Historical or Contemporary?

[A Lark Ascending]

A bit of a different take on 'how did you get in to jazz?'

I was interested in the thread last weekend when a new listener asked for recommendations. Lots of 'classics' came out. Yet my recollection of being at that point was of connecting to the current and then delving backwards.

So I'd be interested:

a) Did you come into jazz via music that was being made around the time you were listening?

b) Or did you immediately click into music ten or more years prior to your listening time (e.g. via parents' collections)?

No right answer. Just interested.

I'm an a).

Edited January 29, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[Larry Kart]

Both -- simultaneously and with no strain. Something I give my best friend of the time and myself credit for is that at age 13 in 1955 we were stunned by the recent 10-inch RCA reissue of 1940-42 Ellington Band material -- "Concerto for Cootie," "Ko Ko," "Jack the Bear," "Harlem Airshaft," etc., had no doubt that this was great stuff. And I don't recall that anyone "sold" us on this; it was just the music.

[BillF]

As related in the "How Did You Get Into Jazz" thread, I moved in the course of about a year (1956-57) from contemporary pops (then rock 'n roll) to contemporary popular jazz (Lyttelton's "Bad Penny Blues") and only then on to the jazz of New Orleans recorded in the 20s. But the modern jazz which I next moved to was then (1958) very much current. The fact that jazz was a living contemporary force in my youth (c.1957-61 is often called the "jazz boom") means that my answer to your question will have a different emphasis from a response from anyone who first came to jazz after the era of The Beatles.

[neveronfriday]

b) At the end of the 60s (born in '62) I was listening to Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Lionel Hampton as well as Dave Brubeck and George Shearing. There were hundreds of other artists in my dad's collection, but the ones above were regulars on the weird turntable we had when I got to choose.

BTW: I never really ventured forward, I just dug deeper. 1969 is a sort of magical line I hardly ever cross (unless it's got a classic, "traditional" tone to it). The more "adventurous" (free) jazz I never developed a feel for (although I do give it a try once in a while). Ellington was adventurous enough for me and I think I need another 100 years just to take in everything he left us.

[paul secor]

Started out in late 1962/early 1963 as an a) - Brubeck: Time Out; Clark Terry: Duke with a Difference; Mingus Ah Um; Rollins: Our Man in Jazz; Monk on a Riverside sampler. Very Shortly thereafter heard Louis' Hot Fives and some Ellington from the 30's and was hooked in that direction. I'm still listening and learning.

[Jazzmoose]

B. I started with Coltrane's My Favorite Things, and in fact worked backwards before I headed for the present.

[kenny weir]

Talking of jazz specifically, my big plunge evolved during a time when I was visiting New Orleans on a regular basis for visits as long as I could afford to make them.

Thus - in the spirit of ReBirth BrassBand>Jelly Roll Morton AND Jelly Roll Morton>ReBirth Brass Band - the answer for me is both simultaneously.

The distance between past and present, musically and otherwise, frequently seems wafer thin in New Orleans.

[jeffcrom]

My grandmother gave me a big box of 78s - this would have been around 1969, when I was about 11. I liked everything - the big bands, the pop vocals, the country stuff. But, without knowing anything about jazz, I found that I kept going back to certain records - Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, Louis Armstrong. After that I discovered Bix Beiderbecke and learned jazz more or less chronologically after that.

[BruceH]

I'd have to say I started out with the classics. Kind of Blue, the Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Sevens, Basie, Ellington, and the Parker Dial sessions. Moved on from there.

[Chuck Nessa]

I thought this was a comparison of Arnie Caplin's bootleg label and Les Koenig's non-bootleg outfit.

My first dozen "jazz" lps (in the late '50s) included an Ellington, Soul Trane, Cookin', Armstrong's Hot 5 and a record by Les and Larry Elgart. Make of that what you will.

My next Coltrane was Africa Brass and things moved on.

[paul secor]

Had no idea that Arnold Caplin was the person hiding behind the Historical label. Another piece of trivia to store away. Thanks, Chuck.

[JSngry]

Both -- simultaneously and with no strain.

Same here. But before I got into jazz, I could go from Beatles to Perry Como to Hendrix to Johnny Cash with no pain or effort.

I guess I'm a "listen to the stories" kinda guy above anything else. And jazz, when I finally got around to it, had more than enough of those, seemingly infinite (and infinitely) personal variations on several common themes (themes as in "life", not musical).

[papsrus]

The distance between past and present, musically and otherwise, frequently seems wafer thin in New Orleans.

I like that.

I thought this was a comparison of Arnie Caplin's bootleg label and Les Koenig's non-bootleg outfit.

Me too.

[GA Russell]

Initially (the mid-60s), I bought the current releases such as Ramsey Lewis, Ray Bryant, Groove Holmes and Cannonball Adderley.

But then in the late 60s the record companies stopped issuing mono records. Stores started selling the monos they had on hand for $1.99.

Being a poor college student, I bought those $1.99 records of people who were currently popular - Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Mann, Mose Allison and Chet Baker. Most of those monos were Prestige albums from the late 50s.

[John L]

(a), except that I was already listening to older music before I got into jazz, particularly blues and R&B. But I came to jazz first through contemporary music.

[A Lark Ascending]

Interesting.

I thought there would be more a)s but that would appear not to be the case.

With me I slid towards jazz from the jazz rock of the time, initially (c1975-6) going for contemporary things on Ogun, ECM and by contemporary UK players like Westbrook and Tracey. At that stage jazz was still something I bought on the edge of my rock interests (as was also the case with classical and folk).

But during 1977 and, especially from '78 when I was earning a wage, I started picking up earlier music. A Brubeck record, an MJQ, 'My Favourite Things' etc and things grew from there. Bebop took me a while to come to terms with and pre-1945 jazz evoked no reaction at all until I suddenly clicked in during the 90s. Yet, for some reason - mainly due to hearing his compositions played by others, I suspect - Ellington grabbed me very early on ('78, I think).

But, like others have said, the delving backward went hand in hand with exploring what was currently being released. I also retained that interest in what jazz musicians were doing here in the UK. I continues to listen like that.

[Shrdlu]

I'm a (b), in that my Dad had a lot of jazz 78s and he let me play them whenever I liked when I was only 4. I was listening then - there was no later "listening time".

There was a teensy bit of jazz on the radio (comme toujours), played by knowledgeable people, but I also had an uncle who knew a lot about jazz, and the lad next door was 5 years older; he used to get lent jazz LPs, and he brought them around for me to hear. These all helped. When I was 13 and up, I could go to record stores and, occasionally, buy an LP. There were always lots of jazz LPs in the bins.

After the 78s, it was Brubeck and Desmond, bigtime, because everyone was playing it and I heard it a lot. Then, thanks to my neighbor, Trane at the Vanguard, "The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York" and so on. That was fantastic.

A guy at a record store was talking about Charlie Parker, so I bought a budget LP (a bad reissue of Bird's Dial stuff) and was shattered. I got everything by Bird I could get. Playing alto by then, I was soon doing Bird licks. It just took over!

During this time, jazz LPs by all sorts of guys. Whatever sounded good, and there was lots of it. The original Blue Note, Impulse, Prestige and other LPs were flooding out at that time. You couldn't keep up with all of it. I guess that forced me to be more selective in what I bought. I might want to hear Ellington in 1942, but there was the new Miles out. I concentrated on mainly hard bop, and I've never regretted that. I like many other eras, and the CD reissue flood has helped us all to catch up on everything. But you can't beat something like the Art Blakey Sextet, with Freddie or Lee, Curtis and Wayne.

[Big Beat Steve]

Most definitely b) here.

No inspiration from my parents (except for a few 45s - Benny Goodman, Papa Bue, Pete Kelly's jazz and the like - that my mother had bought for occasional use as party records in the 50s there was no interest in jazz there, only classical music).

Contemporary music then on the radio when I really got into music at around 14 in the mid-70s never struck a nerve with me, neither disco nor the heavily amplified hard rock nor fusion or jazz rock.

I instinctively leaned both to 50s rock'n'roll and older blues and to comparatively early jazz (pre-1945, style-wise) and really soaked up all the radio shows I could catch. My record buying from the age of 15 started in that era (swing and a good dose of oldtime jazz) too, but Joachim E. Berendt's "Jazz Book" made me aware of what else there was at an early stage.

I distinctively recall my uneasiness about what I'd be confronting myself with when I bought my first "modern jazz" record not long afterwards - as it happens, the chronologically first modern jazz recordings: that Prestige twofer of Dizzy Gillespie's 1945-46 Guild/Musicraft recordings, including the original Diz-Bird quintet. Yet upon first listening this immediately all sounded all natural and a totally logical evolution of what I had previously been listening to in swing so I went from there and (though not neglecting swing one bit) soon sought up all the 40s bebop reissues I could grab as well, and if I remember rightly within a year or two I had embraced Sonny Rollins' "Saxophone Colossus" and Clifford Brown's 1953 Paris recordings etc too. It took me a while to appreciate the MJQ recordings that my parents had (MJQ being about as far as the elders leaning towards classical music would venture into jazz) but that came to pass evnetually too.

But I can still live pretty well without the more radical forms of free jazz or jazz rock or fusion.

Edited January 30, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

All at the same time - Swing, Soul Jazz, Modern Jazz. And Blues, R&B, Soul, Gospel (with a smattering of Ska, then known as "Blue Beat" over here).

MG

[jazzbo]

Would have to be how jazz is defined. If fusion is jazz, it's a) because I came in via Filles De Kilamanjaro and Miles Davis at Fillmore, and moved through fusion from Miles, Return to Forever, Mahavishnu, etc. and then the electric Miles led me back through time to the classics where I lived for a very long time. And I confess to not finding a whole lot of interest in current jazz or fusion.

[BeBop]

I'm more (b) than (a), but...

My first real exposure to jazz - to which I was immediately and forever enamored ) was through school stage band in elementary school. Our music was Ellington and Basie/Hefti, stretching back, and some contemporary stuff like Kenton (I guess this kind of dates me). My listening was to the early stuff; I guess I just realized that a Maynard Ferguson chart was just to make the bandleader look hip - we rolled our eyes.

[Van Basten II]

Started following the contemporary scene, watching the guys live, buying their cds, as much as i bitch about the Mtl Festival it sure helped me discovered a lot of music, read about them about their influences and started picking up what they were into which lead me to discover other musicians and other ways of playing music. In the process made my way into the "classics" and lesser known guys.

[Peter Friedman]

In the period from about 1953-1955 when I began to be interested in jazz my focus was on what was happening right at that time.

Illinois Jacquet and Flip Philips on JATP recordings, and also the Stan Getz Quintet with Bob Brookmeyer, and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet

and the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and Shorty Rogers and His Giants.

My next move was into both bop and hard bop so Bird, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, and Miles Davis were in the forefront.

It wasn't till a couple of years later that I became interested in the playing of Coleman Hawkins, Johnny Hodges, and Benny

Carter,Duke Ellington, etc.

It took perhaps another 15 years for me to appreciate the Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Hot Sevens and then eventually

Eddie Condon, Pee Wee Russell.

[BillF]

So interesting to read that, Peter! People in the UK who got into jazz at the same time as you were often big band fans: Kenton was their idol and over here it was Ted Heath. They're still out in force if you go to a big band event nowadays. All this was just before my time, as I started listening in 1957 at the age of 17. I remember hearing the Mulligan Quartet and Getz (with Al Haig and Jimmy Raney) by the age of 18. There was a decided time lag over here as slowness of record distribution and a musicians' union ban on American visitors meant we got to hear things a few years later.

Edited January 31, 2010 by BillF

[Brad]

I'm definitely a b). A friend calls me "the guy who likes the dead guys."