Fantasy J*** in Berzerkeley

Posted by: Dr. Exotica on 02 May 2002

Does anyone have any experience ordering LPs from Fantasy? Their prices are terrific - LPs generally go for $9.98 (with free US shipping on orders of five items, 10% discount on orders of ten or more) which is dirty cheap. Keep in mind that these are not 180g pressings (which from some accounts may be a good thing).

If you visit their site, be sure to request a printed catalog - I gone one a couple weeks back. The catalog contains a 1" square color image of each album, and the entire catalog is 192 pages long. Very nicely done.

I am quite tempted to order all the 16 Bill Evans albums they carry.

Big frustration - Berkeley is my alma mater; I can't believe that I never knew about this place. Go Bears.

Erik

Posted on: 03 May 2002 by John C

First up the catalogue is ofcourse fantastic, and frequently rivals the much more lauded Bluenote for sheer quality. The Lps (Original Jazz Classics< OJCs) are indeed cheap and generally very good. Most releases are from the Prestige, Riverside, Contemporary records labels. IMO current OJCs are very good but not great, they probably are the same digital remasters used for Fantasys CD releases. I find that the shrink wrapped new releases are often warped especially those bought from sunny California. The y aren't a patch on either the original label releases or the 1970s 2fer reissues. The latter are the greatest bargain in all of the jazz LP market and woefully underappreciated. I have most of the Bill Evans in this format. Having said that props to Fant asy for keeping all this material available on vinyl format and for their brilliant pricing. I have many OJC and am very happy with them. The list of recommendations on this label would be too great (Monk, Coltrane, Miles) but if you want to try something you may not mormally buy

George Russell - Ezzthetics, Jazz in the Space Age, Stratusphunk, Stratus seekers, Outer View

Brilliant innovator and author of the "Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organisation"

Booker Ervin - Space Book, Blues Book (Tex as Tenor par excellence, big, bluesy, emotive)

Cecil Taylor - Looking Ahead (The master of avant garde piano, stunning accessible debut)

Art Pepper- Meets the Rhythmn Section (perfect west coast cool)

John.

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Posted on: 03 May 2002 by Sigmund

I've dealt with them for the past 12 years or so albeit exclusively for cds and I've found, without exception, that they are 100% on the up and up, friendly and professional.

Posted on: 03 May 2002 by JRHardee

I've only ordered from Fantasy a couple of times, but I've had nothing but good experiences.
My LPs were in great shape. I don't think that they still press LPs. If LP's show up warped, it's probably because they've been in the warehouse for 8-10 years.