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The Vinyl Collector: Chris Brown
I can't get around this idea that there's a lot of people who are interested in exploring this music and I like being able to participate in that discovery.
—Chris Brown
In fashion, they call it the "twenty year cycle," where styles that were popular reappear decades later with a modern twist. I think many people in the business are enjoying this return to physical media at a time when the creation of the art itself seems to be an inevitable financial loss and the appreciation of the sonic artistry is getting lost through earbuds and phone speakers. But this comeback seems more lasting than just a fashion retread.
Also interesting is the culture surrounding this vinyl resurgence. We know that people will collect anything and there will always be an ecosystem that grows around these hobbyists. Chris Brown (A.K.A. What Can Brown) is one such collector and I spoke with him to get his take on recent trends. Besides being an avid listener, he is also very active on social media documenting his journey by articulately describing pieces from his collection as well as giving the historical context of his finds. His knowledge is deep and he gave me some great insights into where this is all going.
About Chris Brown
Chris Brown is a jazz vinyl collector, music appreciator and amateur historian. Originally from Indiana, Chris graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut where he studied film and music including jazz history, performance, and later received an MBA from Vanderbilt University with a focus in Marketing and Corporate Strategy. These days Chris lives in Atlanta with his husband Stephen and spends his non-working hours digging in local record stores, DJing at listening bars, and sharing his passion for jazz with others through vinyl-focused Instagram and YouTube channels.All About Jazz: Well, let's start with some easy ones. How many records do you own?
Chris Brown: Yeah, so I own about 3,200 twelve-inch LPs. And, if you consider ten-inch and seven-inch then add another 400 to that. It's about 3,600 records.
AAJ: Do you have trouble finding the physical space to store it all?
CB: [laughs] Yes, so that the challenge is not only physical space but also the weight. If I was in an older home, I might be crawling through the crawlspace looking at the floor joists to make sure everything's OK. But, absolutely, I'm a vinyl collector and also in a relationship with somebody who has to share a household so I've limited the collection very much to just a single room in the house. Which, for us vinyl collectors, can sometimes be difficult because there's always that focus on acquisition, right?
AAJ: Yes, of course. Tell me how you began collecting.
CB: Well, I would say that my collecting, just as a general behavior, is probably something that I've had since childhood. I was the kid who was buying baseball cards, action figures, comics, and things like that, although I'd say none of those collections were on the magnitude of what my vinyl collection is. But, as far as vinyl, I got my first turntable as a gift from my uncle who was a big jazz vinyl collector. He knew that I enjoyed the music both listening to it as well as playing it so he got me a turntable when I was in college.
What I realized very quickly was, as much as I had an interest in the music itself, I hadn't really come around to this idea of needing the physical medium and I certainly didn't have the money either. I would say around 2011, once I left grad school, was the first time that I felt like I had some spending money. I had been carting around that turntable for almost a decade without any records to listen to, so I decided to stop into a record store and take a look and see what they had. I actually had some friends at that point who were also collecting and so I tagged along with them to a shop called Great Escape in Nashville. I was just browsing, not thinking I was going to buy anything, and then I found a copy of
Blue Mitchell
trumpet1930 - 1979
AAJ: So, is it primarily jazz records that you collected and, if so, why?
CB: Out of the 3,600, whatever it is, I would say that all but about twenty or thirty records are jazz. I'm always careful to say that it's not all I listen to, it's just all that I listen to on vinyl. I'm a child of the '80s and was listening to grunge and alternative rock music in the '90s and that's what I was interested in. But once I started buying vinyl, I think what became apparent to me is that, when I was putting a record on it was going to be very much what they call "focused, listening." I know that sometimes that can be a self-important kind of term but it's this idea of putting on a record and paying attention to the music, as opposed to having it on in the background. It felt to me like if I was going to take the time to pull the record out of the shelf, put it on the turntable, turn all the equipment on which may be four or five switches, that It kind of deserved a little bit more attention.
I think that part of that, too, is the antique nature of it. It's delicate and you want to, I don't know, treat it with care. It just felt like I should be doing focused listening and I don't really listen to most music that way. I'll listen in the car while I'm driving or have it on while cooking, but there's something about jazz and the instrumental nature, and the fact that depending on the style, it can be very relaxing, maybe even meditative in a way.
So, I just found it particularly conducive to the vinyl medium. Only later did I hear from audiophiles who would say things like rock is more compressed, and it's not as conducive to vinyl, and you're going to get more distortion, and all of these things that I don't really focus on in particular. But, maybe, they are the unconscious reasons that I gravitate towards listening to instrumental music on vinyl.
AAJ: Were you ever a musician? How did you come to appreciate jazz so deeply?
CB: Yes, I was a musician and I'm very careful to say "was." I started playing trumpet in middle school as most of us pick an instrument or join the choir. I had been taking piano lessons probably since kindergarten. My mother played piano, violin, guitar, and she sang. She was a very musical person. It was a foregone conclusion that I would take piano. I don't recall that being a choice that I made. I don't want to say it was forced on me, but it was kind of expected that l take piano lessons, it was something to do.
Then in middle school, when everybody was picking up an instrument, I gravitated towards the brass family. It was very clear that my arms weren't long enough to operate a trombone effectively yet so I ended up picking the trumpet. I could make noises out of it from the get-go. I did what I would say is the typical public school route when it comes to being a band musician. I was in a concert band and in high school I joined the marching band. I was in the jazz combo and had such a great time doing that. The community of people was probably a big part of it.
I played a lot in high school and, when I went to college, I knew that I wasn't going to major in music. I felt very highly of myself when I was playing the trumpet in a small public high school in Indiana. What I realized, as soon as I got to college at Wesleyan University, was that I was surrounded by people who had spent the better part of their lives focused on wanting to be a professional musician. Even though I was certainly allowed to take the music courses and participate in those groups, I was surrounded by musicians who were much more practiced, much more focused, and had much higher ambitions than myself. What was clear to me then was that I hadn't developed the skill and that I was either going to have to really focus on it or I should be comfortable with the idea that I wasn't going to be the most talented person in the room. And that was fine.
Going to Wesleyan was very interesting. Not only is there a great tradition of incredible jazz musicians who have taught there over the years like
Marion Brown
saxophone, alto1931 - 2010
Ben Dixon
drums1934 - 2018
Archie Shepp
saxophone, tenorb.1937
Jay Hoggard
vibraphoneb.1954
Anthony Braxton
woodwindsb.1945
There were a lot of people who went to Wesleyan specifically to study with these musicians and for me it was a little bit of an accident. I was like, "wait, who? Who is that?" For a variety of reasons, I felt kind of ill equipped. I had a fantastic time playing in college but, when I left, I essentially hung up the horn and kind of focused elsewhere.
AAJ: I watched some of your YouTube videos and I'm amazed about the deep knowledge that you have about the records themselves and the musicians on them. How do you become so well informed about them?
CB: Really from just exploration and reading. I wouldn't call myself a voracious reader however, when I read, I love reading about history and mostly nonfiction. I like learning something new and reading liner notes, biographies, or jazz publications from the era gives me a lot of energy from learning about that kind of stuff. Instead of reading a novel before I go to bed, I might read a few pages of a Downbeat Magazine from the '50s which is kind of funny. But, otherwise, it really was what I'll call incremental musical exploration.
While listening to, say, a
Horace Silver
piano1928 - 2014
And, by the way, all of this was before the online community that exists around this hobby. Because without the online community, you're that one person in your town that likes something that no one else really does [laughs]. You can go down that path, but there's certainly a lot of enjoyment in the online element where you can find so many others that are the same as you or that you can learn from.
AAJ: Yeah, that's really cool. Tell me about some of the most valuable or rare pieces that you own.
CB: The idea of rarity can either come from desirability or scarcity and sometimes the overlap of those two is what makes something extremely rare. Maybe a good cross-section of these two things is an album by
Duke Jordan
piano1922 - 2006
Art Taylor
drums1929 - 1995
Dizzy Reece
trumpetb.1931
Stanley Turrentine
saxophone, tenor1934 - 2000
Reggie Workman
bassb.1937
AAJ: OK, wow. How much did you buy it for if you don't mind me asking?
CB: I spent about $150 on it. So my collection really had been built incrementally just by going to stores. There was a moment in 2020 where I was able to buy a collection. It was a radio station's collection that had been in storage since the '70s and a lot of the material hadn't really been played. So, in a way I cheated in terms of building a collection because I built it up based on stuff that maybe wasn't in the best condition and then all of a sudden there was this windfall of being able to upgrade everything. I really sort of leapt into it.
But, at the same time, Blue Note is almost obviously going to be the most valuable and I certainly have some others by
Sonny Clark
piano1931 - 1963
Hank Mobley
saxophone, tenor1930 - 1986
Maybe that's an unfair statement but there is, what I would call, a fetishizing of a lot of music in jazz. I'm not going to be the one to tell them that they need to understand how the music is played and the theory behind it in order to enjoy it because I think the best way to experience music is to just sit back and listen. But at the same time, I do think that there's a fetishizing of certain types of music, especially private press, where it is a little bit more about having it than it is about listening to it for a lot of people.
AAJ: Do you ever get your records signed by the artist?
CB: You know I've only done that one time. It's an interesting question, "would I, given the opportunity?" I'll say this. I went to see
Billy Harper
saxophoneb.1943
But, when I went to school in Connecticut, I would go into New York on a fairly frequent basis and saw
Lou Donaldson
saxophone1926 - 2024
Roy Haynes
drums1926 - 2024
AAJ: I imagine you're very particular about your stereo system as well. Is that true?
CB: I would say that I am. I'm a late bloomer on the audio equipment front. Up until maybe just a couple years ago I still had that turntable that I mentioned, that my uncle gave to me that he sort of rebuilt himself. That was not a particularly nice turntable. Even nowadays, where everyone is after these vintage pieces, it was like a Sanyo, probably still only worth maybe $200.
However, last year, I decided to go big on a turntable. Because I couldn't really justify spending the money that it would take to get a nice one, simply because I probably still don't believe that you're really getting your money's worth for the incremental amount that you're gonna get... If you think about it, almost any turntable can get 90% of the utility of the music just by simply spinning at a consistent speed. Then, if you want to get 95% of the utility of that piece of music, maybe you have to spend $2000. But then, you're chasing these slivers by spending $10,000 or $50,000. And do I really need to chase those incremental improvements? Some would argue yes, and that's why they love the hobby but I would argue, no, I get plenty of utility out of the music as is.
So, I did go big on a turntable by buying a Luxman turntable last year. However, when I did decide to spend the money to get that, I sold records to fully pay for it. Because I just felt like I couldn't justify it, whereas going through my shelves I said, "well, it's been a while since I've listened to this," or "maybe I don't need to own this, I could stream it." So, I cobbled together a bunch of records and really felt like I was almost trading them in for a brand new turntable, which is nice.
AAJ: What do you think of this resurgence of vinyl?
CB: I think the resurgence in vinyl is great overall and the reason why is because all of this music that previously wasn't available in its original form, or maybe an early reissue, a lot of these labels are dusting off and reissuing them. I think that it's great to bring this music back to the forefront and get people excited about it. To the extent that some of the stuff really wasn't available at all unless you had hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy a copy, now it is readily available. And I think that's great because these labels would not focus on jazz reissues if there wasn't this new market for them.
They can decide to spend their money reissuing Led Zeppelin albums or Beatles albums and make a lot more because they're going to sell a lot more units. But it's almost like these prestige projects that some of these producers are going after, like
Nick Phillips
trumpetb.1965
So that's been great and I think that, by and large, the people who've been brought to the hobby are super passionate and eager to learn as well. It's fun to be able to interact with so many more people who have a common interest.
But, certainly, the other side of the coin is that the desirability of a lot of these titles has gone up and therefore the prices have. For those of us who have been in the game for a while, values going up is good but, for those of us who are still looking to continue to collect, what was once a $100 record is perhaps a $1,000 record. Or, what was once a $10 record is now a $100 record and that can get a little frustrating.
AAJ: Along those lines, are there any particular records that you're always on the hunt for specifically?
CB: Yeah, so I would say that when you amass a collection of 3,500 records, it's not that I have everything when it comes to new music but, when it comes to old music, I have everything outside of maybe about twenty records that I've just never been able to own and could probably rattle off. You know, it's
Tommy Flanagan
piano1930 - 2001
Kenny Dorham
trumpet1924 - 1972
So, when I go out and I'm shopping in stores, by and large I'm actually not looking for anything in particular. I like to be surprised. I'm not the person who's going to go to the
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
Billy Higgins
drums1936 - 2001
Tony Dumas
bassb.1955
AAJ: Who are some of your favorite artists?
CB: So as a trumpet player, or former trumpet player, I tend to gravitate towards folks who play that instrument. My first entry to what I would call a virtuosic trumpet player from the classic era that I listened to was
Clifford Brown
trumpetb.1930
Max Roach
drums1925 - 2007
Donald Byrd
trumpet1932 - 2013
Lee Morgan
trumpet1938 - 1972
Freddie Hubbard
trumpet1938 - 2008
But my interest kind of extended across eras and instruments too. I'm a big
Gene Ammons
saxophone, tenor1925 - 1974
Ben Webster
saxophone, tenor1909 - 1973
I'm an unapologetic fan of
Chris Connor
vocals1927 - 2009
Stan Kenton
piano1911 - 1979
AAJ: Well, this is the last question that I had prepared. What do you think the future looks like for the vinyl market?
CB: Well, a lot of people have been rooting for its demise. When I say that it's obviously not the industry and certainly not the musicians. I think that modern musicians really appreciate the fact that there's a willing community to buy physical media that perhaps was not as robust ten years ago as it is today. What I'm referring to is a lot of the folks who have entered this hobby recently.
The reason why I say that is because prices have gone up for a lot of records whether you're talking about vintage or brand new. The other thing that we've seen is that, because the growth of the market has slowed over the last year or two, what it feels like is that these labels are putting out what I'll call limited edition or artificial scarcity additions in order to increase revenue without increasing units. They raise the prices because there's not as many people coming to the hobby so they're trying to extract more money from the people who are already here. I think the collectors are feeling that pinch that everything seems to be scarce, limited edition, and very expensive. People are getting a little bit choosier with how they spend their money as a result. I think people are kind of, I don't want to say, fed up. I think that the folks who have come to the hobby are going to continue to listen to the music, but I think that they are rooting for its demise so that they can continue to afford to expand their collections.
I've always been of the opinion that the values of the rarest records in top condition are not going to go down, but that rabid community who entered around 2020, 2021, or pandemic era that was willing to buy anything and everything in whatever condition, are going to drop out. The value of that stuff is going to go down I think.
AAJ: Gotcha. That's all I have prepared. Is there anything that you want to talk about or something I've missed?
CB: I've been on Instagram since 2012 or 2013 and have been on YouTube just a little bit so I'm obviously somewhat entrenched in the online community. I know that there's a lot of people that feel like their online persona is very important to their vinyl collecting. I've never really felt that way. Even though I am active on these platforms I don't really get too involved in that aspect. I'm much more about posting whatever I happen to be listening to on any given day and not trying to represent a certain image for myself when I do get online.
I feel like there's this weird dynamic that's there and is very much about being online. Yet, I would probably categorize myself, first and foremost, as a music appreciator and vinyl collector who would rather be sitting with friends at home, in my listening room, then spreading the word about how accomplished a collector I am if that makes sense.
AAJ: So you're not necessarily trying to be an influencer, you're just sharing your journey?
CB: Yeah, that's right. And at the same time, I also am looking for a way to participate more in terms of the legacy of the music. I think this is partly because I was never a decent enough musician myself so I wasn't going to be leaving recordings that people would want to listen to. I have friends in the vinyl community who are writing books, biographies on musicians. I know people who are starting their own labels and I've recently started working with an up-and-coming label on some releases, which is just very interesting to me and I get a lot of energy from that. But I feel like I'm constantly looking for that opportunity to do something more because music gives me more personal fulfillment and enjoyment than my day-to-day job. But one you can make money with and the other one I couldn't.
AAJ: Is there anything you'd like to share about your experience with Instagram and YouTube?
CB: One of the recent things that I've really enjoyed is doing the YouTube thing and conducting some of my own interviews. Funnily enough, interviewing record label executives or musicians always get the least amount of likes and views versus other videos. That sounds terrible, right? It's like these are the musicians who are making the music, this is what we should be listening to. Yet when it comes to that online community, more people want to hear about the process of collecting than they do from the musicians playing the music. Now, obviously, if I had
Ron Carter
bassb.1937
One of the things that's come out of this is that I started getting reached out to from people asking if I wanted to DJ. I'd never DJ'd at all. I was put in front of my first two turntables set up and I had absolutely no idea how the faders worked. I never did any of that. But, lately, here in Atlanta, I've been doing some DJing at the sorts of bars where you'd expect the clients to really appreciate that kind of instrumental jazz thing. It's not like I'm going to clubs or anything.
I found that I really do enjoy introducing people to music. Maybe that's a pretentious thing for me to assume that I'm the one who's introducing them to the music but, invariably in a DJ set, people will come up and say, "oh, what's that?" or "I just Shazamed that and it's really interesting." Why I like that is because that's how I got into music too. I started listening and then I continued to explore based on the things that I like. So, in some ways, I think me being on Instagram is giving people a little bit of a nudge. This is a little bit of a controversial idea to feel like being the gateway to help people understand this music that I didn't create and is not a part of my history. There's a big kind of controversial historical thing behind that but, at the same time, I feel like I can't get around this idea that there's a lot of people who are interested in exploring this music and I like being able to participate in that discovery.
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