Jazz Corner: Vinyl and The Rebirth of The Long-Playing Record

The 12” vinyl became a standard vehicle for recorded music

- SUNIL SAMPAT

A friend called the other day, in pre-COVID-19 times that is, and said he had a bottle of South African wine which would go perfectly with jazz heard on vinyl. Could he bring the bottle over? Could we have a vinyl jazz listening session? A really good idea, sirjee!

Now my friend is very well-traveled and is a man of eclectic taste. He has been to several jazz festivals around the world and has an impressive collection of jazz. But that is almost a totally digital collection with plenty of compact discs and hard drives.

We had a great session of listening to jazz on vinyl, and he was right: That wine was well paired with the jazz that evening. Maybe a mellow red goes well with Bill Evans, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald. The experiment is certainly worth repeating soon!

The experience of listening to music on vinyl discs is enhanced by the artwork on the album cover, the details of all the performers on the album, and not least by the liner notes on the back cover with details of the recording and the performing artists.

Music on vinyl, particularly jazz and rock music has become increasingly popular with listeners and buffs of either genre. I understand that more vinyl than compact discs was sold last year for the first time since 1989.

I have, almost by default, a reasonable collection of jazz long-playing records (popularly known as vinyl in current lingo because of the material they are made of), collected over a period of time when it was the only medium in which music could be purchased.