Sharing Music the Old-Fashioned Way

By Will Friedwald

Reprinted from The Wall Street Journal ©2009 Dow Jones & Company. All rights reserved.

In 1937, RCA Victor Records released a 78rpm single of Benny Goodman and his orchestra playing "Pop-Corn Man," backed with "oooOO-OH BOOM" on the B-side. Then, for reasons that have never been made clear, the company recalled the record and substituted "Always and Always" for "Pop-Corn Man." As a result, "Pop-Corn Man" became the rarest of all Benny Goodman discs. At one point, Goodman experts believed that fewer than 10 copies were known to exist. A friend of mine bid $1,200 for it at an auction—and lost.

Since 1975, on the third Friday and Saturday of June, collectors have gathered at a Holiday Inn in central New Jersey for the Collector's Bash, not only to buy and sell rare and not-so-rare jazz discs, but to meet and mingle. About 15 years ago, during the final hours of that year's conclave, collector Charlie Braun recalls, there was a pile of "commonplace stuff" on one of the tables, priced at a dollar a disc. Mr. Braun found about five records mildly interesting, one of which, he casually noticed, was "oooOO-OH BOOM." He bought them, and only after taking his new purchases up to his room did he notice that the flip-side of "oooOO-OH BOOM" was, surprisingly, "Pop-Corn Man." It had to be a later reissue, he thought. But he showed the record to Goodman expert Warren Hicks, who was also at the Bash. Mr. Hicks informed him that there never was a reissue in the 78 era, so this disc had to be the original. Not only had Mr. Braun unearthed one of the most desirable rarities in jazz history—the Maltese Falcon of swing—but it had lain in plain sight of Goodman collectors for two days. And it was only a buck.

"Pop-Corn Man" probably remains the most spectacular find in all 35 years of the Bash. And record-hunting is only part of the attraction. Hardcore jazzbos like me also visit with old friends we get to see only on this annual occasion, making it more like a family reunion than a record show.

When I was a novice buff in the '70s and '80s, my father and I would spend at least one night a week "sharing music" the old-fashioned way—visiting friends and listening together over pizza and beer (the same way other fathers and sons watched football). With the rise of the Internet, the social aspect of record collecting is fading and someone unearthing a rarity like "Pop-Corn Man" would be more likely to email it to his friends than invite them over to listen to it. The Bash is the one major occasion in my life when listening to records is still a social activity. We "regulars" would gladly forgo Christmas and our birthdays rather than give up our once-a-year weekend.

The Bash's founder, Ken Crawford, died in 2006, but the traditions he initiated are maintained: Both nights, for example, include film shows, the second hosted by the Vitaphone Project, which restores rare early sound films. Unfortunately, the increasingly older average age of the attendees is also something of a Bash tradition: I was the youngest participant in 1979, and I practically still am at age 47. For the past two years, at last, some younger collectors have started to attend, including 23-year-old grad student and educator Rob Vrabel, who specializes in early hot jazz and wears vintage period garb like he came straight out of the 1920s. There's also Zachary Sigall, an 18-year-old 78 maven who favors blues and "hillbilly" music, which he first heard in the 2001 movie Ghost World, and who patterns his clothing and hair styles after "Seymour," Steve Buscemi's character in that film.

Crawford's most joyous legacy, however, may be "The Cutting Contest:" Late on Friday night, after the films, collectors try to top each other by spinning their most exciting 78rpm trophies. This year, ethnic-music authority Steve Shapiro played an electrifyingly hot version of the 1935 pop tune "A Latin From Manhattan" and dared us to identify the band. No one had a clue until the vocal came on. It was sung in Russian; the band was the Muscovite bandleader Alexander Vladimirovich Varlamov and his orchestra.

At the Bash you get to hear both classic and unknown hot-jazz records from the '20s and '30s (little comes from the swing or bop eras) on original pressings in pristine quality. No LP, CD, or MP3 can recapture the magic of Duke Ellington ("Rocky Mountain Blues"), Clarence Williams ("Shout, Sister, Shout"), Bix Beiderbecke ("Humpty Dumpty"), or the Casa Loma Orchestra ("Jazz Me Blues") on authentic shellac. This year, there were still two-dozen collectors huddled around the turntable at 2 AM.

The assemblage, led by moderator (and collector-dealer) Henry Schmidt, included NEA Jazz Master historian-critic Dan Morgenstern, film archivist and singer John Leifert (who offered the furiously hot "Found My Gal" by North Carolina bandleader Tal Henry), veteran scholar Mike Biel and his daughter, Leah (the producer of a new documentary about record collecting), and reissue producer Sherwin Dunner.

A big part of the thrill is discovering great platters and bands you've never heard of, such as Norridge Mayhams and his Barbecue Boys or Eddie Deas and his Boston Brownies. The latter was proffered by young Mr. Sigall. A committed musical conservative steadfastly devoted to the very earliest jazz styles, the teenager reported that Louis Armstrong is "too progressive" for his taste; rather, he prefers the jazz icon's mentor, King Oliver. To support this claim, he produced Oliver's amazing 1930 Victor, "Shake It and Break It," on a clean pressing that he had won on eBay for a very reasonable $40.

Alas, the one record I most wanted to hear wasn't there. Although Mr. Braun attended, he has not yet brought "Pop-Corn Man" back to the Bash. The year after the discovery, however, he did return to the scene wearing a custom T-shirt reading, "I'm the guy who found 'Pop-Corn Man' for a buck!"

More information on the Jazz Record Collectors' Bash here.

Read about and view excerpts from a documentary film about record collectors, For the Record.

Mr. Friedwald writes about jazz for the Wall Street Journal.