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COMPLETE KEYNOTE COLLECTION - 21 lp set.


Dmitry

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Monetarily that is. Saw one on eBay, slightly worn box, didn't reach the max and ended at $230 or so 2 wks ago.

Today a sealed one sold for $500+, in a bidding war.

What's a realistic price of this thing?

I'm very interested in getting this set, but is $500 a real ticket price?! :rmad:

Edited by Dmitry
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I bought this when it came out. I believe it was around $200.00 at the time.. new.

There is a lot of "essential" music in here from Hawkins especially, and lots of the key figures of the music of the period. Though quite a bit of the music can be found elswhere in sets designed around the partiucular artists. Obviously all the key recordings are in the Classics series under the leaders names

There were Keynote CD sets featuring the main artists, and perhaps the Traditional sets by George Hartman were not included in these, and may never be reissued but you won't be missing much

There are also many alternates which seem to upset some people, not me.

Lim also seemed to like the 12" record therefore a lot of the performances extend beyond the normal 3 mins of the 10" disc.

If you want it whole then $200.00 would seem to be a good price for a used set in reasonable condition.. but pretty much all the key recordings are scattered over cds of one kind or another.

I just transfered mine to CDr it tokk up 15 discs to complete.

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Remember also that Michael Cuscuna is still embroiled with trying to get licensing to do a Complete Keynote CD box for Mosaic...a risky bet, undoubtedly, to wait for it though since it may never come to pass. But if it did...probably your LP set would still hold some value since vinyl lovers are vinyl lovers, but it may not be worth as much as you paid for it if this came to pass.

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I bought this when it came out. I believe it was around $200.00 at the time.. new.

If you want it whole then $200.00 would seem to be a good price for a used set in reasonable condition.. but pretty much all the key recordings are scattered over cds of one kind or another.

I just transfered mine to CDr it tokk up 15 discs to complete.

I would agree $200 is about right.

(even though I saw a set for about $100 a couple of years ago in Japan) :rolleyes:

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  • 1 year later...

I just picked this set up for $180 on Ebay, mint condition (single owner, never played!). Only three bids were placed, lucked out (I had a max bid of $221).

It's so wierd how Ebay works, there's another copy up for auction simultaneously, with another bit of time left that is supposedly only in "very good," more played condition that is already over $225 U.S. I don't get it, but I'm glad things went my way!

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I have this set but didn't get it on ebay. When I was trying to get it on ebay, however, the prices were astronomical. Sets a couple of years ago were going for around $800 to $1000.

So, to get it around $200 is very good indeed. On ebay, lp sets don't get as much as they used to. People probably have less disposable cash than they used to.

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On ebay, lp sets don't get as much as they used to. People probably have less disposable cash than they used to.

I think the sellers are increasing (people are passing away and others are getting rid of their LP collections) and the buyers (the older buyers are passing away and younger folks are mainly buying CDs) are decreasing. :lol:

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On ebay, lp sets don't get as much as they used to.  People probably have less disposable cash than they used to.

I think the sellers are increasing (people are passing away and others are getting rid of their LP collections) and the buyers (the older buyers are passing away and younger folks are mainly buying CDs) are decreasing. :lol:

I got a mint copy on ebay almost two years ago for 225 with shipping, 180 is a very good price in my opinion. I really think it comes down to supply and demand, like most things on ebay. Anyway, nice score on a terrific set! B-)

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Yes, that was the one I was referring to in my original post - it's hard to believe there could be this type of disparity, as near as I could tell there were no common bidders on both sets...so I can only assume the people bidding on the Scottish one only saw that one and not the other I got. Lucky lucky lucky!

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I was interested in the Scottish one. I got a Hodges set from the same seller in great condition and very nice price (part of an estate sale :( ) so put in an early bid. I was out on a business trip over the past few days and the price leaped over my bid and beyond the budget. Ah well, there's always another time... B-)

Didn't even see your copy DrJ. Must be a 'stealth' item for UK bidders.. :lol:

Edited by sidewinder
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Regarding Ebay disparities, here are a couple from the last few months.

Mosaic LP sets:

BLUE NOTE TINA BROOKS $355 $60

Miles Davis/Gil Evans Complete Columbia $198 $371

M.DAVIS-PLUGGED NICKEL-MOSAIC BOX $256 $113

B.DEFRANCO/S.CLARK-MOSAIC LP'S $202 $91

PAUL DESMOND /JIM HALL BOX $204 $72

Hall/ Johnson/de Paris/Dickenson $27 $143

SAM RIVERS-MOSAIC BOX- $265 $120

I could go on....

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Thoroughly recommended. I don't have much Hodges in my collection but the mid-size group of this vintage put down some hugely enjoyable music which swings mightily. Some beautiful ballad performances too. Also a quite fascinating booklet which paints an illuminating picture of Hodges the man and musician.

Next stop for me the '56' onwards Verve CD set....

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  • 3 years later...
  • 9 years later...

Found the set on Amazon thru a third party.  So cheap, I'm embarrassed.  The previous owner had a name sticker on every item in the box set.  Looks like he bought it new from Mosaic in 1986.  He also dated each record when he played it.  Each record was played 4 times. (12/29/86, 2/13/88, 3/23/96, 7/17/00)  John Conover, Cherry Hill, NJ.  He passed away in May 2016 at 89.  (googled)

Found this old info online;

 

BOXED SETS: POP MUSIC'S MELTING POT

By ROBERT PALMER
Published: October 12, 1986
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Boxed sets of recordings, containing from three disks to more than 20, are high-status items for the record business, its equivalent of the glossy coffee-table art book. For years now, these sets have been reserved primarily for classical music in the European tradition, with a smaller number of sets devoted to big bands, jazz and show tunes. But recently, more American music has been finding its way into lavishly packaged boxed sets.

In fact, what used to be a small, uncertain trickle of boxed sets devoted to jazz, rock-and-roll, blues and other American idioms has suddenly swelled into a flood. The fall season has already seen the release of ''The Complete Keynote Collection'' (Polygram Classics 18PJ-1051-71), a 21-record box devoted to 1940's jazz; ''The Complete Riverside Recordings'' (Fantasy 5102-5123), a 22-record box of 1955-61 recordings by the composer-pianist Thelonious Monk; ''The Killer 1963-68'' (Bear Family BFX 15210), a 20-record set of mid-60's recordings by the rock and country singer-pianist Jerry Lee Lewis; ''The Voice - The Columbia Years 1943-1952'' (IM 40226-40230, six records or three cassettes), a collection of vintage Frank Sinatra performances; ''The Riverside History of Classic Jazz'' (Riverside RB-005), a five-record box surveying the roots and flowering of premodernist jazz; and new boxes from Mosaic, the limited-edition jazz label, collecting work by Chet Baker, Buddy De Franco, Art Hodes and Bud Powell. And it's still several months until Christmas!

There's more going on here than a simple glut of fancily-packaged holiday baubles. Certainly, the steady sales of jazz, blues and vintage rock boxes through outlets like Tower Records, and by mail order from concerns like California's Down Home Music, have alerted American record labels to a demand for such products. Until very recently, foreign licensees of American labels have been supplying the more elaborate packages of this nature. In fact, of the new fall releases, ''The Complete Keynote Collection'' is being imported from Japan by Polygram Classics; Thelonious Monk's ''Complete Riverside Recordings'' originated in Japan; and the Jerry Lee Lewis box is on a German label, Bear Family, that has already released important boxed sets by country performers such as Lefty Frizzell, Bob Wills and Conway Twitty.

In the past, American labels seemed to be willing to let foreign manufacturers supply what they perceived as a limited demand for such collections. But times, and tastes, are changing. Today's college student and graduate, a prime target for record company marketing, may have taken a history of jazz course, studied blues or rockabilly for academic credit, and listened to 50's rock and jazz on the campus radio station. The narrow, partisan jazz fan, who can't stand anything remotely connected with rock-and-roll, and the sneering rocker who lumps jazz in with other ''highbrow'' music, are no longer typical, if, indeed, they ever were.

It is becoming more and more apparent that American music can't be subdivided as neatly as fans, and critics, used to think. There's more jazz in early rhythm-and-blues and rock than purists are willing to admit. Rock-and-roll, rockabilly and country music can be separated generationally, perhaps, but musically they blur into one another. The innovations of a jazz great like Thelonious Monk can't be adequately understood without a working knowledge of gospel music and blues. And so it goes. The melting-pot theory may be even more appropriate than one expected as a theory of American musical developments, and record releases are increasingly reflecting this understanding, boxed sets and all.

''The Complete Keynote Collection'' is easily the most important of the latest multirecord boxes, for several reasons. Under the direction of Harry Lim, Keynote recorded a plethora of significant jazz sessions between 1944 and 1947, a period of transition. A decade ago, many critics would have blithely divided these into categories like swing, Dixieland and be-bop. Now it's evident that Keynote sessions by Count Basie with Lester Young and by Dinah Washington with Lionel Hampton, can also be heard as prototypical rhythm-and-blues. Much of the music in the latter half of this set falls somewhere between swing and bop. And the spectacular debut session by Lennie Tristano comprised by the final disk in the set fits none of the conventional categories.

What one calls the music isn't really important. The point is that much of it hasn't been widely available, and that out of 334 performances, 115 have never been previously issued. Nor are the new discoveries mere sidebars to the music's main events. We're talking about three top-drawer Lester Young performances that have never been heard before. And there are discoveries of comparable merit by Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Hodges, Roy Eldridge, Earl Hines, Nat (King) Cole, Benny Carter (an entire unissued session) and many more. One can carp that the box enclosing ''The Complete Keynote Collection'' isn't as sturdy as it might be, and complain that some of the liner notes continue to follow a tiresome ''if it isn't jazz, it isn't any good'' line. But when all that has been said, ''The Complete Keynote Collection'' is still the most important jazz reissue of the year, and a much more substantial addition to the treasury of absolutely essential classic jazz performances than one could have expected or hoped for this late in the game.

Edited by Tjazz
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