon Leavitt in Belgium, with a collection of 100,000+ original jazz and blues LPs. A friend of mine visited him in the 1970s and was totally shattered afterwards...

[J.A.W.]

And to get totally off-topic Garth: if you hadn't heard, Dusty Groove has a notice up about McKusick's CROSS SECTION SAXES supposedly pending reissue on CD in Japan sometime soon....and DG has plans to stock it.

Cross Section Saxes is listed here (scroll down).

[Chuck Nessa]

Garth's story reminds me of a collector (ans subsequent label owner) in Chicago named Jim Neumann. Jim owns and operated the BeeHive label with his lovely wife Susan. First Jim was a collector (I met him in 1966) and around 1977 he decided to start a label. He called me for info and when he had his first tapes, invited us to their home for a party to listen to the session tapes. At the time I had around 10,000 jazz lps and another 5000 classical.

At Jim's house, during the party I took stock of the huge wall of lps in the living room. Later in the night I discovered the alphabet ended in the middle of the letter E. I asked about the rest and was led to the basement and rows of lps on shelves. He also said the duplicate copies were in storage above the garage AND at his mother's house.

I'm sure SheldonM can confirm.

[garthsj]

And to get totally off-topic Garth: if you hadn't heard, Dusty Groove has a notice up about McKusick's CROSS SECTION SAXES supposedly pending reissue on CD in Japan sometime soon....and DG has plans to stock it.

Cross Section Saxes is listed here (scroll down).

Thanks for the information Hans, and Dr. J (my students have called me this for so long that everytime I see your name, I have a small Pavlovian response) .... I will certainly replace my old, departed Hal McKusick vinyl with one of those Japanese CDs. One thing about being a little advanced in age is that I can claim to have actually liked Hal McKusick's albums when they were first issued .. at a time when no one seemed to know who he was. I discovered him as a kid in the late fifties through my obsession with Art Farmer ...

Also, as far as I know the prime reason for Leon Leavitt's incredible accumulation of albums was to stock his internationally famous auction and sale list. He was the "dean" of those jazz auction lists, and as others have mentioned, if you did not meet his minimum bids, you were summarily dismissed from his clientele.

During the period when I was spending an outrageous amount of money (for my salary) on accumulating rare vinyl, there were several people who ran excellent auction lists ... Gary Alderman, Jeff Barr, and a few others became wealthy at my expense. Are many of these people still operating today? I stay away from them. It is painful enough when I see some of my old albums on the Euclid Records auction list!

Chuck mentioned Harvey Pekar in a previous post ... when I first read his famous strip-story on the mania of jazz record collecting, especially "borrowing" albums from the radio station where he did his program, I fell over .. THAT WAS ME HE WAS TALKING ABOUT! Can anyone reproduce that story here?

Garth,

Houston.

[wolff]

Jeff Barr is still around. I see him on Ebay now and then. I bought from him before Ebay. I can't remember his Ebay handle.

Ron Rombagh is still one of the big guns. Ebay handle is Jazz5060.

[Late]

Does Jeff Barr live in Texas? Denton?

[Jim R]

Barr came to my house once, while on a northern California buying trip. It didn't go well.

The auctions I remember buying from were Dan Serro, Warren Hicks, (John?) Hozack, Lee Wall (mostly guitar LP's), and a guy named Calvin Johnson in Texas (who I think passed away). Also Euclid and Jazz Record Revival.

[Jim R]

I thought Barr was from southern California, but I could be wrong (or maybe he moved?)

[J.A.W.]

I thought Barr was from southern California, but I could be wrong (or maybe he moved?)

As far as I know Jeff Barr moved from the East Coast (NY?) to Florida and then to southern California.

[Late]

OK, probably a different Jeff Barr ...

[J.A.W.]

OK, probably a different Jeff Barr ...

Maybe he now lives in TX...