It tends to get the attention, sure, but I'm just trying to remember the name of the guy who ran the place. My Dad and his friend called in on him one day, just to say hello and thank you. I remember, years back, mentioning this to Jimmy but I can't think of the name. Alvey?
Let's have something on Verve and the others.
There was a Blue Note specialist tucked away in an office block between 7th and 8th Avenue. Really difficult to find as it wasn't a conventional shop front on the ground floor but an office unit in the building.
Even in the Eighties I can't remember any other Jazz Only specialists but in fairness most average record stores carried jazz in various quantities.
I think the guy who started it was Fred Cohen (haha - another member of the tribe) who wrote the guide to buying Blue Note records.
I only went once as at the time I was moving away from vinyl and that's all he stocked.
I hope the store is still going today.
Alvey, yes, that sounds about right location-wise. The guy my Dad used to stay with would have been taking trips into NYC by 1977, when he moved to New England from North-West Leicestershire. So he would have known where to go: including the clubs. The name doesn't ring any bells, though. My memory isn't what it used to be. But it meant a lot to him, just like making friends with a guy in New Orleans who played in the street. Lived in one room and made just enough to pay his rent, eat etc. And there was this other fucker - my Dad's friend, who I couldn't abide - with his big car, big house, swimming pool. You know. Suburban.
It was Michael Cuscuna my late father hob-nobbed with. Dad and his jazz-loving chum (an idiot who attempted to persuade the old feller not to buy the two Brooks shirts I'd requested from 346 on the grounds they were 'preppie') dropped in and - I assume - waffled. Cuscuna doubtless sighed said, 'Yeah, man, thanks...' Dad would have meant, in his slightly bumbling, working class way, every word. Jazz was his life. Jazz and fishing.