Saturday Is Record Store Day

I still cherish the cover art and sound of vinyl records even though it has been many years since I set foot in a store that sold only records and accessories like phonograph needles and spindle adaptors (used to play donut-shaped 45 rpm records). Plus many of the stores in New York that I patronized like Discomat, King Karol, and Colony are long gone. Target is the only store I've been to where I've seen a vinyl record like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On for sale (at double or triple the original price). But no one would consider Target a record store.

That brings me to why I'm writing this blog post. It's to remind you that Saturday, April 18, is Record Store Day. So anyone fortunate to have a record store near them can stop by and buy a vinyl record or more.

Thankfully, I had the good sense to hold on to my LPs and 45s. I'm now able to play them on a portable record player that I bought at a now out-of-business Bed, Bath, & Beyond store in Harlem seven or eight years ago. The record player plays records in all three speeds-- 33, 45, and 78.

A little more than two weeks ago I found on 106th Street, near Columbus Avenue, some discarded records. The albums that interested me the most were the ones by such jazz notables as Charlie Parker, Johnny Hodges, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington. In that pile of records was a five-disc set called Collector's Classic History of Jazz, as well as Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, one of my favorite classical music compositions. On the record, Stravinsky conducts the orchestra.

A Biopic About An 18th-Century Black Violinist In France

As soon as I read in The New Yorker (March 13, 2023) that a biopic called Chevalier, about an 18th-century black violinist and composer, was slated for release in April, I wasted no time going to my bookshelves.

The book I took down is my go-to reference on blacks in the classical music world, the late Raoul Abdul's Blacks in Classical Music, published in 1977 by Dodd, Mead & Company. (Abdul was the music critic at the New York Amsterdam News.)

I turned to the chapter on Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799). He was born on the Caribbean island of Guadalupe to an African mother and the French governor of the island. (The movie synopsis described the father as a plantation owner.)

After reading the chapter, I could see why the director, Stephen Williams, chose this historical figure, played by Kelvin Harrison Jr., to make a movie about. Saint-Georges had a larger than life persona during his lifetime. He was a brilliant violinist who, wrote Abdul, "acquired a mastery of that instrument comparable to the best of his day." Saint-Georges also was "an outstanding swordsman, a brilliant conversationalist, and altogether the darling of French society."

Will people out of curiosity see Chevalier in large enough numbers to make it a hit? Who knows? Judging by the comments left on the movie's trailer page, there is a lot of interest in seeing it. And maybe that interest will encourage concert halls around the world to showcase his music.