Music, and its effect on you

[.:.impossible]

I wrote this in response to a question elsewhere, and thought I'd post it since I never start topics and really need to start pulling my weight around here before I get let go.

Four recordings that (truly) changed my life.

As far as how I actually listen to the world, that is. These are the four most influential recordings in my life thus far. Technically, I guess I should include ‘Please Don’t You Cry Now Beautiful Edith’, but I have somehow limited my self to four.

The first recording that really knocked me somewhere off to the side was ‘Out To Lunch!’ under Dolphy’s name. This was the first time I actually took notice of the vibraphone. And it took some time. Possibly eight months or so before it actually hit me. This music was so strange and so languid and incredibly inventive at any given moment and what made it different, what suddenly hit me as I realized that this recording was forever going to be with me, was the vibraphone. Bobby Hutcherson’s wide-open four mallet vibraphone playing. His hesitance, his curiousity, his daring eagerness to push Eric Dolphy ever so gently toward the perimeter of his self-challenging mind created more space for the role of the bassist and the drummer, in this case two highly elastic senses of time, both almost equally as interested in stretching time as they are interested in the sound of sound itself. And Eric Dolphy himself. The motion that he was able to create while playing with these musicians on that day made me want to find out more and more about the man, vibraphone present or not.

The next recording that knocked me back out past my last knock was a recording by solo percussionist Milford Graves. ‘Grand Unification.' Now by this time I hadn’t yet heard many solo drum recordings, though I had heard a few collaborations and/or dates led by percussionists, many of whom would be considered masters. Jazz drumming masters, or world masters whatever the case may be, it wasn’t until I heard ‘Grand Unification’ that I realized just how complex a simple rhythm can be, rather how simple a complex rhythm can be. And just how fluid time actually was. At this point in my life, I began to realize just how inconsequential and arbitrary the secondhand of a timepiece actually was.

Believe it or not, the first time I began to consider challenging the notion of standard time was after a conversation with my mom. I was listening to ‘Dead Set’ and brought my boom box to her, impressing upon her the idea that she had to hear these drums. She told me they sounded like a “washer/dryer” and that made a lasting impression on me.

Milford Graves turned rhythm into something that is constantly happening. Something that just happens, like the patterns and random designs in nature, rhythm is happening. He is somehow able to channel such a vast amount of diverse energy through his four limbs, sometimes using his forehead, to decode the emotions that he draws upon. It changed the way I listen to drummers. It changed my idea of drumming entirely. Believe it or not, it actually made me appreciate pop drumming, and drum machines, but people like Sunny Murray and an immensely renewed appreciation for Elvin Jones, and later (for me) Max Roach got so much deeper to me. Then I sat in the room while Alvin Fielder played drums. And so on. The tradition runs deep, and it also runs wide.

And I heard Divine Gemini, a duet between vibist Walt Dickerson and bassist Richard Davis, who was also present on both ‘Please Don’t You Cry Now Beautiful Edith’ and ‘Out To Lunch!.' After a significant period of time outside of public recording, Walt Dickerson re-entered the archived sound world, recording a pair of duets with bassist Richard Davis. Of course I knew none of this at the time I heard ‘Divine Gemini’, one of the sessions documenting the relationship. Again, the feeling of standard time being an arbitrary element and sound and the act of listening taking precedence over all other consideration. The playing is absolutely beautiful and difficult and, more often than not an actual solid manifest of living, breathing souls, what great collaborative music can become. It is very difficult to figure out how to convey this. The most relaxing music I own, and I’ll leave it at that.

‘To My Son,’ another recording by Walt Dickerson was the next, and so far, the last to really knock me out, to really change the way I think. This trio recording was done not two years after the duets with Richard Davis. Walt Dickerson had found a bassist and drummer, who I don’t know anything about other than the recordings with Walt Dickerson, who propelled his way of playing into something that I had only imagined hearing on a vibraphone. Divine Gemini is so close to bliss for me, and this recording arrived at my door to bring me back into reality: it was all bliss.

It all made perfect sense, and it all fell over the concept of music, and yet it seemed so different after these albums for me. Things that normal people don’t find enjoyment in, I stand and listen, and find beauty and anger, and the emotions that I don’t have words for. And it is albums like these that changed the way I listen. Now.

[jazzbo]

Very interesting and thanks for sharing.

I guess my most honest answer in kind would be these four recordings:

Wendesday Miles

Thursday Miles

Friday Miles

Saturday Miles

Those profoundly influenced my music listening from the first moment forward.

[John L]

Wendesday Miles

Thursday Miles

Friday Miles

Saturday Miles

I guess after those four days with Miles, you must have spent Sunday in the Confessional.

[ejp626]

Probably Monk's The Genius of Modern Music vols. 1 and 2.

And Mingus Ah-Um

I was started down the road to loving jazz music by my parents' copy of Take Five, but these records, which I bought in college, really took it to a higher level.

[jazzbo]

John,

No at that time I was very much a "son of a preacher man." I just carried the guilt around FOREVER. -_-

[Soul Stream]

The ONE record that changed my life as a musician and lover of organ jazz was John Patton's "The Way I Feel." Patton's writing, playing and arranging on that album shed a whole new light on what jazz organ could be about that had nothing to do with Jimmy Smith or Larry Young. That record in particular gave me a lot of personal incentive to find John and develop a relationship with him. Which I'm glad I did because it changed everything.

"The Way I Feel" is, for me, a 'perfect' record. (Although Big John actually liked "Oh Baby" and "Along Came John" as his personal favorites.)

[alankin]

John Coltrane's "The Other Village Vanguard Tapes" and Cecil Taylor's "Nefertitti."

(I'll have to add comments another time. I'm too busy right now, alas!)

[randyhersom]

Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle.

Van Morrison - His Band and Street Choir

Joan Armatrading

Keith Jarrett - Solo Concerts Bremen-Lausanne, Death and the Flower

Oregon - Winter Light

The Gentle Side of John Coltrane

Hampton Hawes - High in the Sky

Walt Dickerson - Peace

Cecil Taylor - Silent Tongues

Most particularly I've Been Working from Band and Street Choir among the first three, incredibly intense and entrancing at the time, and still quite powerful.

I took to Keith Jarrett and Ralph Towner quite quickly when I started exploring jazz. It wasn't long before I got the Cecil, but that took many many listenings to get a handle on. The Trane anthology was mainly about the originally released version of Living Space.

I have acquired all of the albums of Walt Dickerson since then but Peace was the first to capture me with the unearthly lyricism of bass and vibes.

The Hamp Hawes is something that I listened to over and over and loved the mood it created.

[.:.impossible]

I love Peace, and you can't forget Andrew Cyrille's role on that recording!

re: Ralph Towner, I have seen mention of an album of duets with Gary Burton called Matchbook. Many vibists consider this a classic. I haven't found much of Burton's ECM stuff to be my style, though I really like duet music, and I think it is obvious that I really like vibraphone music. Have you heard this Randy? I'd be interested in to hear what you think.

SS, I'd say you chose "The Way I Feel" for a great reason. How did you go about contacting Mr. Patton?