Cut-Outs and Bargains for the Cyber-Shopper

When we last checked in on the cut-out front, there were massive deals on the Joe Henderson box set The Milestone Years. The reason for the deletion -- apparently, anyway -- was that the Concord Music Group purchased Fantasy, who owned Milestone, Riverside, Prestige, Stax, and other assorted labels. Concord has begun reissuing titles with its own imprint, meaning that eventually everything needs to be switched over. In the short run, this is great news for consumers. In addition to the Henderson box set, other Prestige, Riverside, Milestone, Stax, Volt, and New Jazz titles have been seen around the marketplace with drastically reduced prices. These monstrously great buys can be had on eBay -- where many titles are being offered in one-cent bid entries and have been selling for less than four dollars -- its sister company Half.com, Amazon, and other online retailers and big box discount outlets. Some of the titles weâ€™ve seen cheap are stone classics like the four-disc Phil Spector box set seen above (on ABKCO, completely unrelated to the Prestige/Milestone labels), which retails for as little as $20.98 in some places! If you need a reminder as to what's on it, go have a look-see here for the table of contents and samples.

Another batch of fine stuff is the Legends of Acid Jazz series issued on Prestige. These sets are all twofers, meaning that two killer vintage albums are packaged on one disc. While this entire series is worth owning, some of the notable entires we've come across cheap have been by guitarist Melvin Sparks (compiling his first two records as a leader, Sparks and Spark Plug), the legendary Sonny Stitt, and Gene "Jug" Ammons. Here's a taste of each:

Sparks -- Spark Plug

Stitt -- Bar-B-Que Man

Ammons -- The People's Choice

Box sets include The Complete Stax Volt Singles volumes 1 thru 3 (the cheap end of the pond finds them around $30 for Vol. 3 and $60 for Vol.1 -- with a $99.98 list price, that's still a good deal), and The Debut Records Story from as little as $24.99 new. That said, some retailers are keeping list price, maybe discounting ten or fifteen percent while they can, so it's really beneficial to take the time to shop around.

But it's not just jazzheads who benefit from righteous prices this season. Since Concord also owns Fantasy we found 20-bit remastered copies of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Green River and In Concert for as little as $3.99 (as well as in one-cent sale auctions), and Rufus Thomas' classic Funky Chicken for $2.99 sealed! Last but certainly not least, we found, out there in cyberland, copies of the excellent Cellarful of Motown, Volume 2 (a second amazing double-disc collection of rarities and unreleased masters by everyone from Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson to Brenda Holloway and the Contours), for as little as $16.99, when list for the import is $40.98, later reduced to $33.98. This is an exceptional compilation and should not be missed (nor should Volumes I and 3, but this is the only one we found cheap). Time to score some deals y'all.