Record Shopping at AXPONA

AXPONA can be a stressful experience for the people who attend it. Running from room as they try to listen to all the equipment they’ve been reading about, they’re in a race against time. The event is sort of a crash course on current audio equipment, and considering that AXPONA skipped two years due to Covid, everyone had more homework than usual this year.

Meanwhile, on the first floor of the Expo Hall, where physical media shared space with booths devoted to audio accessories, shoppers pawing through vinyl, compact discs, and a surprising number of reel-to-reel tapes experienced their own race against time, as some titles were quite limited in number at the beginning of the event and some in-demand albums that were hot off the record press sold out within hours. If you don’t know this already, AXPONA is a dream record shopping experience for audiophiles. Vinyl, much of it by audiophile labels, was in great supply, and a long table devoted entirely to reel-to-reel tapes confirmed that niche markets were well served in this room. The sellers stayed very busy during all three days…but they found time to talk shop.

When I asked Lisa Rothe, a Vinyl Consultant for Direct Audio, what records were selling at warp speed, she said, “Jazz, jazz, and jazz.” So what artists in particular were flying out of the boxes? “Monk, Miles, Coltrane…”

Nothing too shocking about that—after all, many audiophiles embrace vinyl because, along with the fact there’s great music in those grooves, well-recorded LPs of small groups playing acoustic instruments have long been a tradition in jazz.

But when I asked what else was hot, her answer surprised me.

“Tales from Topographic Oceans. It just came out, and it’s flying out of here.”

I asked if I could see it, as I had no idea that Yes album from 1973 was getting reissued and wondered what label was behind the project.

“Sorry,” she said. “It sold out.”

About that time Allen Fox, also a Vinyl Consultant for Direct Audio, overheard our conversation, noticed a copy remained on a display unit, and brought the 2-LP set over to me.

“Here,” he said. “Take it.”

The success of the reissued Tales from Topographic Oceans vinyl caught me by surprise. As it turns out, it wasn’t the only Yes record I saw people carrying around at that show. We’re so used to hearing Yes get blasted by the press that we sometimes forget that people actually like them. I’m a fan of early Yes, and I looked forward to hearing the new reissue.

Music Direct also brought vinyl and SACDs, including no shortage of mouthwatering titles from Mobile Fidelity. In great demand was the remastered wax for David Crosby’s If Only I Could Remember My Name. I was flipping through the boxes when Rising Sons by Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal appeared. That’s on the Nonesuch label, and I’ve been waiting for that record to come out for months.

“That just came out today,” the vendor said.

I immediately bought it, as I didn’t want that to go out of print before I got my hands on a copy.

For more news about the latest developments at Mobile Fidelity, check out my video interview with Josh Bizar, the Vice-President of Music Direct.

When I chatted with Chad Kassem, the founder and owner of Acoustic Sounds and the Analogue Productions label, he was happy to suggest certain titles that he considers the crème de la crème of the Analogue Productions catalog. Right away he held up a copy of Lightnin’ Hopkins Goin’ Away, an album that was engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. That LP sounds fabulous, and you can’t beat Lightnin’ Hopkins when it comes to soulful and inspired blues performances.

“This is my favorite all-time blues record,” Chad said. “It’ll blow you away. All I can say is, before you play it, make sure you put on a diaper.”

Chad also recommended some newly remastered Nina Simone LPs and AP’s 45rpm edition of Amos Lee.

“Everything here that I reissued, I wouldn’t have reissued it if I didn’t think it was killer,” Chad said. “At Analogue Productions I’m doing my favorite records, the ones that I think are killer. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it.

“All of those records, you won’t go wrong. If they don’t impress or satisfy you, you might oughta find another hobby.”

Chad also praised the remastered Analogue Productions pressing of Junior Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues on the Delmark label.

“We’re in Chicago, so if you got a preference for Chicago blues, you need this.”

Chicago blues, you say? On the Delmark label?

That’s right—and Delmark also had a booth at the show.

She’s a Professor of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she’s a force in the electronic music world, she’s a guitarist…and she’s the President and owner of Delmark Records. During the show, Julia Miller helped fill me in on the past, present, and future of the Chicago-based label.

“Delmark records is the oldest continuously operated jazz and blues label,” she said. “It was founded by Robert Koester in 1953. He passed away last year. The operating was continuous, but it’s a new company. We’re focusing on the studio and the record label.”

Julie made it clear that Delmark is alive and well, with a steady stream of new releases and a long list of reissued titles.

“We have almost three dozen new releases since 2018,” she said. “We’ve been putting a lot of catalogue LPs back in circulation. We also have a new double LP gatefold LP by Dave Specter titled Philadelphia, Six String Soul: 30 Years on Delmark.”

“Also, we have put in some reel-to-reel transfers. We have a couple here today Jimmy Forest and Junior Wells, and we’ll be putting out two more.

“We also are recording Toronzo Cannon. He had his first two records on Delmark.”

Toronzo was one of the AXPONA performers, and that evening he played to a packed and highly appreciative crowd.

It was good to see that Delmark landed in such good hands. There’s so much history in that label, which had done a great job of documenting blues and jazz and helping to remind us why Chicago is such an important music city.

The wholesale manager at Elusive Disc, Kevin Berg, mentioned some new vinyl LPs that were in great demand, including the half-speed remastered greatest hits album by the Police and the all-analog debut album by Calling Cadence. Equally popular were some Impex titles, including remastered vinyl pressings of Kenny Dorham’s Matador, Thelonious Monk’s Straight, No Chaser, and Patricia Barber’s Higher. In an upcoming blog entry, the founder of Impex Records, Abey Fonn, will discuss some recent titles and an upcoming album consisting of previously unreleased material by three amazing guitarists.

The engineer and producer for MA Recordings, Todd Garfinkle, was also selling compact discs and LPs at the event. The label has released audiophile recordings since 1988, and they’re still recording and releasing new music. When asked what album he would recommend to someone unfamiliar with MA Recordings, Todd held up a 45rpm edition of Será Una Noche, a tango album conceived by Argentine percussionist Santiago Vazquez. The album was recorded in a small church in Argentina, and after Jon Valin purchased a copy of the album, I listened to it in the Synergistic Research room. The record had remarkably open and detailed sound and captured the ambience of the recording space very nicely.

Having recently converted to minimalism, I recently whittled my record collection down to a few thousand titles, and I now limit my vinyl purchases to records that I consider absolutely essential. At this year’s AXPONA I only added five LPs to my collection—two that I’ve already mentioned, and three that showed up in the used jazz boxes for Analogue Productions. I’m a huge fan of Venus, a Japanese-based audiophile label, so I grabbed Standard Higgins by the Eddie Higgins Trio. I also found something on Naim Records (when was the last time you saw an LP on that label?), and Nightfall happened to include duets by pianist John Taylor and the bassist Charlie Haden—I wasn’t going to walk away from that.

One other record called my name. Although I loved Last Dance, a duet album with Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden, I’d never seen it on vinyl. In the used boxes was a clean 2-LP German import of the record. I like every song on Last Dance, but the closing track is stunning. Written by Gordon Jenkins in 1935, “Goodbye” became the closing theme song for Benny Goodman’s radio broadcasts. Recorded at Jarrett’s home studio in 2007 and released in 2014, Last Dance is very ballad-oriented, and the duo’s version of “Goodbye” ranks up there with those ballads by Miles Davis and Bill Evans that make your hair stand up on the back of your neck. I had not yet heard Last Dance on vinyl, but many of the rooms I had visited had turntables. It was then that an idea was born—to take that record around to different rooms and give a good listen. As it turns out, I picked a very good title for examining how a stereo responds to well-recorded, intimate, small-group jazz.