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The Five Albums That Changed the Way You Hear Music


md655321

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there are different "ways", on which music comes to me....

1. opened and changed my heart:

a) Dumitru Farcas & Marcel Cellier: Taragot & Organ Improvisations, Vol. I

b) Keith Jarrett: Köln Concert

2. opened and changed my soul:

a) Mike Westbrook: “The Blake Setting”

b) Art Ensemble of Chicago (live in Hamburg about 1989 at “Fabrik” and "Urban Bushmen")

c) David Murray live with Aki Takase, about 1990 at “Fabrik" - and "Flowers To Albert"

d) Don Cherry - Humus (on "Actions - live in Donaueschingen with New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra")

3. opened and changed my ears:

a)Cream - last concert (concert movie - 1968, Royal Albert Hall/London)

b)Red, Black and Green by Pharoah Sanders on “No Energy Crisis” - various artists (from “Thembi”)

4. opened and changed my body:

a) Pat Metheny “Two Folk Songs” from 80/81;

b) 10.000 Maniacs: Stockton Gala Days

5. opened and changed my brain:

a) Anthony Braxton: Circle - Paris Concert

b) Roscoe Mitchel: Nonaah

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Very interesting thread! I can't believe I missed it the first time around.

It's also a difficult one to answer without a lot of thought and soul-searching, especially when trying to get past the whole "favorite and/or most influential" albums to those that "changed the way you hear music."

I suppose I'd have to start with the Beatles, but not any album per se but with the Red and Blue collections, which I first heard on 8-track. I suppose those tracks laid the groundwork for everything that followed, bringing me to rock & roll from the Top 40 pop and teen music of the era that preceded it for me (Jackson 5, Bobby Sherman, Partridge Family, and such).

(To digress for a moment with a thought about the Doors from the OP's very first post. I have a very early memory of riding in the car with my father and asking him why someone - presumably Jose Feliciano since my dad wouldn't have been caught dead listening to Morrison - would want someone else to "light his fire." It would take me a few more years to figure that one out! :lol: )

Bob Dylan would have to be up there as well, but again it's hard to pin down a specific album since the first Dylan album I actually bought was "Live at Budokan," only because it contained the most songs that I recognized from the radio. I don't recall exactly which one came next, but it was likely HW61, Bringing It All Back Home, or possibly Greatest Hits 2. I know that "Tomorrow is a Long Time" and "Ballad in Plain D" were particularly memorably songs for me as they packed an emotional wallop that I'd never experienced before.

"Velvet Underground" (3) also rocked my musical world and opened up all sorts of possibilities. I suppose if nothing else it made me yearn for or at least become familiar with all sorts of cultural behaviors and ideologies that, at least to that point, were utterly foreign to me: drugs, sex, urban lifestyles, etc.

Jazz-wise, it would start a deluge, but there are three albums that I remember that really started it all: Mingus Ah Um, Miles' A Silent Way, and a Blue Note 2-fer LP of Thelonious Monk. I grew up in Rochester, home of Chuck Mangione, briefly took drum lessons from a teacher who idolized Buddy Rich, but it took those three albums for me to truly discover jazz - and it changed everything. I'd have to add Duke Ellington in there as well, though I haven't any idea what album it may have been. Before Duke, big band jazz was old peoples' music to me. Perhaps more than any other single artist or album, Ellington seriously opened my ears and changed the way I heard music.

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Chicago VI

I was at an age where music was becoming more important to me and I started to actively seek it out. This is where my eyes were opened to the added dimension of and the interaction/interplay of horns in a band where I was used to just hearing vocals, guitars and drums/percussion.

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Boston

Sonically dazzling, this showed me the importance and helped me grow a real appreciation for the skill of engineering and studio work.

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Tumbleweed Connection

This helped me grow a real appreciation for how well collaborations could work and how either half would be less without the other. Elton John and Bernie Taupin were a perfect example. I loved the music and it seemed to have weight and substance to it making it worthwhile to listen to. It gave me a greater appreciation for others who complimented one another like Lennon/McCartney, Simon/Garfunkel, etc.

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Southern Comfort

My introduction to the Crusaders and one of my gateways into jazz. Soulful, funky, wonderful ballads, it all worked for me. This is where I really started taking note of the soloists and what they had to say within the context of song.

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Dark Side Of The Moon

I heard it and just went, "Wow!" This opened/expanded my mind a bit, taking things to a different level. (also piggybacking on what I appreciated about "Boston") Introspective, psychedelic, hypnotic, atmospheric, dramatic. It was taking a trip without going anywhere.

Edited by mikelz777
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This is such a good thread.

I really enjoy reading how people have personally related to music rather than the standard 'this record is important because...(or more frequently, this record is not important because)' approach.

Edited by A Lark Ascending
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Awright. As best I can recollect:

1. Hendrix -- Are You Experienced. Spun endlessly on the giant, old, record player in my parents' basement back in the day. The music was dark and beckoning for a young lad just entering his teens. Long since vanished from my radar. Doubt I'd find it anything more than nostalgic today.

2. Grateful Dead -- Europe 72. My first encounter with the Dead, extended jams and all that. Probably played a role in opening up my ears to music that reached beyond the formulaic.

3. Some John Lee Hooker album I couldn't begin to recall the title of. Probably mid- or late- 70s. Had never heard anything like this before in my life. A complete turn-off to my music-listening buddies, who found it unlistenable, uncomfortable. But something hard and rough and real in it was planted in me that didn't really come to fruition until much later. I didn't go out and snap up John Lee Hooker albums, but the appeal for the rawness of it definitely stuck.

4. Rolling Stones -- Exile on Main Street. Still regard it as my favorite Stones album, and for me their masterpiece.

5. Coltrane -- One Down, One Up, Live at the Half Note. A revelation. Sparked a renewed interest in music -- which had been dormant for some time -- and really raised the curtain for me on so-called free jazz.

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1. Milestones. Still the top Miles album for me. On first hearing the song, Milestones, I thought to myself: "This is the happiest song I've ever heard, I must get more of this Miles fellow." Despite finding out that Miles was a less then sterling human being, nonetheless, I'm still captivate my his music and life.

2. Entroducing: DJ Shadow. This album completely blew me away, I had never expected "electronic music" to sound, or have so much heart. I began to listen to that style in a new way.

3. Peter Brotzmann: Never Too Late But Always Too Early. I had never "got" free-jazz (or however you want to label this kind of music) but hearing this turned my mind around to what the real possibilities of this kind of music could be.

4. Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the U.K.: To a loser in High School like me, in a teenage wasteland that was San Diego in the 1970s, I finally found music that spoke to me -- THANK YOU SEX PISTOLS!

5. Harry Smith: Anthology of American Folk Music. Folk music can be interesting? Who knew?

Edited by Matthew
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Shotgun, by Jr. Walker & The All Stars: I was in love with Top 40 radio when I was a kid in the '60's, listing first on my 2-transistor radio, then on my 6-transistor, each glued to my ear. Shotgun thrilled me, but it was a few weeks until it dawned on me: I loved this song, but it had no words! How could that be? Is that allowed?[sorry, I forgot how to work the quote thingy]

"Shotgun, shoot him 'fore he run/Do the jerk baby, do the jerk now" etc. Last I checked, those are words, a little surreal perhaps, but words nonetheless. perhaps you were thinking of another Jr. Walker recording, "Cleo's Mood" or "Brainwasher"?

Edited by danasgoodstuff
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For me, very early on in life like 4 or 5 years old:

The Sermon: JOS- something about the sound of the organ man

Bernstein/New York Philharmonic: 1812 Overture/Marche Slave/Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture: So this didn't have real cannons, but this is the only version of the piece I love to this day because of the energy and passion of the interpretation, all the fire and passion Bernstein brought to the NYP. My mom says when I was 2 and she played this record, I said "fire, mommy, fire!"

Count Basie: On the Road. Definition of swing, and I thought the red vinyl was magical.

A little later on. Alan Parsons Project: Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Pat Metheny Group: We Live Here. In my senior year of HS, I borrowed this disc, and previously I hated Metheny, though it was too smooth. I was wrong, the track "To the End of the World" and the title tune changed my views forever. Pat's soaring guitar synth solo on the former and the guitar synth melody lead of the latter were awesome.. It opened me up to everything, even the avant garde. A journey through jazz and other music still growing to this day. Also growing up in the 90's, this album used loops that were a fabric of the time, something I recognized from a lot of dance music, and used in cool ways with the harmonic complexity of the Group's music. Really, this record as much as anything in Metheny and the Group's cannon is a huge genre fuck, making people ask "what kind of music is this?"

Edited by CJ Shearn
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Is 5 more cheating? :P

1. Horace Silver - Song For My Father

I heard the title track randomly, and didn't know its name. I didn't even know where to start looking for it. For a while it was the "holy crap I need that song with the horns and the piano" song.

2. V/A - The Best Of Blue Note

In my search for "Song For My Father," I bought this compilation. Its track list is as follows:

1. John Coltrane "Blue Train"

2. Herbie Hancock "Maiden Voyage"

3. Donald Byrd "Cristo Redentor"

4. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers "Moanin'"

5. Lou Donaldson "Blues Walk"

6. Horace Silver "Song For My Father" (an elated Noj did rejoice!!!)

7. Jimmy Smith "Back At The Chicken Shack"

8. Kenny Burrell "Chitlins Con Carne"

9. Lee Morgan "The Sidewinder"

I began to suspect there's a lot more to jazz than I had ever considered. At first I kept playing Horace over and over, then I started listening to the whole comp. Every song is incredible. I know some have reservations about "Cristo Redentor," but to my ears this was the perfect primer for what I enjoy most in jazz.

It was based on this and consequent Blue Note purchases that I ventured onto the Blue Note Bulletin Board in a greedy search for more.

3. Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters & Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage

My first two of Herbie's albums, bought in rapid succession. I'd known him as the guy who had the "Rockit" video on MTV, then from the title track of "Maiden Voyage," then I heard some crazy funk jazz track at a friend's and how 'bout that it's Herbie Hancock "Watermelon Man." Came to learn about his amazing career in a very odd order. What range.

4. Roy Ayers - Evolution & Flashback 2CD Anthology

Got here from Digable Planets. It's jazzy, it's funky, it's disco...it's cool. Everybody loves the sunshine. Yes they do.

5. V/A - Bossa Nova Brasil - Verve

Amazing compilation. Listened to a boatload of downloads from the Loronix blog and this still has many of my favorite Brazilian tunes.

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The Beatles - Rubber Soul. I was 7 years old when this came out. My father bought a copy and I sat in front of the mono speaker every day listening to it for months. This is when I really fell in love with music.

Albert King - Born Under a Bad Sign. After having the fortune to hear Albert King on his tour following the release of thia album, it became my passion and led me to a lifelong deep love of the blues.

Stanley Turrentine - Don't Mess With Mr. T. Maybe not a classic, but this is the album that bridged the gap for me between R&B and jazz. It wasn't long before I was listening to Miles and Coltrane.

Louis Armstrong: Memorial Album: RCA. This two-record set of Armstrong's RCA recordings really hit me hard - I really GOT Armstrong from this one, and began listening to much more earlier jazz.

Muddy Waters - More Real Folk Blues. This album just blew me away for a few years straight. It changed the way that I play music as much as the way that I hear it.

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The records that changed the way I heard music are all from the 1950s when I was a teenager. There are four of them:

1. Bill Haley & His Comets, "See You Later Alligator" (78rpm)

Heard at the age of 16 in 1956, this swept me into the British rock 'n roll craze.

2. Claude Luter's Band with Sidney Bechet, "Les Oignons", "Le Marchand de Poissons", etc (45rpm EP)

The following year an older schoolmate (who was all of 18!) advised me not to waste my time with rock and roll and lent me this. This led to a year's listening to traditional jazz, from contemporary Brits like Humphrey Lyttelton to Morton and Armstrong in the 20s.

3 and 4. Miles Davis Blows ("Bag's Groove" and "Swing Spring" with Milt Jackson and Monk) (10" LP Esquire) and Bird and Diz (1950 with Monk) (EP)

One year later at the age of 18 in 1958 a friend bought these. These created a taste which has dominated my listening ever since and I always say that I remain a bebopper at heart, despite a passing interest in modern classical music and the expansion of my jazz tastes to include cool, big band and mainstream. Rock completely passed me by. When The Beatles emerged in 1964, I was 24 and into the new sounds coming from Blue Note records and Coltrane.

Edited by BillF
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Mahavishnu, "The Inner Mounting Flame'- changed how I listen to music forever and started me on jazz

Allman Brothers, "Live at Fillmore East'- expanded what I thought possible for live music

Miles, 'Agharta'- blew me away then and still does today

Cecil Taylor, 'One Too Salty Swift and Not Goodbye'- it took years, but when I finally clicked with Taylor's music this pushed me over the edge(in a good way)

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Shotgun, by Jr. Walker & The All Stars: I was in love with Top 40 radio when I was a kid in the '60's, listing first on my 2-transistor radio, then on my 6-transistor, each glued to my ear. Shotgun thrilled me, but it was a few weeks until it dawned on me: I loved this song, but it had no words! How could that be? Is that allowed?[sorry, I forgot how to work the quote thingy]

"Shotgun, shoot him 'fore he run/Do the jerk baby, do the jerk now" etc. Last I checked, those are words, a little surreal perhaps, but words nonetheless. perhaps you were thinking of another Jr. Walker recording, "Cleo's Mood" or "Brainwasher"?

Those aren't lyrics, though...they're more just sounds. And there aren't many of them. The sax is easily the lead voice on the record.

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Is 5 more cheating? :P

1. Horace Silver - Song For My Father

I heard the title track randomly, and didn't know its name. I didn't even know where to start looking for it. For a while it was the "holy crap I need that song with the horns and the piano" song.

When I first heard that song, I said to myself: "Why's this guy ripping off Steely Dan?" Oh youth!

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Is 5 more cheating? :P

1. Horace Silver - Song For My Father

I heard the title track randomly, and didn't know its name. I didn't even know where to start looking for it. For a while it was the "holy crap I need that song with the horns and the piano" song.

When I first heard that song, I said to myself: "Why's this guy ripping off Steely Dan?" Oh youth!

Ha! I didn't get into Steely Dan until after hearing "Song For My Father." The borrowed notes never bothered me, but something about Steely Dan made their sound take a while to grow on me. Now I like them quite a bit.

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1. opened and changed my heart:

a) Dumitru Farcas & Marcel Cellier: Taragot & Organ Improvisations, Vol. I

b) Keith Jarrett: Köln Concert

2. opened and changed my soul:

a) Mike Westbrook: “The Blake Setting”

b) Art Ensemble of Chicago (live in Hamburg about 1989 at “Fabrik” and "Urban Bushmen")

c) David Murray live with Aki Takase, about 1990 at “Fabrik" - and "Flowers To Albert"

d) Don Cherry - Humus (on "Actions - live in Donaueschingen with New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra")

3. opened and changed my ears:

a)Cream - last concert (concert movie - 1968, Royal Albert Hall/London)

b)Red, Black and Green by Pharoah Sanders on “No Energy Crisis” - various artists (from “Thembi”)

4. opened and changed my body:

a) Pat Metheny “Two Folk Songs” from 80/81;

b) 10.000 Maniacs: Stockton Gala Days

5. opened and changed my brain:

a) Anthony Braxton: Circle - Paris Concert

b) Roscoe Mitchel: Nonaah

The more precise i think about this question, and the better i remember my hearing-experience,

The more easy it seems to me to come to the music, that really changed the way I hear music,

I think, there are not so many records, that really change the way of hearing…

Number One,

no doubt, is “Cream - The Last Concert”,

That was Thunder and Lightning compared to everything, I had been listening up to this movie…

The drum solo of Ginger Baker on Toad, and the improvisations of Eric Clapton cleaned my ears from so much acoustic garbage and rubbish, that I really heard “new” things when leaving the cinema, similar to the new way of seeing, when I got my first glasses

Number Two

was a concert of “Globe Unity Orchestra”,

I was not prepared to what would happen on stage, I sat in the first row, and, really, i`m not joking or kidding, I was scared, they would attack me, I really thought they were escaped from psychiatric ward and I was looking and expecting nurse and doctors would (should) come to bring them back…..

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Number Two

was a concert of Globe Unity Orchestra,

I was not prepared to what would happen on stage, I sat in the first row, and, really, i`m not joking or kidding, I was scared, they would attack me, I really thought they were escaped from psychiatric ward and I was looking and expecting nurse and doctors would (should) come to bring them back…..

Concert-wise, the biggest impact was made by my very first in November, 1972. The Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross/Muir King Crimson who had only just formed and were embarking on their first tours. None of the music was familiar, but even with my inexperienced ears I could make out how they were playing structured pieces and songs but then moving between them with lengthy improvised passages.

Spoilt me, I think. I'm very impatient with live concerts where performers play their latest album or greatest hits. I want to hear the music that might make the next album!

Edited by A Lark Ascending
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Number Two

was a concert of “Globe Unity Orchestra”,

I was not prepared to what would happen on stage, I sat in the first row, and, really, i`m not joking or kidding, I was scared, they would attack me, I really thought they were escaped from psychiatric ward and I was looking and expecting nurse and doctors would (should) come to bring them back…..

Concert-wise, the biggest impact was made by my very first in November, 1972. The Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross/Muir King Crimson who had only just formed and were embarking on their first tours. None of the music was familiar, but even with my inexperienced ears I could make out how they were playing structured pieces and songs but then moving between them with lengthy improvised passages.

Spoilt me, I think. I'm very impatient with live concerts where performers play their latest album or greatest hits. I want to hear the music that might make the next album!

I wish as was there as this band's music overall changed the way that I approached listening to music!

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Number Two

was a concert of “Globe Unity Orchestra”,

I was not prepared to what would happen on stage, I sat in the first row, and, really, i`m not joking or kidding, I was scared, they would attack me, I really thought they were escaped from psychiatric ward and I was looking and expecting nurse and doctors would (should) come to bring them back…..

Concert-wise, the biggest impact was made by my very first in November, 1972. The Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross/Muir King Crimson who had only just formed and were embarking on their first tours. None of the music was familiar, but even with my inexperienced ears I could make out how they were playing structured pieces and songs but then moving between them with lengthy improvised passages.

Spoilt me, I think. I'm very impatient with live concerts where performers play their latest album or greatest hits. I want to hear the music that might make the next album!

I wish as was there as this band's music overall changed the way that I approached listening to music!

You can be...

Well for the first 40 minutes!

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4. Breezin' - George Benson. This is where jazz (although I know now it really had little to do with jazz) began for me. Almost all instrumental (save for the dreadful On Broadway), a leaping, loping, toe tapping experience that led me in more directions than I can begin to count. Certainly where I can trace the roots of my obsession with instrumental music. I wore out the grooves on that one.

The vocal on Breezin' is 'This Masquerade'. You need to re-acquaint yourelf with your vinyl!

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Number Two

was a concert of “Globe Unity Orchestra”,

I was not prepared to what would happen on stage, I sat in the first row, and, really, i`m not joking or kidding, I was scared, they would attack me, I really thought they were escaped from psychiatric ward and I was looking and expecting nurse and doctors would (should) come to bring them back…..

Concert-wise, the biggest impact was made by my very first in November, 1972. The Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross/Muir King Crimson who had only just formed and were embarking on their first tours. None of the music was familiar, but even with my inexperienced ears I could make out how they were playing structured pieces and songs but then moving between them with lengthy improvised passages.

Spoilt me, I think. I'm very impatient with live concerts where performers play their latest album or greatest hits. I want to hear the music that might make the next album!

I wish as was there as this band's music overall changed the way that I approached listening to music!

You can be...

Well for the first 40 minutes!

If you are referring to the KC Collector's Club cd's, I have 'em all.

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Sorry, I missed adding the link:

http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?show=248

Though sounds like you'll know it.

I still find it spooky to be listening to a concert I attended 40 years ago, assuming at the time that the sounds were going straight into the ether.

Why would you assume that? Everybody was bootlegging in the 60s and 70s.

In any case, this was one helluva band. Definitely my favorite prog music. Fripp was/is a genius --- maybe one of the most criminally underrated rock guitarists of all time.

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4. Breezin' - George Benson. This is where jazz (although I know now it really had little to do with jazz) began for me. Almost all instrumental (save for the dreadful On Broadway), a leaping, loping, toe tapping experience that led me in more directions than I can begin to count. Certainly where I can trace the roots of my obsession with instrumental music. I wore out the grooves on that one.

The vocal on Breezin' is 'This Masquerade'. You need to re-acquaint yourelf with your vinyl!

Yea, and that vocal is far from dreadful, a beautiful performance if you ask me. "On Broadway" was indeed pretty dreadful. I sold that live album as soon as I bought and heard it. :)

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