Ray Smith (of Ray's Jazz Shop)

[MarkG]

Just in case anyone missed this sad news...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/19/ray-smith-obituary?INTCMP=SRCH

Some happy memories of visiting the shop in Shaftesbury Avenue and picking up some free-jazz oriented vinyl. Not quite the same since taken over by Foyle's

Mark

[MrGongGong]

Thats sad , it was one of the few places where you could find all sorts of interesting edge musics

I bought many impenetrable lps as a student which became well known gems as time passed

[amateur51]

Another Soho specialist pool of knowledge, another Soho character gone - that's very sad

[Alyn_Shipton]

There was also an obituary (the author of which must needs be anonymous) in yesterday's Times.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd quite forgotten those "hen's teeth"! There were two entrances to Colletts - one from Shaftesbury Avenue; the other from the back lane converging into it. An hour spent rifling through those Lp bins and one would leave the premises in a headspin, not knowing which way or which street one was facing. I well remember the rejoinder I got from questioning the price on one second-hand item; in the shrinking world Collett's represented you paid as much for the name topping the bill docket as much as anything - by the 80s rarity already cut both ways. If I'd known he'd gone over to Chelsea maybe we'd have started off on firmer footing/footie.

S-A

[MarkG]

I'll hazard a guess who the author was