This may be of interest. I remember many happy hours spent at the Discophile store, and many great recordings
I was introduced to by Franz Jolowicz. It is sad to note his death.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/arts/music/04jolowicz.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ December 4, 2005
Franz Jolowicz, 86, Dies; Owned a Noted Record Store
By MARGALIT FOX <http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=MARGALIT%20FOX&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=MARGALIT%20FOX&inline=nyt-per>
Franz Jolowicz, the owner of the former Discophile record shop, a Greenwich Village institution that was for decades a mecca for classical record collectors, from the ardent to the insatiable to the merely obsessive, died on Nov. 8 at his home in the Village. He was 86.
The cause was complications of lung cancer, said Pat Payandeh, a longtime friend. Mr. Jolowicz leaves no immediate survivors.
Discophile, which opened in 1958, specialized in hard-to-find imported LP's. Mr. Jolowicz (pronounced JOLL-uh-wits), for years the manager there, bought the shop in 1976. It went out of business in 1984, not long after Tower Records opened a branch nearby.
Writing in The New York Times shortly before Discophile closed, Tim Page called it "possibly the finest record store in the world."
For its customers, many of whom flew in from distant cities, Discophile helped slake an acquisitive thirst so deep it verged on addiction. If you craved Toscanini's "Bohème" or Callas's 1954 "Norma," or Sviatoslav Richter's celebrated recital in Sofia, Bulgaria, in February 1958, then you headed to the shop at 26 West Eighth Street.
Discophile occupied a small semi-basement space a few steps below street level, and entering the store, with its vinyl-laden bins, was like stepping into a secret temple of music. Presiding as high priest was Mr. Jolowicz, whom former customers described variously last week as urbane, opinionated and, frankly, terrifying.
The air in the shop was thick with dissent. Staff members argued with staff members. Staff members argued with customers. Customers argued with customers. Since many staff members were former customers, lines of allegiance quickly blurred. (Customers with especially lowbrow taste were absent from the equation. Mr. Jolowicz exiled them to Sam Goody.)
"Shopping there was a very involving experience; you just didn't stand in line with your bundle," the playwright Terrence McNally, a regular Discophile patron, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "If you wanted a new recording of 'Parsifal,' you'd have to ask, and that started a conversation: 'Which version do you want? The Solti? That's terrible!' "
Some people spent hours at the store with no intention of buying anything. They had simply come to kibitz.
In the 1960's and 70's, few foreign recordings were available in the United States in their original pressings. You could not simply walk into a record store and emerge with Hina Spani's "Lohengrin." But through its network of overseas connections - Mr. Jolowicz once wrote directly to Madame Mao Zedong, who mailed him a set of Chinese opera records - Discophile was able to obtain many of these.
"This was a store where you could buy three 'Tristan and Isoldes': the Angel one, the English EMI pressing or a German label," Mr. McNally said. "Exact same performance, but discophiles would argue which one had the superior sound."
The store also sold what were euphemistically called "privately issued discs" - recordings made covertly at concerts. For Mr. Jolowicz, it was a glorious thing to be a pirate king.
"These recordings create something new," he told The New York Times in 1984. "In fact, many of the artists on our private discs are delighted that they were made. They think we're preserving history."
Dietrich Franz Jolowicz was born on Sept. 29, 1919, in Posen, Germany, now Poznan, Poland. The son of two prominent families, one Christian, the other Jewish, he was raised in Leipzig and as a young man made his way to Paris.
In World War II, Mr. Jolowicz served with the French Foreign Legion in North Africa and afterward worked with the American Red Cross in Italy. He came to the United States in 1951 and later attended the City University of New York.
After Discophile closed, Mr. Jolowicz held various jobs in and out of music. But for a select cadre of New Yorkers, he remained an indelible presence, so much so that he is mentioned in Mr. McNally's 1985 play "The Lisbon Traviata," about a fanatical opera collector.
As Mr. McNally explained:
"In the world of standing room at the Met or Carnegie Hall, when Lenny was doing the Mahler cycle, if anyone said 'Franz,' everyone would know who you were talking about."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company,
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