Time was, round about when jazz was raising its head in New Orleans, if you wanted an affordable car it had to be a Ford Model T. And as Henry Ford said, perhaps apocryphally, you could have had any color you liked as long as it was black. Much the same went for recorded music. You could have had any format you wanted as long as it was a physical phonograph record. Today, we can choose between a multiplicity of physical formats, or digital, or a variety of streaming services, or use all of them.
The Big Question is: which format do you prefer and why do you prefer it? Audio quality, artist and composer remuneration, convenience, price, storage, the listening experience, tactile and visual considerations, all these things and more may be factored in.
The statement below (see comments section), published by the Greyfade record label, unsurprisingly comes down in favor of vinyl. It may affirm your choice, or it may lead you to reconsider it, or you might reject its argument entirely.
We'd love to get your thoughts so please post them to the comments section below. Thanks for participating.
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Chris May is a senior editor of All About Jazz. He was previously the editor of the pioneering magazine Black Music & Jazz Review, and more recently editor of the style / culture / history magazine Jocks & Nerds.