An Old Cassette Tape and the Memories...

 

We've been decluttering. I know everyone does that and you thought I was way cooler than to worry about the krap the kids find in my drawers, cabinet drawers that is, and way too cool to do something everyone else is doing so I'll talk about lost treasure found.

In a pen holder, office desk krap holder, you know what I mean on the kitchen counter near the old phone jack when you had a phone on the counter and needed something like this to take down a note instead of just consulting the information from the text you received Cathy found an old homemade cassette tape labeled Harlem Jazz. I still have a cassette deck as a part of my home stereo and the tape plays well to be probably alomst 40 years old.  

I remember this tape well. It was made from a friend's album and back in the days when I cruised around in the Rockett 88 it was in heavy rotation. There is no track listing so I can only guess at the artist but I'll go out on the limb and say maybe the 40s because it swings, there's no bebop and I've listened to some cuts from an album on youtube called Harlem Jazz 1930 and it's a later style than this. 

If you recall an old blog post I did visit the National Jazz Museum in Harlem on a New York City trip in 2019 so I have been to the source.

  I don't have photos on this cassette so it was possibly made from a collection of albums. I don't recall all these years later but I would say these are all African American singers and players. 

I have written many blog posts on my collecting of thrift store records. One particular category that is easily and cheaply collected with the records being in good shape is the Readers Digest Box Sets. I look for the 20s, 30s, 40s, swing and polka sets but there is something in the collection for everyone. Well most everyone. Seems if you were to like, let's say Harlem Jazz, in my collecting ventures I've found none as part of this series.  

Now I know Readers Digest is not know for a particularly edgier style of journalism so we should expect nothing different from the records but where are the records by the black jazz musicians? Sure there might be a Duke Ellington or a Billie Holiday or an Ella Fitzgerald  here and there on a 9 record set but certainly nothing like this:

Or this:

From record collecting I can tell when a family member has died. The bins at the thrift will be full of all the records made by the country singer they like the most and the family brought them by the box to the drop off. . Or when someone's mom decided it was time to clean out Jr's room and tossed all his Grand Funk records. I would imagine there is some who easily fill out incomplete collections like this but maybe some people don't discard the old records. They stay in the family collection. Hopefully that's where the Harlem Zazz records are but I would not mind finding at least one old compilation disc.  

Those were fine days driving in the Rockett 88 or listening on the big home unit with a state of an art tape deck. Today Sirus Radio called and I did not pick up because I use the USB drive in my cars and I made a new drive today. It has 4500 songs on it. If you bring a zip drive over I'll make you one also. We call it Carl and Cathy Radio.  

Don't worry I'm not tossing the records. Someday someone at the thrift store will wonder what kind of guy had all this?