Does Your Wife or Significant Other Love Jazz?

[Teasing the Korean]

I once dated a woman who did not have a single LP or CD in her collection that I wanted to hear. That should have been a sign right there. 

[Gheorghe]

Well, my wife was not a jazz fan from the start. But she tolerates it and maybe she listened a bit more to it, but maybe it´s just there´s too much jazz in the house. If I don´t listen to some records, I run through some tunes on the piano. But she liked especially Dexter Gordon, and was fascinated by Monk´s approach to the piano, I remember she said "if Monk plays the piano it is like if he re-invented the instrument for himself". 

And since there is much music playing in the house, she knows many tunes, if let´s say we are in the kitchen cooking and I´d just start to hum a little bop tune like let´s say "Move", "Blue ´n Boogie", "Night in Tunisia" if I stop she would continue and if I say "gee you know the music " she says well what can I do, if you always play that stuff. 

But if I would play a ballad like let´s say "When I fall in Love" or "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" she will come into the room and listen. 

And she went with me to some concerts, she saw with me : Archie Shepp, Johnny Griffin, James Moody, Cedar Walton, Art Farmer, Curtis Fuller, Benny Golson, and this spring she intended to come with me to listen to Dave Liebman/Richie Beirach but due to corona it was chancelled.....

[JSngry]

My wife likes Ben Webster. Is that jazz?

Her father was a welder, but I've not noticed her liking Bob Dylan. Is that jazz, the not liking of a person who practices the same trade as your father, recognizing that your economic heritage is not necessarily your spiritual destiny?

She also plays country in her car when she drives alone, and then on the rare occasion that I drive it and it comes on when I start the car, she denies listening to it except every once in awhile. But...every time, you know? So, this having something you can't let just everybody see because you know they will use it to marginalize you, yet hiding it in plain view, is that jazz?

She's also always in the back yard, playing around with plants and shrubs, always looking to refine the shapes and spaces to meet her own esthetic imperatives. Is that jazz?

She also feigns embarrassment about her flatulence, but never actually tries to hide it. This core acceptance of bodily functions, is that jazz?

I don't know, maybe she likes jazz more than I do, just not in a musical way.

[gvopedz]

Many years ago, I obtained a copy of Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert because I heard a critic say, “The chicks dig it.”  And yes, the critic was correct.

[Teasing the Korean]

22 minutes ago, gvopedz said:

Many years ago, I obtained a copy of Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert because I heard a critic say, “The chicks dig it.”  And yes, the critic was correct.

Not sure if Ms. Korean likes Keith Jarrett, as I almost never play him.  I can't get beyond the bleating goat sounds.

That said, I have an early album of his on the Vortex label, and I remember both of us liking it.  

[medjuck]

Shortly after I started dating my wife I took her to a Steve Reich concert in the afternoon and a Cecil Taylor concert that night.  She said she liked them both but she fell asleep during Cecil.  She now puts up with everything and likes a lot of it except the fast bop.  ( I find that's true of a lot of people who aren't jazz fans-- they'll tolerate Trane but not Bird. ). Fortunately I like most of the rock she does except the heavy Metal. 

[Teasing the Korean]

3 minutes ago, medjuck said:

Shortly after I started dating my wife I took her to a Steve Reich concert in the afternoon and a Cecil Taylor concert that night.  She said she liked them both but she fell asleep during Cecil.  She now puts up with everything and likes a lot of it except the fast bop.  ( I find that's true of a lot of people who aren't jazz fans-- they'll tolerate Trane but not Bird. ). Fortunately I like most of the rock she does except the heavy Metal. 

Pretty amazing to fall asleep to Cecil Taylor!  I mean, I can imagine someone being enthralled, or someone walking out, but falling asleep?!?

[JSngry]

Hey, drugs can make the impossible look easy.

[medjuck]

53 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Hey, drugs can make the impossible look easy.

I don't remember us being stoned but I think it was just the overload of sound from the 2 concerts. 

[sgcim]

My recently ex GF was an ex-jazz flute player, but only took the flute out when she was really high. She was playing the Trane "Ballads" album, and took off out of nowhere, and came back with her flute and was jamming on "Lush Life" (a song she could very strongly relate to...), unleashing a wave of pentetonic scales on the recording.

Another time, we drove upstate to a party where a bunch of us were jamming outside so loud, that they had to call the police on us. We all just sat there afterwards, smoking ganja and staring at our silent instruments, until she got up, and started to take command of the drum set. She started lecturing us on Elvin Jones, and how we weren't worth schlitz unless we were hip to Elvin.

The birthday boy called me the next day, and said the drummer (who was in one of David Byrne's bands) asked him for my GF's number.

[Ken Dryden]

I introduced her to jazz, she joined me to hear Dave Brubeck on our first date. Who would have thought that years later that she would be a part of a choir performing his sacred music with him?

She loves telling people that she heard Bill Evans with me back in 1979, though we've attended many (though not all) jazz concerts together, including Denny Zeitlin, Kenny Barron, Lee Konitz, Fred Hersch, Marian McPartland, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan, Phil Woods, Bill Mays, Marvin Stamm, Geri Allen and many others.

 

[mikeweil]

If it's not too wild, my wife loves jazz. She prefers trad and swing, or anything with a definite groove. The rest depends on her mood. When she's relaxed she will appreciate even complex music.

[Larry Kart]

On my late and beloved first wife's first date with me, we went to see Dexter Gordon at the North Park Hotel. Chuck spotted us there  on the sidewalk outside the venue and told me later on that he knew from the way we were looking at each other that we were both gone-ers. He was right.

[Gheorghe]

13 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

On my late and beloved first wife's first date with me, we went to see Dexter Gordon at the North Park Hotel. Chuck spotted us there  on the sidewalk outside the venue and told me later on that he knew from the way we were looking at each other that we were both gone-ers. He was right.

My wife once said she would have liked to see Dexter Gordon live. She is not necessary a jazz fan but likes some of it sometimes. She went to some concerts with me but I got to know here two years after Dexter died, so she didn´t have the chance to see Dexter. 

[JSngry]

4 minutes ago, Gheorghe said:

My wife once said she would have liked to see Dexter Gordon live.

That's funny, I was just brushing my teeth, literally, within the last half-hour of this writing, and my wife "reminded" me to clean up the toothpaste sploo on the counter before walking away. Don't worry, I told her, no way I'm missing that, let me show you why...and then I went to the shelves and returned to show her this:

After that, I shared the high-level overview of my experience seeing Dexter live, and then that was all over, including the toothpaste sploo. It got cleaned up.

 

[jcam_44]

My wife tolerates what I listen to. Probably 50/50 if she goes with me to concerts. She’s gone to some Vinny Golia shows with me and opted to pass on others. Usually depends on what day the concert is or if she has anything, and I mean anything else that she can do. She also passed on the Makoto Kawashima solo concert I went to last year. We do both enjoy Gregory Porter concerts. You get a great singer with a killer band especially when Tivon is on sax. 

[Peter Friedman]

The first date with my wife, we went to hear Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at the Minor Key in Detroit. She was 18 years old, and had no serious exposure to jazz before meeting me. This was the band with Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, Cedar Walton and Jymie Merritt. I am not sure how much she enjoyed the music that evening, but enjoyed the experience of going to her first jazz club.

Over the many years of our marriage her appreciation of jazz has grown significantly. She has certain musicians she especially likes, and is able to recognize many many tunes. One time my very good  friend, the late John Norris of Sackville Records and Coda Magazine, told my wife she was becoming a "tunesmith".

[BillF]

I always thought I met my wife at her sister's 21st birthday party in January 1969, but she says we met briefly prior to that at an Oscar Peterson concert.

That should get me a black mark here!  

P.S. The venue, of course, was the Free Trade Hall. Where else?

[mikeweil]

A local saxophonist once told the story of how he met his wife on their 25th wedding anniversary party. He was after her and while talking she mentioned she was going to a concert of The Modern Jazz Quartet and asked if he wanted to join her. He was puzzled and asked: "Which modern jazz quartet?"

He became a jazz fan after that, even one of the town's most active sax players, and almost ruined his happy marriage by practicing and playing too much besides his job of running an Italian food and wine import company. But he pulled the trigger soon enough.

Edited July 20, 2020 by mikeweil

[Hot Ptah]

She absolutely hates all jazz with a passion. She can’t listen to three notes of any jazz. She has to leave the room or plead with me to turn it off immediately if we are in the car. 

[Dan Gould]

6 hours ago, Hot Ptah said:

She absolutely hates all jazz with a passion. She can’t listen to three notes of any jazz. She has to leave the room or plead with me to turn it off immediately if we are in the car. 

Would this be the one who replaced the one who said you already have enough Miles Davis CDs? Or is it the same person or am I confusing you with someone else's story?

[Hot Ptah]

7 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Would this be the one who replaced the one who said you already have enough Miles Davis CDs? Or is it the same person or am I confusing you with someone else's story?

I am divorced from a woman who initially liked jazz but came to hate the fact that I had a music collection. My new woman does not like jazz at all.

[AllenLowe]

On 7/19/2020 at 11:31 AM, JSngry said:

That's funny, I was just brushing my teeth, literally, within the last half-hour of this writing, and my wife "reminded" me to clean up the toothpaste sploo on the counter before walking away. Don't worry, I told her, no way I'm missing that, let me show you why...and then I went to the shelves and returned to show her this:

After that, I shared the high-level overview of my experience seeing Dexter live, and then that was all over, including the toothpaste sploo. It got cleaned up.

 

actually, true story; Dexter was dead two hours before he finished playing his last tune.

[JSngry]

TENACITY!

[HutchFan]

On my first birthday after our marriage, my wife gave me the of gift of four CDs.  We were in grad school at the time, so it was a VERY extravagant gift.  Even better, she didn't even ask me what I wanted.  She just knew. 

The discs?
- Charles Mingus - Pithecanthropus Erectus
- Bill Evan - Waltz for Debby
- Miles - Workin' with the MD Quintet
- Thelonious - Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 2

One of the best gifts I ever received. 

That was nearly 30 years ago, and I still remember opening the box and being so happy...  and not just because of the music.