THE QUEEN IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE CD.

I’m not of the right disposition or age to want the music I love to languish in the ether, ready (or possibly not, thanks to editorial choice or internet failure) to be summoned up to my ears via headphones. Like most of my generation of jazz aficionados, especially those with the “collecting” bug, I like to have something of material substance to hold in my sweaty little paw, pull out of its casing and place on or in a machine in order to be played and listened to. And then to be replaced and filed away on a shelf.

Unlike many of my ilk, however, I am not a vinyl freak.

As musical friends and visitors (e.g. Art Themen) will attest, I do have a fairly large collection of jazz LPs, slowly acquired from the 1950s onwards, starting at a time when the 78 was still in vogue as a disc that could be played on most turntables and tape meant open reel-to-reel, not cassette.

I treasure my LPs not least for their attractive cardboard sleeves with great photographs and designs. But I have never invested in expensive hi-fi equipment. I play these discs through a decent, middle of the road stereo system.

It may be sacrilege to say so, but I find the surface noise and occasional crackle and clicks slightly annoying. Also the hassle of putting the needle down carefully, not being able to aim at inner tracks with the necessary accuracy and having to jump up after 20 minutes or so to stop the needle bumping against the label.

An additional self-imposed distraction is having to watch out for our cat Billie deciding to jump on the turntable.

So I have turned to the much maligned CD as my preferred form of collecting jazz recordings physically. I am not a snob about the “purity” of analogue mono vinyl pressings . To my ears, the clarity of a remastered digital CD is welcome – especially with recordings prone to vinyl “noise” like solo piano. I admit to being particularly fond of the Rudy Van Gelder Blue Note classics as they sound on CD!

I’m very surprised and disappointed that so many people no longer have the capacity to play a CD and that so few computers bother to include this facility any more. Perhaps the despised CD will one day come back into fashion – after all I gather there is a strange current fetish for cassettes!

I know rare LPs in mint condition can fetch three or even four figures but there is also such a thing as a rare CD!

Let me tell you about a French label called Media 7 Masters of Jazz.

This was a wonderful series of nearly 200 (yes!) titles masterminded by Christian Bonnet (1945-2017), a Parisian alto-saxophonist, writer and producer. He always had headaches with distribution and it was when his last of many distributors (‘Next’) went bust that the original releases finally ceased.

There have been once or two short-lived attempt at reissuing a few titles as 2 or 3-CD sets but these lack the charm and scholarship of the first series, where each CD contained a large informative booklet listing not only dates and personnel but who takes what solo of what length on each tune. The contents are a tantalising mixture of studio tracks and rare unissued broadcast itms.

To give you an idea of the wealth of material covered, there were anything between 2 and 10 volumes of artists (to name but a few of them) such as DUKE ELLINGTON, COUNT BASIE, LOUIS ARMSTRONG, JIMMIE LUNCEFORD, CHARLIE CHRISTIAN, LESTER YOUNG, DEXTER GORDON, DIZZY GILLESPIE, WARDELL GRAY and CHARLIE PARKER.

I was pleased to see that, elusive as this deleted catalogue is, many of the individual CDs are available on the DISCOGS website for as little as £25-£40 from France or elsewhere in Europe, including postage (and VAT – thanks a bunch, Brexiteers!)

I have about 10 of the nearly 200 CDs issued. My favourite is

Count Basie Vol.8 Nov.1938-Jan 1939 and I’ve put up on the Music page two fantastic tracks from this CD– a newly unearthed live Lady be good and an undiscovered version of Jumpin’ at the Woodside which contains such a brilliant solo by Lester Young that the fans jiving away on the dance floor pause and give him spontaneous applause. This performance lasts for over 7 delicious minutes and ends with prolonged riffing with Herschel Evans soaring over the ensemble with inspired clarinet.

Merci, Christian! Prend plaisir, tout le monde!