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Regular readers may recall that we did a feature a while back on the demise of a jazz institution called Mole Jazz - No Mole
Jazz - Closing Down 19 November.

That was back in 2005 and this week’s Radio 3’s Between the Ears presents a portrait of the late Ed Dipple, an obsessive collector who ran what has been described “as the world’s greatest second-hand jazz shop in a shabby corner of London’s Kings Cross”.

That’s a bit harsh on Kings Cross as it Mole Jazz was a cultural high spot when it was in King Cross (and the original site is now very shabby as it was never re-let) but back to the program, Ed’s widow Leni (a poet herself) interviews old friends such as saxophonist Bobby Wellins (possibly best known for his work on Jazz Suite inspired By Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, ‘Starless And Bible Black’) and drummer Spike Wells.

Whilst Mole Jazz was a specialist shop near to the busiest trains stations in London, in it’s heyday, it specialized in vinyl jazz records and long before the internet they held record auctions for the rare second-hand stuff and imports done via their customer database held on computer.

I suppose some purist thought the shop was never the same when they ‘expanded’ on the island site and started selling CDs. But after a move over the road and then another re-location out of the area to Soho, the writing was on the wall until one day, Mole Jazz was no more.

The end started when Ed died as the business had complications and his widow, Leni Dipple, moved to France. Leni became a poet and has written a series of poems about her husband. Between the Ears offers the chance to hear Leni’s private memories that are set against the public face of the shop and jazz cool.

Leni Dipple writes, ‘Jean Baudrillard said “every object has two functions - to be put to use and to be possessed - and the two functions stand in an inverse relationship to each other”. I like ‘things’ to be put to use, whereas my husband saw ‘things’ in terms of possession. The shop became a web in which I was enmeshed. My writing developed in response to my own struggle to find myself amid Ed’s collections.

Edward identified very strongly with Ethan, the cowboy in the John Wayne film ‘The Searchers’. He had a horrible childhood and was a difficult man. ‘There were dark forces at work which haunted him and which ultimately destroyed him.’

Of course in the past few years we’ve had many more record shop closures, the Spencer Murphy exhibition highlighting the situation (see review HERE) and book Old Rare New celebrating the Independent Record shop. Between the Ears promises to be a fascinating insight into the mindset of a jazz obsessive and the workings of the Record Shop in a golden era.

Links
Between The Ears - Presenter: Leni Dipple, Producer: Matt Thompson
Saturday 6 December 2008 9.30-10.30pm BBC RADIO 3
Mole Jazz, 2 Great Marlborough Street, London, W1F 7HQ (above Harold Moores); tel: +44 (0) 207 437 8800; www.molejazz.com. “Mole Jazz was founded in 1978 by Graham Griffiths, Ed Dipple and Pete Fincham and has occupied two different addresses in King’s Cross. It was taken over in 2001 by Graham Griffiths and Eddie Wilkinson, directors and owners of New Note Distribution Ltd. Under the management of Andy Wiersma, the new shop in London’s West End continues its established trade in second-hand CDs and rare vinyl, plus special offers on new releases and the best of the current catalogues”
Dipple, Ed. Oral History of Jazz in Britain
Interviewees: Dipple, Ed (speaker, male)
Interviewers: Schonfield, Victor (speaker, male)
Part 1: Gap in the jazz record retailing market; Dobell’s record shop; establishment of the Mole Jazz Shop; shop employees, stock turnover; auction; buying trips to the United States (Duration: 00:30:26)
Part 2: Collectables from the West Coast of the U.S.; Japanese collectors; acquisition of auction record stock; perseverance in business; code of honour among jazz record persons; letters from friends; producing recordings of Tony Coe, Stan Tracey, Benny Bailey; the aborting of the Cleo Laine “Ellington Suite” big band project; building up the shop (Duration: 00:33:02).
Part 3. Breaking from Graham Griffith’s All Change Records; computer aid in running the auction; love of jazz; London jazz shops; jazz resale specialists; historically rock’n’roll also elsewhere in Europe (Duration: 00:27:54).
Part 4. The money spent on jazz records by the public; bess-sellers ca. 1990s; disc turnover, market segmentation; Japanese buyers; buying and pricing policy; contacts for stock (Duration: 00:29:22).
www.bobbywellins.co.uk
Jazz Record Center - 236 W 26th St # 804, New York, NY 10001, United States +1 212-675-4480 www.jazzrecordcenter.com “Since l983, the Jazz Record Center has conducted mail auctions, bought/sold/traded LPs, CDs, books, videos, magazines and jazz ephemera. We have our books and videos online but there are many more products that you can order directly from the New York Store. “