Comments
Name: Peter Le Faucheur.
Comment: My father's favourite place for jazz records. I recall an incident on a freezing cold February in 1977 when a guy came in with a box of LPs and placed them under the counter whilst he browsed... they had electric heaters placed under the counter and you can guess what happened. I think the shop eventually was connected to Ray's Jazz.
Name: najponk
Comment: Art Pepper - Milcho Leviev recordings from Ronnie Scott´s 1980!
(21 June 2014)
Comment: The shop ceased to trade in 2004 when lease renewal was deemed uneconomic. Its stock was transferred to Harold Moore's in Great Marlborough Street W1 (near the junction with Poland Street) which still sells jazz records under the care of Andy Wiersma who also transferred from Mole.
(14 November 2013)
Name: Matthew Wright
Comment: The shop was set up by Graham Griffiths, Ed Dipple and Pete Fincham - see the clipping written by Jim Godbolt in a copy of Jazz at Ronnie Scott's magazine. It was never connected to Ray's Jazz but it did take over Asman's in New Row for a short time, following the death of James Asman.
(31 May 2017)
Name: Simon Hardy
Comment: Dread to think how much I spent in there over the years. Caught the habit of listening to the cricket commentary while also playing jazz from my time in there.
(2021)
Name: Wayne Wheeler
Comment: So many memories c.1987-2004. Phenomenal jazz record shop, I remember the adverts in Jazz Journal magazine saying 'over 100 Japanese LPs always in stock!' Then there was 'The Dutch Collection', 22,000 LPs purchased from Holland, it filled the collectors items bins to overflowing. So many LPs they had to be stored in storage space under the railway arches at Kings Cross! Still got many Blue Note Liberty LPs bought there for around £20 each. The auction lists were unbelievable, where did they find all those records?
You could play the second-hand LPs upstairs (staffed for a while by Maureen Vernon, ex Asman's) until the cartridge was stolen off the player!
Ben Cree ran auction on the top floor, Martin Allerton used to sit in the shop facing black-and-white TV monitors to deter shoplifters. It was first port of call on my buying excursions, sometimes after Honest Jon's in Portobello Road, but that's another story. Some stock went to Harold Moore's but it was never the same. I miss the smell of the shop, the general 'run down' nature of the area, and the chance to find real rarities before they went to the auction lists. They don't make them like that anymore...
(2020)
Name: Jeremy Isaac
Comment: Bought my first Red Nichols albums (brilliant series compiled by Stan and Steve Hester) there in late 1978 when I was working in the Caledonian Road. The shop was pretty new then (opened in the June) and I remember the record racks still smelt of sawdust. Fabulous.
(2022)
We are going to miss these cathedrals more and more... and no, liquid music is just an anonymous, no-vibes, cold-as-death way of getting music. Those were the good old days when you could get nice stuff to play at home and meet new friends in places like this. Miss it!
I used to work in the shop on and off part-time back in 1995/96, sorting out second-hand CDs and packing all these rare records to be sent to Japan after the auction.
The story above about the Dutch collection is true, I was there to unload the collection, 16,000 LPs and 4,000 CDs and to put in a storage.
There was another collection in Croydon as well, estimate at the time was 100,000 records. The guy was a dealer so there were many duplicates. After he died the wife wanted to get rid of it so we arrived early Saturday morning in a couple of vans as I recall and started packing. Records were everywhere, even in a bathroom aligned against the wall.
Martin, Nick... wherever you are - Thank You!
... and there is a photo of the 'lighthouse' building (at the junction of Pentonville Road and Gray's Inn Road), where Mole Jazz was located, at this link:
http://re-photo.co.uk/?tag=mole-jazz