- Go to a record fair, even though you don’t like them.
- Convince yourself that the vendor who was there last year blowing out his jazz CD collection for a buck a piece would be there again.
- Look for him and don’t find him. You admit, you’re a little broken-hearted. You were kind of counting on him to salvage the day.
- Tell yourself that “it’s ok, there will be more people selling a lot of CDs for cheap.”
- Look around, there aren’t.
- Stop by your coworker’s booth. He’s got some top shelf indie rock records that are way out of your price range. While shooting the shit, he asks “so what are you looking for?” You think for a minute: “60s and 70s samba records, King Sunny Ade, and those six Ray Price albums that Buddy Emmons played on.” He points out that the King Sunny Ade records might be hard to find. You agree and say “maybe I need to go on a shopping trip to Lagos.”
- Move on and start looking at other booths, then realize that there is no chance in hell you are going to find the kinds of samba, juju, and honky tonk records you are looking for. Not here.
- Now that reality has hit, visit some vendors that might have something interesting for a reasonable price. You find a random steel guitar record for $2. Worth a shot.
- You thumb through some new jazz albums that you could find at the local record stores, but they are more expensive here. If you wanted any of them, you would have already bought them.
- Visit the next table over and grab Ornette Coleman’s album Friends and Neighbors. Check the condition. Even though the outer sleeve has water damage the record is in great shape and it’s only $10. Lay that money down.
- Even though you just scored something you’ve been somewhat looking for, you don’t get too excited.
- Find another Ornette Coleman album, Crisis. Don’t buy it; you just bought a remastered CD reissue of it a week ago and don’t need another version of it.
- Go to another booth. Find an album by jazz trumpeter Charles Tolliver on Strata-East Records. Spot the price. Given the recent resurgence in interest in Strata-East this is very underpriced. Almost criminally so. It’s more than likely that the record is straight fire. You pass on it. Partially because even though it’s undervalued, it’s a little more than you usually like to spend on records and partially because you’ve never heard it. If this was in a store and there was a player where you could check it out, and it sounded cool, you’d probably buy it. But like that other Ornette record, you pass on it.
- Having only spent $12 on two records and not finding anything that sparks your interest, you leave, generally disappointed in the sale.
- On the way home, you almost immediately regret not buying that Charles Tolliver album. It’s highly collectible, not often seen, and it would have likely immediately gone into high rotation in your collection. It would have been the kind of score you would have bragged about to your best record collecting friend.
- At home, you regret not buying Ornette’s Crisis. Even though it’s not very rare and you have the CD copy sitting next to your player, you’ve never seen the LP in the wild and the cover image of the Bill of Rights on fire seems particularly poignant given the recent results of the 2024 election. It was only $13.
- Forget about Crisis for the moment, put on the $2 steel guitar record. The disappointment you felt at the sale has followed you home, as it immediately becomes clear that the record you thought you bought is not correct. The right artist, yes (you made sure of that while checking out the record’s condition at the sale), but not the right album. You scold yourself for not being more thorough. Even worse, it sucks. Take the album straight to the thrift shop donation pile. At least it was only $2.
- Later in the evening, take in the day and evaluate your performance at the sale. You are honest with yourself: you fully admit that going into that fair hoping to find King Sunny Ade records was a fool’s errand. You’ve been to this fair before, you know that the “world music” sections, if there are any, will be limited to one or two Bob Marley albums, a few more albums from lesser Marleys, Fela Kuti reissues, and a Burning Spear record the guy wants way too much for. Maybe Harry Belafonte in the dollar bin. You set yourself up for failure before you ever stepped foot inside; thus, you didn’t come home with anything you were particularly thrilled about, even though Ornette’s Friends and Neighbors is a pretty nice record. So, you question your entire abilities and knowledge and digging skills. Do you even know what the fuck you are doing as a record collector? You knew what kinds of records would be there—it’s mostly the same dealers every year—and should have adjusted your strategy and desires accordingly. Any other serious jazz head would have pounced on that Tolliver Strata-East record. But, at the same time, you just kind of wanted something with a killer steel guitar player, whether it comes from a honky tonk or a juju record, and then some samba to shake your ass to. So, you remember what your counselor always tells you when you are shitting on yourself: give yourself some grace. And you try. And you tell yourself, “it’s ok that you didn’t have a good time, not every shopping trip ends with an epic haul, and not finding the music that you are interested in at the moment is not a personal failing.” Besides, there’s always Discogs.
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The Turnaround 
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