How did you get interested in Jazz?

[couw]

pffff

[Guest che]

pffff

So did you get into jazz by discovering this list, through your parents or some other way?

Che.

[Guest che]

I was snarfing down three Double Whoppers one day and some some special sauce gummed up the keyboard... somehow this site came up.

It was either that or watching those Ken Burns videos.

They call that destiny, my friend.

Nope they call it something else in my town B-)

Che.

[couw]

[maren]

pffff

So did you get into jazz by discovering this list, through your parents or some other way?

Che.

Couw only started buying in the CD era: his first album was supposed to be Out to Lunch, but the shop didn't have it so he got Out There. He bought Out to Lunch a little later.

He wanted to buy Out to Lunch because he had read about it in The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play (a book on Zappa). Also because Straight Up and Down was featured as the opening tune to a television series he liked to watch.

My question to couw is -- what was that television series???

[tonym]

Hey Maren, my sister used to do that when I was a kid. Someone ask me a question, before I could take a breath, she'd answer.

That's why I talk so much (rubbish) now.

[maren]

Hey Maren, my sister used to do that when I was a kid. Someone ask me a question, before I could take a breath, she'd answer.

That's why I talk so much (rubbish) now.

Although, in this case, couw just posted the little magician (conductor?) on the welcome mat...

so I thought I was just taking up the slack in retelling couw's own story...

[couw]

pffff

So did you get into jazz by discovering this list, through your parents or some other way?

Che.

Couw only started buying in the CD era: his first album was supposed to be Out to Lunch, but the shop didn't have it so he got Out There. He bought Out to Lunch a little later.

He wanted to buy Out to Lunch because he had read about it in The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play (a book on Zappa). Also because Straight Up and Down was featured as the opening tune to a television series he liked to watch.

My question to couw is -- what was that television series???

thanks for the answer maren, I love you (I think)

anyhow, the tellyvision series was "Keek op de Week" by Kees van Kooten en Wim de Bie.

[couw]

Hey Maren, my sister used to do that when I was a kid. Someone ask me a question, before I could take a breath, she'd answer.

That's why I talk so much (rubbish) now.

Although, in this case, couw just posted the little magician (conductor?) on the welcome mat...

so I thought I was just taking up the slack in retelling couw's own story...

that's no magician! that's Signor Rossi!

[maren]

that's no magician! that's Signor Rossi!

Oh.... Io lo no conosco...

[TheMusicalMarine]

Benny Goodman, MJQ, and Guaraldi's Peantus music. whoo!

[maren]

Benny Goodman, MJQ, and Guaraldi's Peantus music. whoo!

Vince Guaraldi and Peanuts is a starting point shared by lots of us!

Did you come to Benny Goodman and MJQ on your own, through your parents or grandparents, friends, radio, school, the Web, somebody mentioning them in a book???

[Sundog]

[RDK]

You know, the more I think about the question - "How did I become interested in jazz?" - the less certain the answer is to me. The past becomes rather blurry at that point, and no it has nothing to do with experimenting with anything in high school or college.

It was around 1980, my first year in college I believe, or possibly the year before, while still in high school. I can still remember my first jazz LPs - "Massey Hall," Miles' "In a Silent Way," Monk's 2-Lp Blue Note collection - and I think what triggered their purchase was the first Rolling Stone Record Guide which came out around 1979-80. They recommended those albums highly, and for a while I took my chances on any of their 5-star albums. I also checked out a ton o' jazz LPs from the library, which is how I first heard Mingus, Coleman, and others.

But what I can't pinpoint any longer is what exactly prompted me to want to listen to jazz in the first place. My parents had no interest in the music and most of my peers in high school were into either Zepellin or Genesis/Yes. Born and raised in Rochester, my biggest exposure to jazz in the early 70's was Chuck Mangione - so come to think of it "Feels So Good" may have been the root of my obsession. I also played the drums for a little bit, and I remember Buddy Rich being my instructor's inspiration (though not really mine). But what exactly made me jump right into the deep end eludes me now...

[Chuck Nessa]

45 years ago, in the dark of the night (naturally) a few hundred negro folks marched to a farm house in central Iowa and abducted me.

Can anyone here help me?

[AllenLowe]

Actually, Chuck, I was one of those folks and, in reality, we were a white minstrel troupe. Sorry to mess up your life like that -

[Jazzmoose]

I don't listen to jazz. I spend most of my time on my hobby, making meaningless posts on internet bulletin boards that cover subjects I don't understand.

[maren]

I don't listen to jazz. I spend most of my time on my hobby, making meaningless posts on internet bulletin boards that cover subjects I don't understand.

Jazzmoose, Jazzmoose... -_-

[catesta]

This thread has taken a turn for the funniest.

[chris olivarez]

I don't listen to jazz.  I spend most of my time on my hobby, making meaningless posts on internet bulletin boards that cover subjects I don't understand.

Jazzmoose, Jazzmoose... -_-

Ya beat me to it.

[chris olivarez]

I think I responded to this millions and billions of years ago. I got turned on to Wes and Jimmy,Chico Hamilton and John Handy at roughly the same time. I liked them all but didn't wholeheartedly embrace jazz at the time but later on came Pharoah Sanders and "Bitches Brew" era Miles and by that time I was getting fairly hooked on this Jazz stuff and the neat thing is even after all this time I'm still learning about it especially hanging out here. It still seems new.

[JSngry]

maren, I love you (I think)

We all love maren!

[Guy Berger]

It was a weird stumble. I was really into 70s Genesis my freshman year of college and (due to the Phil Collins connection) picked up a CD by the British fusion band Brand X. It was pretty cool. I mentioned to a jazz nut that I was into fusion and he played Bitches Brew for me. My response was "what the hell is that". It took me a while.

Nevertheless the brew slowly developed in my brain -- I picked up various prog-fusion hybrids. Early in junior year I picked up Miles Smiles (the review on AMG intrigued the heck out of me) and it blew my mind even though I barely understood any of it. Other albums that were key for me in getting into jazz were The Inner Mounting Flame, In a Silent Way, A Love Supreme, Out to Lunch. That spring I also had a major epiphany about Bitches Brew.

There you go.

Guy

[sonic1]

I found jazz via the Vassar College Radio station in Poughkeepsie NY. I listened to the station because they played all kinds of stimulating music. One night they played a whole lotta jazz. Among what most caught my ear that night (which I had recorded on a cassette tape and played over and over again) was a freely improvised piece of music from Anthony Braxton (on the first or second "in the tradition" album). Also there was the coolest rendition of three blind mice, an obviously very old recording, that was totally out of this world. I still have yet to find that recording. It was very rough, with a repeating of the melody over and over again, almost in minimalist fasion, with a few soloists doing incredible things in those shorts little spaces-it was almost avant-garde. I have heard many renditions of that song over the years but nothing comes close to this version.

Anyway I was a teen and changed forever. I would eventually search out all corners of jazz. I still love Anthony Braxton's work. But I really dig the whole genre (with the exception of fusion--need to give this subgenre more of a chance).

Jared

[tonym]

In all seriousness, I was a teenager in Middlesbrough (not the most culturally diverse scene in the world) and I had this slightly boho uncle (OK work-shy). He used to have thousands of old albums and 78s that he'd 'acquired' and he also played guitar. On a Saturday afternoon I'd visit cos he lived near a girl I fancied, and he'd play me all sorts of old Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James and Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown records. It was OK, but I found it all soooo turgid. not much dynamic there. I liked my pop with a twist anyway; when my mates were all listening to Frankie Goes To Hollywood, I'd be off hunting old early Roxy Music B-sides.

Anyway, this went on for a while until he played me 'Are You Experienced'. That was it I think. The movementgoing on, especially the drums. The constant bristling and shifting. Then it was Traffic. Jim Capaldi, say no more.

Then finally the point at which I thought I should be listening to jazz per se, rather than music which had a jazz feel, was when I heard Cream.

Ginger Baker was guilty. En route for a couple of Cream albums I stopped by this great second hand store in 'boro where the woman would let you browse for hours.

I had read this interview previously with Baker in which he cited Elvin Jones as a great influence. I couldn't find any albums by Jones, 'cos in my jazz naievety I thought he would be a leader of a band. So no luck. Off I went.

In town later I browsed the jazz section of the local HMV in which I saw Ornette Coleman's 'Something Else' and on it the name Billy Higgins, he had also been mentioned in the Baker interview. So I bought it. I was hooked by how 'sprawling' it sounded. Yet it all made sense, and it all resolved perfectly. How do they do that? I wondered.

Shortly after at the aforementioned secondhand store, I happened upon 'Out To Lunch'; quite a common entry point it seems (possibly due to it's legendary status but near 'unlistenability', for the uninitiated). I took it without hesitation, partly because the cover looked so damn cool.

I'm sure this format will be familiar to so many jazz fans. But it was an exciting time.