jazzin' with vinyl

Something of an experiment, I grabbed a copy of the current issue of the new partwork of jazz LPs. Yes, real vinyls, covering a range of jazz greats. It means I can dip into some music where I have less familiarity.

The idea for the revival of the record player came back in 2011 when we were in Hollywood and our apartment had one. I received one as a gift the following Christmas.

Compared with the olden days when a hi-fi installation would be roughly the size of a NASA Mission Control, this is a small unit with all the amplifier and tone control built in. It still packs a reasonable punch and creates the whole process and feeling of playing a record.

So back to the new jazz record. I've still only got one from this emerging series, although they promise to all be well-known jazz classics.

Aside from some Miles Davis, my normal music collection is almost devoid of jazz, although it occurs to me that this collection amounting to around 20 vinyls would be a way to develop some knowledge.

The John Coltrane album (number 2 in the series) is a great recreation of the original 1957 Blue Note album, with the right sleeve, label and so on, plus a helpful little booklet to explain the context. It has some cracking tunes on it, with a really good ensemble of Coltrane's tenor sax, plus trumpet, piano, double bass, and yes, trombone. It's a fun change from my usual listening. I'll see how it goes as the series develops.