Another Reason to Love Vinyl: The Album Side

Not that we needed another reason, but...

CDs, with 60+ minutes of undifferentiated songs, are too long. I mean that in two ways. First, that's a lot of space to fill with good tunes, so most CDs have filler. Next, it's too long, for me at least, to really take it all in. That means that when I have a CD I tend to listen song by song, not to whole albums.

Maybe it's because I grew up with them, but to me LP albums are about the right length.But LPs have another advantage: they have sides, and that's a great thing. 20+ minutes or so of music. It's a disadvantage in classical, where long movements often have to be broken up in the middle. But for jazz and popular music, it's just right. It's another way of dividing up the music. An album might not be great, but it might nevertheless have a great side.

My latest example -- file this under "etc." and not jazz -- is from Sonic Youth's latest LP, The Eternal (Matador, Ole 829-1). Side 4 is a great rock music side. True, it's a bit derivative, knocking off Velvet Underground, REM, maybe Radiohead. But it's the first rock album -- or rather, album side -- that I've become obsessed by in at least 20 years. (You know the feeling: When you're awake, you want to be listening. When it finishes, you want to start it over again.)

It's just three songs, the second of which (the REM clone, called "Walking Blue") is fabulous.

One complaint: The packaging of this LP, though pretty, is inept. It's very difficult to get the records out of their stiff cardboard sleeves, and impossible to do it without some superficial scraping of the record's surface. So now I store these records outside their cardboard sleeves, in paper-and-rice-paper after-market inner sleeves. But there's already some damage (though it's not audible) from the first couple of times I removed the black disks from their original holders.

Value in Abundance

Good, old jazz records are not hard to come by. They may not be as abundant as, say, worn out '80s pop records, but they certainly aren't rare. And like most things that are abundant (consider water and worn paperbacks of Shakespeare plays), they don't cost a lot.

That very abundance -- and the low prices -- can make it easy to miss their true value. And that's a big part of my motivation for starting this blog.

My vinyl shopping sprees have become too frequent and abundant -- much rare and fewer than some people I know, but still too much to properly digest each LP. Because I buy so many and so often, I try to get through all the records -- listening once, often with divided attention, before moving on to the next one -- instead of listening closely to each one, perhaps repeatedly, seeking its unique musical and sonic value.

This isn't some ethical point I'm making. It is, rather, about extracting as much pleasure as possible from each record, experiencing them more deeply and, consequently, learning more about jazz and the experience of, well, experiencing that hunk of music. I'm doing this for my benefit, not for yours. This blog gives me an excuse to listen to each record closely and carefully -- as many times as I wish -- and writing about the experience. I suppose what I'm aiming for is a kind of jazz criticism, focused on home listening to records (a different experience than live jazz in a club). This is all very personal -- it's about how I respond, how these records make me feel, and why. I'm not passing judgment; I'm just pointing out what I respond to most, and why.

If something I write about interests you, I hope you'll run out to your nearest used record store in search of a copy, if you don't already own it. Put it on your list and search for it, through your local vinyl sources, eBay, or whatever. Buy the CD if you must; it will provide a similar, but not identical, experience.   

One key point for me is that you should keep in mind:  I value sound about as much as I value music. I'm often amazed at how some of my friends -- some quite sophisticated musically (one is even a college music professor) dismiss good sound, as if music were something that exists apart from sound. Perhaps it does, for a music professor. But for me the best experiences are provided by recordings that combine musical inspiration with really interesting sonics. What that means (to me) should become apparent once I get into the work (or play) of reviewing LPs.

Jazz on Impulse

In response to a recent post in which I mentioned the great experience I've had with jazz LPs on the Riverside label, Doc Notathing commented thusly:

Riverside did some absolutely fabulous Jazz, but what I've been concentrating upon lately is the Impulse catalog. Unbelievably great stuff...one of the most important (in my 'never humble in the least' opinion) being Oliver Nelson's "Blues and the Abstract Truth."

It will surely expose my ignorance when I admit that up to now I haven't really paid much attention to the Impulse label, though I do have a few excellent Impulse LPs (on which, more in a later post).

At a used book store this afternoon (why do I always seem to be shopping for used things?) I came across this book:

 I'm looking forward to reading it over the holiday weekend. I'll have more to say about it next week.

Thursday Is Record Store Day

I am fortunate to have a very nice source for used jazz records in my hometown of Portland, Maine. At the risk of increasing the competition for scarce LPs, I'll tell you about it.

It's called Enterprise Records. There's not much of a Web site, but here's a link. And here's a pic:

If you plan to be near Portland and you want to visit Enterprise Records, be warned: They're only open four days a week, Thursday through Sunday. I believe the hours are 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. Thursday - Friday,  11 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturday, and 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Enterprise is run by a Chicago native named Bob Wirtz, known by some as "Friendly Bob," which may or may not be intended sardonically. I have always found him friendly enough, but I admit there is a certain aloofness. Enterprise has been in business in Portland for a long time -- longer than the 15 years I've lived in the area -- in four locations, I think. He's now on the western end of inner Congress Street, just east of the State Street intersection.

I've just found this profile of Bob on the Web site of our local community radio station, WMPG:

Bob Wirtz Profile

(By the way, WMPG is an outstanding radio station; it's too bad their Internet feed is so low-rez it's unlistenable, at least for me, so it's hard to recommend to an Internet audience. And by the way, WMPG his holding their annual record sale this Saturday, on the University of Southern Maine campus)

Here's a map showing where Enterprise is located, from Google Maps:


View Larger Map

I don't know Bob well. He seems to travel a lot, purchase record collections from radio stations and so on. He then seems to sell some of what he buys to buyers -- record stores, maybe -- in Boston. But he keeps his own shop well stocked, and he doesn't sell all the good stuff on eBay like a lot of stores do these days.

One of the best things about Enterprise is that the records are fairly priced, ranging from about $4 (I'm talking jazz here; classical is cheaper) up to about $12. Really collectible stuff is more, certainly, though it's not really a collector's shop. There's a lot of stuff here that's listed in the Goldmine Jazz LP guide, but not much of the real high-end stuff.

The other great thing about Enterprise is that you can count on the quality. Bob doesn't put crappy LPs on his shelves, except in the bargain bins, and that's only a tiny fraction of the inventory. Pick something up in the regular stacks and you can be sure it's good shape.

Today is Thursday, their first open day after three days off, so I'll be sure to  stop buy to see if there's anything new and good. I'm sure I'll find something.

A Blue Note Labelography

When buying records, I often prefer a reissue in good condition to an original, simply because the reissues are cheaper, more abundant, and sound just as good (usually). Still, I like to know what I'm buying, and that means learning to recognize labels.

There's advice on how to recognize all the common labels in the Goldmine Guide to Jazz LPs, but it's text only -- no photos -- so it's a bit hard to follow. The best resources have photos, and are online. Here's one I've just discovered -- courtesy of a post by "Sherlock" on the Vinyl Asylum -- for the Blue Note label:

Blue Note Labelography

Pink Floyd's The Wall

Wanna hear something scary? I mean, it's scary only if you're of a certain age. In less than two weeks it will be the 30th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd's The Wall.

I know it's not jazz, but it's still good music. Sorry -- I promise more jazz posts soon. I would like to point out now, however -- in the light of my previous post about vinyl sales -- that to date The Wall has sold 23 million copies, nearly ten times predicted 2009 vinyl sales. I don't know how that breaks down between vinyl and CD. I'd be interested to know. 

Wanna hear something almost as scary? Spinner.com reports that, according to founding Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, college-age kids in the United Kingdom today can't recognize David Gilmore and Comfortably Numb. Here's a sample from that post:

"There's a [quiz show] program here [in Britain] called 'University Challenge,'" [Mason] tells Spinner. "Just by chance they happened to ask these students to name the song and the guitar player. I'm sad to say they failed. They didn't seem to know either Pink Floyd, David Gilmour or 'Comfortably Numb.'"

 Kids today.

I'm surprised I haven't posted more on jazz so far. Apologies. I'll get back to it soon.

Hat tip: New Music Tipsheet

Vinyl Sales Hit New Record

I'm serious, sort of. This year's vinyl sales have already topped 2 million units, according to Nielsen Soundscan, the most on record.

The catch: Soundscan started measuring in 1991, well after the end of the vinyl era.

Want to put that number in perspective?

• In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, about 5 million records were sold.
• Throughout the '20s, annual record-sale totals stayed around the 150 million mark.

The number is disappointing in another way: Last year Nielsen Soundscan predicted 2009 vinyl sales of 2.9 million units, and the 2 million mark was reached in early November, so sales will probably fall well short of that expectation. Still, a VERY healthy year-over-year increase is expected; billboard.biz predicts the year-over-year increase in vinyl sales will still be 37%.

The comparison to historic levels isn't fair of course, since it ignores CD sales, which, though dropping fast, last year totaled 362 million.