Paris and its record shops
Episode 8 of the Vinyl Cities series
In May 1963 three American musicians walked into a Paris studio and cut a record. None of them lived in America any more. The pianist was Bud Powell, the drummer Kenny Clarke, the leader Dexter Gordon, and the album they made that day is called Our Man in Paris — a title more literal than it sounds. Paris was not a stop on a tour. It was where they had chosen to live. For a generation of Black American musicians the city meant one simple, enormous thing: the chance to be treated as artists rather than as a problem.
Start here, because it explains everything else — why Paris has so many jazz shops, why they cluster in two districts, why the stock in those shops runs deeper than almost anywhere else in Europe.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, while Jim Crow made a Black musician's working life in America a course of obstacles — segregated rooms, hotels that turned them away, a background suspicion no amount of talent dissolved — Paris offered the reverse. Sidney Bechet moved to France in 1950 and became a national star, the kind who fills halls and makes the papers; he died there, celebrated, in 1959. Kenny Clarke, the drummer who had helped invent bebop, arrived in 1956 and never left — he is buried at Montreuil, on the edge of the city. Bud Powell lived in Paris from 1959, playing the city's Blue Note and forming the friendship with the artist Francis Paudras that would later inspire Round Midnight. And Dexter Gordon, after Go!, left the United States in 1962 for fourteen years in Europe, with Paris at the centre of them.
They were not tourists, and not exiles in the strict sense. They were musicians who had found a better labour market and a more grown-up audience. French critics — Hugues Panassié, Charles Delaunay, the magazine Jazz Hot — had taken jazz seriously before America did. The clubs answered: the Club Saint-Germain on rue Saint-Benoît, Le Chat qui Pêche near the river, the Caveau de la Huchette in its medieval cellar, the Blue Note where Powell held court. The city was listening.
That history did not end up in a museum. It ended up in the racks. The records those musicians made, the French pressings that carried them, the taste of an audience that still buys jazz today — this is why in Paris, and above all in the Latin Quarter and the 11th, jazz on vinyl is found as in no other city on the continent. This episode is the map.
The Latin Quarter: The Jazz Heartland
The 5th arrondissement, around the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève and rue des Écoles, is the densest concentration of jazz vinyl in Paris and perhaps in Europe. Four serious shops within a few streets, all walkable in an afternoon, with the Panthéon for a backdrop and the university bookshops for company. This is the quarter where generations of Parisians studied — and listened — and the shops grew up inside it.
Paris Jazz Corner (5 rue de Navarre, Métro Monge L7, Tue-Sat 12-8) is the temple, and the word is not an exaggeration. A pure jazz specialist, with a second-hand and collectible stock that spans the whole history of the music — from bebop to free, from the great American names to European pressings you won't find elsewhere. It's the place you go knowing what you're after, where the staff know more than you do. For the jazz collector arriving in Paris with a single morning, it's the first door and often the only one needed.
Crocojazz (64 rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, Métro Cardinal Lemoine L10, Tue-Sat 11-7) is specialism cut to the bone: jazz and blues, nothing else. A small, concentrated shop of the kind where every record on the shelf is there for a reason. It's the natural complement to Paris Jazz Corner — minutes away on foot, the same seriousness, an even narrower focus.
Crocodisc (40-42 rue des Écoles, Métro Maubert-Mutualité L10, Tue-Sat 11-7), open since 1978, is the quarter's historic generalist, spread across several genre-specific fronts along the same street. Here jazz sits beside rock, world music, chanson, film scores. It's the shop for the visitor who arrives without a closed list but with an appetite to cross several genres at once — and for anyone after the home pressings, from Barclay to chanson on Philips and Fontana.
La Dame Blanche (47 rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, Métro Maubert-Mutualité L10, Mon-Sat 10:30-7:30, Sun 11:30-8) is the shop for the exacting ear: serious, audiophile jazz, with an attention to pressings and condition that makes it the right address for anyone who never separates the record from the sound. It's also one of the few in the quarter open on Sundays, which makes it a valuable resource when the others are shut.
République and the Marais: Superfly
Superfly Records (53 rue Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth, Métro Strasbourg-Saint-Denis L4, Tue-Sat 12-8) sits on the border of the 3rd and 10th, in an area livelier and less academic than the Latin Quarter. The name gives the angle away: second-hand jazz, soul and Afro, with a particular eye for the groove — rare groove, jazz-funk, Afrobeat, the pressings diggers chase and generalists don't stock. It's the shop to build in if the jazz you want is the kind that moves, not only the kind that makes you think.
The 11th: The New Geography
If the 5th is the history, the 11th is the present. Around the Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir stops, in a district that has become one of the liveliest in Paris over the last twenty years, a second pole of jazz vinyl has formed, with a more contemporary, digger's cast.
Le Souffle Continu (20-22 rue Gerbier, Métro Voltaire L8, Mon-Sat 12-8) is, for anyone who loves jazz beyond its borders, one of the most important shops on the continent. Free jazz, spiritual jazz, experimentation, the avant-garde: a stock covering what almost no other shop keeps, and a label that reissues titles otherwise lost. It's not a shop for everyone — it's a shop for those who already know what Strata-East and BYG Actuel and the European free scene are. For that audience, it's a destination in itself, and reason enough for the trip to the 11th.
Heartbeat Vinyl (26 rue Godefroy Cavaignac, Métro Voltaire L8, Tue-Sat 12-8) is a short walk away, and keeps a wider register: jazz, soul and funk, carefully selected, in a considered space that rewards slow flipping. It's the shop of balance, between the rigour of Le Souffle Continu and the groove of Betino's.
Betino's (32 rue Saint-Sébastien, Métro Richard-Lenoir L5, Mon-Sat 1-8) closes the 11th's triangle with a strong collection of jazz, soul and funk. It's a digger's shop, the kind where the value lies in the depth of the stock and the knowledge behind the counter. It opens in the early afternoon — a detail worth remembering, unless you enjoy finding the shutter down at noon.
| Shop | Area | Specialism |
|---|---|---|
| Paris Jazz Corner | Latin Quarter (5th) | Second-hand and collectible jazz, deep stock |
| Crocojazz | Latin Quarter (5th) | Pure jazz and blues |
| Crocodisc | Latin Quarter (5th) | Historic generalist, chanson and French pressings |
| La Dame Blanche | Latin Quarter (5th) | Serious, audiophile jazz |
| Superfly Records | République/Marais (3rd) | Second-hand jazz, soul and Afro |
| Le Souffle Continu | 11th | Free and spiritual jazz, shop and label |
| Heartbeat Vinyl | 11th | Curated jazz, soul and funk |
| Betino's | 11th | Collectible jazz, soul and funk |
Recommended Itineraries
The Latin Quarter loop (half a day). The four shops of the 5th are all walkable, in a pocket between rue des Écoles and the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. Start at Paris Jazz Corner on rue de Navarre, climb to Crocojazz and La Dame Blanche on the Montagne, drop to Crocodisc on rue des Écoles. In the middle, a few steps away, the Caveau de la Huchette still plays live jazz in its cellar as it did in the fifties: if the round ends in the evening, it's the right way to close it.
The 11th loop. Le Souffle Continu, Heartbeat Vinyl and Betino's all sit between Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir, within walking distance. It's the more contemporary route, for those after the free, the spiritual and the groove rather than archival bebop. Mind the opening hours, which in the 11th slide toward the afternoon.
The jazz collector's run. A targeted hunt across two districts: Paris Jazz Corner in the 5th for the deep collectible stock, Le Souffle Continu in the 11th for the free and the spiritual, Superfly between the two for used soul and Afro. One Métro line links them without too many changes. Want-list in your pocket, and the knowledge that in Paris jazz is fairly priced but rarely given away.
Practicalities
The clusters walk, the gap doesn't. The 5th and the 11th are both compact: within either one, you move from shop to shop in a few minutes on foot. Between the 5th and the 11th you need the Métro — line 8 or one change, about ten minutes. Don't try to do all eight shops in a morning: this is two half-days, not one.
Midweek for the fresh arrivals. Shops restock second-hand at their own rhythm, but the Paris pattern rewards the visitor who goes Tuesday to Friday — that's when the stock is fullest and the best pieces haven't yet gone. Saturday is crowded; Monday and Sunday need checking shop by shop.
Many close Monday and Sunday. This is the classic Paris trap. Paris Jazz Corner, Crocojazz, Crocodisc, Superfly and Heartbeat open Tuesday to Saturday: on Monday and Sunday you'll find the shutter down. Le Souffle Continu and Betino's also open Monday. La Dame Blanche is the only one of ours open on Sunday. Plan accordingly, or risk finding half the map closed.
Prices. Paris is not a cheap city for collectible jazz: the audience is knowledgeable and the shops know what they hold. Prices are generally fair but rarely rock-bottom, especially on original pressings and rarities. It's worth checking Discogs before you ask, and negotiating with restraint on higher-end pieces.
What to look for beyond jazz. Even though jazz is Paris's angle, the generalists like Crocodisc are the place for the French pressings you won't find elsewhere: the chanson of Gainsbourg, Brel and Françoise Hardy on Philips, Fontana and Saravah, the Barclay pressings, vintage French pop. It isn't why you come, but it's why you don't leave empty-handed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I buy jazz vinyl in Paris? The heart is the Latin Quarter (5th): Paris Jazz Corner on rue de Navarre is the temple of collectible jazz, Crocojazz the pure jazz-and-blues specialist, La Dame Blanche the audiophile choice. In the 11th, Le Souffle Continu is the reference for free and spiritual jazz. For groove-oriented jazz, Superfly (Marais) and Betino's (11th).
Which area of Paris has the record shops? Two districts matter for jazz. The Latin Quarter (5th), around rue des Écoles and the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, is the historic pole with four shops within walking distance. The 11th, between Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir, is the contemporary pole with three more. They work as two separate itineraries.
Where can I buy free jazz and spiritual jazz in Paris? Le Souffle Continu, on rue Gerbier in the 11th, is the European reference for free jazz, spiritual jazz and the avant-garde — shop and label at once, with a stock covering what almost no one else keeps, from Strata-East to the continental free scene.
Where can I buy soul, funk and Afro in Paris? Superfly Records, toward the Marais, specialises in second-hand jazz, soul and Afro with an eye for the groove. In the 11th, Betino's and Heartbeat Vinyl add strong collections of soul and funk. These are the digger's shops for the jazz that moves rather than the archival kind.
Which days are record shops open in Paris? Watch Monday and Sunday. Most — Paris Jazz Corner, Crocojazz, Crocodisc, Superfly, Heartbeat — open Tuesday to Saturday. Le Souffle Continu and Betino's also open Monday. La Dame Blanche is the only one open Sunday. Midweek is the best time, and best for fresh second-hand arrivals too.
Is it worth hunting French pressings in Paris? Yes. Beyond jazz, Paris is the place for French pressings hard to find elsewhere: chanson on Philips, Fontana and Saravah, the Barclay pressings, and the French Blue Note editions of that expatriate jazz recorded in the city. The generalists like Crocodisc are the starting point.
A Record to Hunt for in Paris
For each episode of this series we close with a record to look for in that city. For Paris it could be nothing else: an American record, cut in Paris, by three musicians who had made Paris home.
The grail is the first pressing: Blue Note label, catalogue BLP 4146, 1963, mono. It was cut on 23 May that year at CBS Studios in Paris, with Bud Powell on piano, Pierre Michelot on bass and Kenny Clarke on drums — three-quarters of a quartet who were living in Paris full-time. The French engineer Claude Ermelin ran the session; the mastering carries Rudy Van Gelder's stamp in the run-out. It is often called the last great bebop record, and Powell, in fragile health at the time, played that day like his best self.
Original American pressings are dear and reward attention to the label variants; there's also the French Blue Note pressing, which surfaces more often in Paris and is part of the record's local history. The Blue Note Classic Vinyl reissue, stereo and mastered by Kevin Gray, makes the album easy to hear today — but if the difference between an original and a reissue isn't yet second nature, our guide sets out what to check before you pay.
In Paris, Our Man in Paris is hunted where jazz is at home: Paris Jazz Corner for the collectible stock, La Dame Blanche for a copy in audiophile condition, Crocojazz for the patient search. It is the only city on earth where hunting it also means walking the city in which it was made — and in which its makers had chosen to live.
The Vinyl Cities series continues. Subscribe to the Groov-illa newsletter for upcoming episodes.
If you live in Paris and have corrections, suggestions or shop recommendations, write to hello@groovilla.com. The guide is updated periodically.
