Can you introduce yourself, what is your role in the shop?
It's very simple; as I'm the only one in the shop, the answer is: everything!
When did you start selling records?
Music by Mail was created around 1988 and dealt at the start only with musical sheets and educational books, from Aebersold's Play-along to Sher Music's Real Books or the entire Advance Music catalog and a bunch of other publishers. As many of those items were books with an included CD or DVDs, this naturally opened the way to a broader choice of what I could offer on those medias, by including now all kind of musics, a sort of obvious and essential complement to the educationals. The spider web kept being weaved through years and my growing contacts with artists, labels and distributors. The revival of vinyl and pressing of coloured LPs in limited editions found also by me a place of choice!
What is your musical background? your musical approach?
I'm first of all a musician, classically trained at the music academy in Lyon but very soon raised inside me the desire of checking out what was to be found elsewhere; this lead me in the 70's to progressive rock and jazz-rock - then from there the entire Jazz planet - while developing an insatiable appetite for sound research, all this unbelievable gear born from new technologies: the first synths, the Portastudio, pedals and so on ... all this nailed as well a capital element in my musical approach: the constant research of innovation, offer what's not been done yet, be it playing techniques, sound or musical composition; have an unending curiosity and the desire of listening (and have other to listen) to what's done in the most remote corners of our planet. This involves some complexity, the refusal of the easy and clichés, the sharpening of our brain cells, not as an end in itself but as a means of also being able by thinking of directing some pleasure to our body .... body and soul!
Give us a story as a seller (a gem that you sold, an artist who you met, or another anecdote)
During a festival dedicated to Jazz musics for which I had a sales booth, an older man came to me and asked if I was also interested in buying records. He hold a supermarket kind of plastic bag in his hand and I already could see there wasn't much in it. By reflex, I was already thinking it wouldn't be much interesting but out of politeness told him I would take a look at it. As I took the records out of the bag - there were 5 or 6 - I felt like falling to the ground! All were rarities in perfect condition, including one original pressing on the Debut label created by Charles Mingus, of invaluable value! And this good person probably bought those records when he was young, finding them too bold for his taste, then placing them on a shelve where they gathered dust for years!
What is the main musical genre in your shop?
All that is related to modern forms of Jazz, closely followed by what's - in a very large sense - affiliated to progressive rock; and here again, we're not talking of the usual dinosaurs but of a myriad of things probably not very well-known by many, be it vintage or current. It's just fascinating to realize all that has been or is done in the world and at the same time it's saddening to see mass media feverishly tightened around the top of the iceberg, not necessarily the most interesting part!
What about you, what's your favorite music genre?
I'm very selective and demanding in each style but my preferences change according to days, hour, mood, environment, external impulses. My choices are therefore very varied and alternate, often impulsive.
How long have you been selling with CDandLP?
Since September 2020, in full Covid time! It's therefore still recent and I'm in the learning phase. I haven't even finished to update my 6600 items set for sale!
How did you get to know us?
By net searches of items I was looking after but also by word of mouth between sellers at record fairs.
What are the pros of our platform according to you?
As I just said, it's still very recent and maybe too soon for a precise answer. I do have nevertheless some ideas about it. For both sellers and buyers, I think the easyness of use and moving around is a prime element. As seller two more bonuses are dealing with shipping costs (some other platforms and competitors went into risky automatized policies that can't reflect the complexity of multiple realities in shipping matter) and the possibility of adding some personal descriptive text to any item submission.
What was your very first vinyl record?
I prefer to give you my first holy trinity, which at the age of 16 already reflects my taste and sensitivity for eclecticism and will later become a guideline: Led Zeppelin 2, Pink Floyd's >Umma Gumma and Chicago Transit Authority, the latter being surely responsible for my early awakening to Jazz. Now if you really want to know what was my very first vinyl, the one that pointed out that there was more than classical music alone, well this was the single Nine by Nine du John Dummer's Famous Band. It's an atypical piece in the band's discography (a band who by the way not particularly ever interested me) and it's the violin solo that attracted me, being myself violinist. I had transcribed, learnt and played it from ear; I can still sing it today from memory .... with a few gaps .... LOL!
According to you, which record within your inventory is the most bizarre, unusual?
The most unusual are in my collection and not for sale ... LOL. But the more I think about it, Hermandad from Cabezas de Cera is a serious candidate!
Give us your 3 favorite titles in your inventory.
Without any order of preference, I would say:
1. The Japanese group Unbeltipo because since their beginning in 1999 and still today I am the only one in the world (besides their labels) to distribute and present them. Not too bad, right?
2. because we haven't yet talked of Brazilian music, one of my many preferences! And if one adds to it the universal genius of a talent such as Hermeto Pascoal, an institution in Brazil, then being a favourite is unavoidable!
3.Here's also an immense talent and a wonderful man whom I met several times. His photo hangs framed in my office and I look at it every day. He is THE musician who through Weather Report had me to start the huge journey in jazz, going backwards to be-bop, then step by step, door after door, following all the successive years and climbing this to date still unachieved road, with more and more fertile crossways ..... I love this!
What record gives you pride ? What record would you never ever part with ?
The most precious - in the affective sense of the word, not its monetary side - could be:
. I was attending this concert and the atmosphere was very special, many known musicians but not often seen lately came by and one felt there was something strange to all those presences. Shortly after Elton Dean died! As I decided to watch the DVD, some kind of memorial move, I saw this time all of it, including the extras, just to find out that I was filmed in the final sequence where musicians came backstage to say hello. Unintentionally, this became my goodbye to Elton, captured for ever! The record I'm most proud of - pride is often a personal thing, isn't it? - is 
I recorded on it one of my best performances on a violectra, an instrument whose register is to be found between the lows of a violin and the highs of a cello. Duelling with a heavy rock electric guitarist, I succeeded in blurring the cards to such an extent that the listener doesn't really know any longer where's the guitar and where's the violin!
What’s your ‘guilty song’, the song you love but wouldn’t dare to confess… ?
When one is passionate, one is somewhere an open door to the other ...
MUSICBYMAIL shop on CD and LP
