5 rue Navarre 75005, Paris.

I ran across this charming boutique one day while exiting the Arènes de Lutèce. The façade and winddows looked intriguing and I couldn’t quite make out what they were proposing with their display until I got close (and until I read the bold letters above the door). Jazz. But not just any old jazz…jazz on vinyl (mostly).

I popped in to quench my curiosity, and the smell odor the millions of thousands of recors snug in the cardboard paper sleeves lying in wait for perhaps years until someone buys them and places them delicately on a record player, and then sound bursts out once again, as if nothing has changed since the 1940’s or 50’s, 60’s or 70’s from whence they most likey were last played.

I am not a jazz connaisseur, but I do enjoy listening to it, dancing to it, snoozing off to sleep at night with the radio station TSF Jazz softly playing tunes. I thumbed through the small collection of cd’s like I often select wine : by the look of the label. Ok, so sue me. I often chose a restaurant by it’s ambiance as well. Hey, I grew up doing theater and dance, and there’s a lot to say in my opinion for presentation. So I selected a cd with a charming presentation and several titles that I know, and it turns out as soon as I popped that baby in the cd player, ALL I wanted to do was dance. Chéri got the point and spun me around the living room several times!

But back to the nostalgic smelling record shop…
It’s walls plastered with old posters, the ones that have those used and curled up corners, or minor rips on one side (the ones that have been there “forever”). And mimicking these used posters was a small group of what I can only assume are intimate friends and loyal patrons of the shop stood around the register musing about this musician or that group and who’s sound was one way, or another. Their passion and purpose all oozing out slowly in their tranquil conversation about music that moves them, muicians from days gone by. All men in their late 50’s, 60’s or 70’s they seemed to have found a place where time makes a semblence of a leisurely halt. There’s nothing fast paced or modern about this store, (I was almost disappointed when the man behind the register affirmed that there was indeed credit card machine), and I was so tempted to waste an hour browsing records of musicians I know nothing about. Had there been a place to listen to a few tunes, I may have indeed wasted more than that. But I had to get home. And I was the more eager to do so because I would play my new purchase immmediately upon arriving home. Jazzy big band sounds bopped around the apartment as I prepared dinner with and extra beat or two in my step while moving around the kitchen.It made slicing the vegetables for dinner much more fun!