The most bizarre place you bought Jazz in

[White Lightning]

A stall in a farmer's market? A quaint little place in Baghdad?? Walmart???

What's the most bizarre place you bought Jazz Vinyl/CDs in?

[JSngry]

Finding used LPs of Orgasm, Demon's Dance , and California Concerts in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, in the summer of 1989 was a bit of a surprise. The Mulligan I can kinda see (except that it's got the exact same scratch patterns that the copy my high school band director had ), but not the others. The store was a typical smallish-town used paperbacks/record store, and those three albums represented about 10% of their entire jazz selection. The rest was the usual Mangione, Benson, Spyro Gyra, et al discardage.

I'm sure there's a story about how a used Alan Shorter side ended up in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and I'd like to know what it is. But I probably never will...

[neveronfriday]

Actually, all the places that I still find a more than decent jazz selection at are somewhat bizarre. Comes with the times.

[clifford_thornton]

JRR in Colorado will never cease to astound me in both what he/it has and how it's presented. I remember the first time I went it was in an old strip mall west of Denver (it has since moved) and was just a longshot. You walked in and were surrounded by comic books and a bunch of records in old wooden bins - not much to write home about, but as I was grabbing some Shepp records, Tom (Burns, the owner) said "I've got more jazz records in the back." He led me to the tucked-away part of the store and I about shit my pants... Floor-to-ceiling heavy jazz, prog, folk and avant-garde records. Have been going back every couple of years since.

[Rooster_Ties]

Where's Spontoonious??? He seems to find stuff in the weirdest places, all the time. He should have at least a dozen stories to add to this thread, though that probably doesn't even scratch the surface.

[robviti]

i found a copy of the mobile fidelity version of cannonball's something else in a store that buys items from clearance, fire, and liquidation sales. cost: $4.99

[jlhoots]

20+ years ago i bought a "ton" of vinyl from a storefront in San Francisco.

The guy took only cash, had shelves full of mint stuff, also sold comic books & slept in the back on a mattress on the floor.

It was somewhere South of Market St., & I'm sure must be long gone.

[Guy Berger]

I bought Wayne's Moto Grosso Feio at the Hamden, CT Super Stop & Shop.

Guy

[sidewinder]

There's a place I use here in the UK that deals in three extreme fetishes only. Sci-Fi memorabilia, wall-mounted autographed photos of film and TV stars and modern jazz vinyl.

Edited June 30, 2005 by sidewinder

[sidewinder]

I once bought a Mingus Tijuana Moods reissue and a Parker 'Summit Meeting at Birdland' in a small fire/liquidation place that only lasted a few weeks. Both LPs had burn marks at the back and soot inside but the vinyl was OK.

[JSngry]

Got a mono 360 copy of Brubeck's Anything Goes at a TG&Y in Kilgore, Tx one night while the family was picking up some odds and ends before a Wednesday night Lent service. That was a trip.

Then there was the copy of Woody Herman's Heavy Exposure on Cadet that was on the rack in my hiometown Firestone store, the same place that had a buncha Crown sides, including the very first jazz record I ever bought, something by, again, Brubeck.

[White Lightning]

Got Complete Communion at Pushkar, India; Heavy Soul someplace in Bangkok; Tal in Hong Kong. None of which qualifies as "Bizarre", but some odd places to pick Jazz CDs.

[Jim R]

Back in the 80's, I was surprised to find the "Empathy" (Gryphon) LP by Joe Beck and Red Mitchell at a little hole-in-the-wall shop (almost all CD's, and with virtually no jazz in any format) in the little town of Wahiawa, which is in the center of the island of Oahu. I had never seen that LP anywhere previously.

I found some pretty choice vinyl at some antique shows we did, some of them out in the sticks. Normally if somebody brought records to an antique show, they were common rock and pop titles, but a few times I got lucky. Found a copy (a little worn) of Clifford Brown's BN 10" "New Star on the Horizon"; mint copies of Kessel's 10" Contemporary albums; and a few others.

[PHILLYQ]

I picked up a McCoy Tyner disc('Solar') at a closeout/discount joint called Oddjob that mostly sold cheap tools and discontinued merchandise, cheap napkins, etc. I paid $2!

[chuckyd4]

There's a place called "Value Village" or something like that in Atlanta - basically a thrift store that sells used clothes, kitchen wear, electronics, etc. Definitely not high class shopping, but a great place to go if you're into the thrift store thing.

One time I was in there and found a stack of really ratty old musty LPs. Can't remember exactly what I picked up, but got a couple of decent finds (iirc) for something like 50c a piece.

[sheldonm]

...a hand ful of jazz 45s.....Lou Donalson, Mobley, Turrentine, Morgan and others in a small record store in Fairmont, Indiana; the birthplace of James Dean.

[Chuck Nessa]

Osco Drugs, Ames Iowa, 1961. They had 4 or 5 bins of lps for $1.79 in the front window. Got a bunch of Jazzland, Seeco, Debut, Crown, Design, etc. Over the span of about 90 days I learned a bunch about the music AND the record biz.

Edited July 1, 2005 by Chuck Nessa

[wolff]

Finding 50 Blue Note/Prestige/Riverside classic titles in a guys garage was totally unexpected, if not bizarre.

[Jazzmoose]

Finding 50 Blue Note/Prestige/Riverside classic titles in a guys garage was totally unexpected, if not bizarre.

←

Damn you! That's where they went!!

[wolff]

Finding 50 Blue Note/Prestige/Riverside classic titles in a guys garage was totally unexpected, if not bizarre.

←

Damn you! That's where they went!!

←

Not originals, but very nice reissues, if that eases your pain a bit.

[Spontooneous]

Not one but two Johnny Coles LPs, "Katumbo" on Mainstream and "Little Johnny C," at a flea market outside Gower, Mo.

A Don Redman 78 under a sink at an estate sale in my old neighborhood.

At a suburban estate sale, in a split-level '60s house with '70s blue shag carpeting, there was only one 78 rpm record. But it was a rare Victor blues disc by the Shreveport Home Wreckers.

[Spontooneous]

I forgot to mention...

A lot of jazz CDs from the same pawn shop where Timothy McVeigh wrote a phony check for his Glock.

[kh1958]

A warehouse LP liquidation sale years ago (somewhere in Dallas, and this was an actual warehouse) where, I must confess, I purchased several Nessa LPs, among quite a few others, for $1 apiece--

the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, Congliptious N-2,

Art Ensemble of Chicago, Les Stances A Sophie N-4,

Roscoe Mitchell, Old Quartet N-5,

Roscoe Mitchell, Noonaah N-9/10, and

Roscoe Mitchell, L-R-G, the Maze, S II Examples, N-14/15.

That's $5. Sorry about that, Mr. Nessa.

Edited July 1, 2005 by kh1958

[sidewinder]

Picked up the TOCJ of 'The Rajah' at Tower in a shopping mall in central Tel Aviv (I think it worked out around $10). I've got the suspicion (based on news broadcasts) that this mall has since been targetted successfully by suicide bombers..

[doubleM]

I held out on buying a cd player until I was around 19. I had already developed a pretty healthy obsession with jazz and had a bunch of records. So, I broke down and decided to pick up a cd player one day, at a real divey pawn shop. Surprisingly (even today) they had a copy of Freddie Hubbard's "Breaking Point", used with a bunch of other crap. This was in '88 or '90.

I guess that I also found a Rex Stewart cd at a pawn shop one time, which I thought was unusual. I always get intrigued when I'm at a Value Village-type thrift store and see an obscure jazz cd. Once I found Flora Purim's "Butterfly Dreams" (?) or something at a thrift store like that.