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I graduated from a college in New Orleans this last May (Tulane). I loved living there, and leaving made me nostalgic.
The summer of my senior year of high school was a big one, musically. My mind was blown with music by the Velvet Underground (old), Arcade Fire (new), and Miles Davis (virtually indescribable), among many other bands and genres. I had already fallen in love with the Beatles, but this summer my mind was truly opened to music in a way that happens only rarely to all of us.
I listened to a Kind of Blue for the first time, literally, as I was driving over Lake Ponchartrain into New Orleans. The moment the notes in "So What" hit me, I saw the skyline of Nola, my new home.
Everything changed.
I knew what jazz was, of course, but had no interest in it previously. This album changed everything. It WAS jazz. I will search my whole life, and nothing will have the impact of this album as the first time I heard it.
But that's ok. I'm loving the journey.
I know you must've had a moment, what was it?
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10-17-2009 03:28 AM
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four brothers, manhattan transfer, on their album pastiche. 1977 or so.
i had listened to jazz rock in the 60's and early 70's, and in the mid 70's our local jazz station (gone now, sadly) played the stuff current then, which i dug (weather report, headhunters, return to forever, al dimeola, chuck mangione, grover washington, george benson, etc).
but that tune just blew my mind. still does. had to know all about it. who is jimmy giuffre. what the heck is 'vocalese', anyway? who were the four brothers ("zootin' it up")...still love mantran (they're great live), still love zoot...their incredible grammy winning disc vocalese (best vocal jazz of all time) similarly led to clifford brown, sonny rollins, benny golson...
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For me, there was a transitional period from the typical "I wanna' be a rock and roll star" teenager to fusion in the mold of AlDiMeola, then Larry Carlton, Steely Dan, Steve Morse, etc.. This went on from about my last year of high school to my first or second semester at Berklee college. Then, I had a kind of epiphany while on Christmas vacation one time. I bought my second REAL jazz album (the first was some 1970s Keith Jarrett album that just didn't kick in immediately). It was Charlie Parker "One Night in Washington". I kept listening to it, over and over. Eventually, I was snapping my fingers along on two and four and the light just kind of flared on. I went out and got a hollowbody, started to listen to nothing BUT bebop and post-bebop music and so on.
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Quite simply, the first time I heard the Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes album, The Jazz Couriers live at the Dominion Theatre, London. The year, somewhere mid '60s. The date of the album, late '50s. British boppers blowing away the "Europeans can't play jazz" cliche. Still knocks me out. There have been other moments but that was the "road to Damascus" moment. Everyone else my age was into pop and the burgeoning blues boom, which to my ears was so boring compared to this high octane (speed and smack fueled, as I later learned) post bop virtuosity. After that no matter what I listened to, I always gravitated back to jazz.
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I was a youngster long ago, raised in the desert.
Summertime I'd stay up late as possible & sleep
as late as possible to escape the heat. They played
everything on the radio in those days. In the middle
of the night you'd hear the stuff too rare for the daytime.
You would also hear regional stuff from across the country,
it would come & go. The TV stations were off air & the radio
was a 'treasure hunt.'
I was exposed to everything and it was good. I can't pinpoint
a recording but it was Armstrong & Morton that tripped my
trigger jazz-wise. All the rest came later, but when I was
young pop music was either seminal rock or it swung.
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it's cliche, but it was kind of blue.
the first jazz CD's i bought were hancock's "maiden voyage" and shorter's "speak no evil." I was 17 and I got hooked VERY fast.
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Stuff like Steely Dan and smooth jazz artists turned me on to jazz. I wound up buying some collections by Armstrong and Duke, but what killed me was Joe Pass' Virtuoso. I probably listened to that disc every night for 2 months and it would bring me to tears every night. I was hooked.
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In the 70's I started digging Cobham, Brecker Brothers, Steely Dan, typical jazz/rock stuff, but it wasn't until I heard Maiden Voyage by Herbie Hancock that I made a strong personal connection to the music. A short while later I heard the original "Gateway" album by Holland, DeJohnette, and Abercrombie, and I realized jazz could express anything. There was no turnig back after that.
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My first jazz recording was George van Eps "Mellow Guitar" but the record that really turned me away from top 20 music of the "50s was a Howard Roberts recording (no cd's and no tape at that time). Needless to say, I wore out those two recordings and added many others (Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Hank Jones, Jimmy Raney, Hank Garland etc..) at that time. I have been totally hooked on jazz since the early 50's.
wiz
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Originally Posted by default87
I think it was Pat Metheny and George Benson for guitar and Miles and Paul Desmond for just jazz in general.
=-) PJ
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Mine was a transition from loving reggae- early wailers stuff, ska - sublime/five iron frenzy, familliar with horn sections i began to love the swing element then...
Charlie Byrds bluebyrd record 'it dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing'(true that) also Ernest Raglins below the bassline album.
The jazz has gripped me ever since
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Well, coming from a rock background, it was a bit different for me. I'd watched Oscar Peterson's programmes on the BBC when young. but I'd also seen Return To Forever on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and loved all that. I had acquired 2 Miles Davis records by default from friends - Birth Of The Cool and Live/Evil, totally different from each other!! - and was kind of getting there.
I was a bassplayer then and a good friend said to check out this bloke Jaco Pastorius; since I trusted this guy's judgement, I went out and bought Heavy Weather.
That was it, from the very first listening of Birdland. WHAT was all that stuff??? I was hooked. Ended up getting myself a Jazz Bass as a result - expensive album!!
What got me wanting to play Jazz Guitar, however, wasn't a recording but a gig. Cardiff New Theatre, my 2nd year of University (so late '78 or early '79), The Great Guitars. Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd. From that point on, I wanted to be able to play like that.
Still do.
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Surprising the numerous backgrounds of music that bring people to jazz.
I surprised myself by enjoying Coltrane as much as I did early on. Jazz just clicked one day . . .
I got a lot of albums to listen to, apparently. I can't afford to buy 'em, so thank god for Pandora.
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It was Cal Tjader in the early 60's that did it for me. I picked up one of his albums (it was either Black Orchid or Latino) and got my Top 40 teenage head twisted around. I've been hooked on Jazz ever since.
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Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian (Columbia vinyl circa 1960).
Last edited by Tom Karol; 10-27-2009 at 10:39 AM.
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Coltrane playing My Favorite Things, followed shortly thereafter by a whole collection of Dizzy recordings, many with Bird.
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Hmm, I think the penny dropped as a teenager looking to broaden my listening. Being into rock and blues at the time I remember a Zappa quote, you'll know it, "There's nothing wrong with Jazz, it just smells funny", now I took that to mean that rock guys think Jazz is square. Imagine my confusion when I took a Verve collection of Bird home from the local library one weekend and listened to it non stop for 48 hours. By the Sunday evening I stood up and announced to myself "Holy shit, I must be a square!"
Many years down the track I must say it still feels the same listening to Parker, I'm still surprised and shocked and delighted and moved, every bit as much as ever. If I only had a dollar for every time I muttered "how did he think of that!".
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Also KoB here, and I've no idea how or why I ended up listening to it, but I was about 15 at the time. Mesmerised. I went into school with it the next day, grabbed my music teacher and said "i don't know what this is or where it came from, but I want more of it". Fortunately the guy was a piano player who loved jazz, so we spent A level music doing or section of the course on jazz piano from ragtime through to 1950, an he turned me on to a bunch of other discs and players over the years.
Odd thing is I neve really listened to much jazz guitar back then, and it's only really now that I'm playing jazz guitar that I've starte building my collection in that area. But the music had me hooked instantly.
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As a young teen I used listen to Voice of America Jazz Hour Wilbur Conover - what an education!!! VOA JH still goes strong!
- was first turned on to jazz by guitarist Louis Stewart's first album - Louis the First - I listend to his version of O Grande Amor for weeks.
Thanks Louis!
Then started listening to Mahavishnu's Bird of Fire, Miles Kind of Blue and then some guy called Duke Ellington really explained the wrold to me - Pequod
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grateful dead -one from the vault
that got me wondering where they where they were getting their influences from,and led me down the road into jazz.(django was one of jerrys heroes).
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Interesting to see where everyone got their kicks, really. Jazz is such a diversified set of birds it has so many entrances, mine was when a friend, my then drummer. gave me a tape with Coltrane on one side, and Wakenius/Almqvist on the other. I had to get more, went to a little store in stockholm and the owner, Izzy, said 'you want jazz, this is the best', and handed me some Coltrane and Davis lp's. That's it. As a sign on a door in a 'MAD' magazine once said; 'Those who enter here will never leave'...
Peace
Skei (the don martin one)
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Airegin - Wes Montgomery off of Incredible Jazz Guitar. Done deal.
Evan
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Still don't know how I ended up with the cassette, where I got it, what made me listen to it, but it was John Coltrane, My Favorite Things. I must have listened to that song hundreds of times....this one song was my introduction to Jazz, and led me to other Jazz artists, and what has been an over 20 year love of Jazz...
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My songwriting partner and I were cutting a demo in a local studio, we had paid some session guys to play and while waiting for everyone to show up the piano player played "Georgia On My Mind" with some great comping. I stopped him and had him teach me the changes.I was hooked from that day forward dim7 and maj7 chords started appearing in everything I played. I have been pursuing jazz ever since. I can't say I'm any good at it but I love it.
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My parents always had classical music on the stereo, and my siblings played pop and rock, except for my oldest brother. The year "Charlie Brown's Christmas" came out, I heard Vince Guaraldi's "Linus & Lucy" and something just clicked. Not too long after that, my brother started playing McLaughlin's "Extrapolation". Much to my parent's dismay, I announced that I wanted to be a Jazz Guitarist when I grew up.
All the rest came along later, and I was very fortunate to have the late great Oscar Treadwell on the local NPR station late nights, and he pointed me in all the right directions. But those two sources flipped my switch.
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