Discogs article on most valuable Blue Note Vinyl

[felser]

Interesting to browse, the 25 highest sales.  $7333 for a copy of True Blue!

https://www.discogs.com/digs/collecting/most-valuable-blue-note/?utm_campaign=Newsletter_080625&utm_content=General_Email1&utm_medium=email_action&utm_source=mktg

 

[Big Beat Steve]

Which IMO goes to show again that some collecting fetichism is clearly beyond comprehension or sanity. Particularly considering how often all of these top sellers (and most others) have been reissued (usually as well-done facsimile reissues which even preserve and convey the visual experience of the period cover artwork).
So what remains? An ear, an address - and is (and the underlying feeling that someone had held this very record in his sweaty fingers at a late-hours get-together in, say, 1958? ) this really worth that much extra money all of the time, except to those who have money to burn? (Or treat the music strictly as monetary investment) Of course it is very nice if you happen upon an early or original pressing and can get it "for a song" (or almost) from someone who does not know his wares, but beyond that?? Regrettable that in the wake of all this even much later (facsimile) reissues have soared (relatively speaking) in price too. 

FWIW, and talking about "browsing" written matter, here's a review of #4 - Cool Struttin' - from the October, 1958, issue of ESTRAD (Sweden) that I happened to (re-)read again a couple of weeks ago (with some mild amazement):

"As usual, when Art Farmer is present on a record, he fully and totally steals the show from all others in the band, in this case Jackie McLean (as), Sonny Clark (p), Paul Chambers (b) and Phililly Joe Jones (dr). He consistently keeps advancing, that Farmer guy, and it is pure joy to engage in the deep musicality of his - which in a highly pleasant way contrasts with that of McLean. As usually is the case, the latter plays disgustingly badly. Talk as much as you want about "deperateness", "hate", "feeling" or whatever else the current situation is in his special case, but don't tell me he is playing music if he cannot even hear himself if he blows wrong or not. 
What's wrong with this record in general is that the tracks just are too long. It goes without saying that the ensemble sections on this record are played sloppily. This seems to be the rule with this type of records. Yet the LP is worth listening to, first of all for Farmer's sake, secondly for Clark's and the rhythm section's contributions. If there was a way of filtering out McLean, there would not have been much negative to say about this record."   😁

Rating: The ESTRAD grading would correspond to "not quite 3 stars" by the Down Beat rating. 

Heresy?  Maybe, but probably more a case of "different strokes" and of unabashed outspokenness, particularly colored by the "reception" of the music at the time it was all new. And BTW, in fairness it ought to be said that the author of this review, Carl-Eric Lindgren, was one of the rare cases of a writer and critic (with a fair number of books, articles, radio productions, etc. to his credit) who for a time during his professional life also had been an active jazz musician (his tenor saxophone is on several Swedish small-group records of 1950 to 1952). 

Just sayin' ... 

Edited 2 hours ago by Big Beat Steve