When I came to be associated with this paper I brought with me an assumption that my obsession with vinyl records and 78s would be the norm among our readership. I even encouraged finding advertisers selling pricey turntables and supplies. That wasn’t a good idea.
I had another idea for a story about how trad bands could profit from releasing their albums on vinyl. It seemed obvious to me that Hot Jazz, New Ragtime, and Swing were uniquely positioned to benefit from the much-heralded vinyl resurgence. After long delay, I have finally produced that story. The results of my investigation are more cautionary then I anticipated, but there is hope around the margins.
It turns out that there is a demographic for new vinyl and it is not us. On one end you have baby boomers buying up reissues of records they owned when they were younger: Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen. On the other end you have millennials with no real memory of records demonstrating their loyalty to chart toppers like Adele and Taylor Swift by buying the LP editions of their releases. The largest shift in the last three years has actually been from those boomers to the younger generation. New releases of pop music have surpassed re-issues at the top of the LP charts. In a few cases, new pop LPs are even outselling the CD version.
Where do lovers of traditional jazz fall into this mix? As has been much noted for
