A Record Blog Issue No. 4: Jazz Hands

We just received a new batch of records that have been cleaned, priced and are now sitting in our bins, available for purchase! I emphasize “cleaned” in this case because they were not in the best shape when they arrived. I see this sort of thing, and a little piece of my heart dies because of the high quality of the labels and artists in this particular stack. I wonder how someone could have just left Miles Davis and Nina Simone to a life of squalor in a basement filled with muck, grime and space dust.

I continue to die inside and not because the titles in this chunk could sell for a pretty penny if they were properly looked after over the years. Making a quick buck on records doesn’t really concern me when selling at Furnish Green. I want customers to enjoy our records at an affordable price. I try to curate the collection with a bit of everything (heavy hitters, collection fillers, unknown gems, $1 records), despite the fact that our main focus is furniture.

In this bunch, the condition of the covers/media may not be collector-worthy, but if you’ve ever been curious about diving into jazz/soul, this would be a great start! Although there will be some surface noise on most of these, it does not overpower the beauty in the grooves. Records have to take a pretty bad beating to become nonfunctional, and that hasn’t happened just yet.

Some classic labels we have in this round:

Blue Note
Stax
Mo Town
Decca
Impulse
Atlantic
Colpix
Philadelphia International

And now a handful of the featured artists:

Ray Charles
Charles Mingus
Miles Davis
Nina Simone
Herbie Hancock
Dianna Ross
Billie Holiday
Theolonious Monk

Fun Fact: After his contract with Atlantic ran out, Ray Charles released Genius + Soul = Jazz on Impulse. The record became an instant hit, and it helped launch Impulse into what it is today, a showcase of some of the finest jazz musicians!

– Tim