Jazz - what opened it up for you?

[Bilbo]

I just put on a Miles compilation cd I had in the office and the first track was the 1958 version of 'Milestones' with Davis, Coltrane, Cannonball, Garland, Chambers and Philly Joe. I had entirely forgotten this until that moment but, as soon as that groove started, I immediately remembered that I had listened to a lot of fusion and jazz rock etc but had never really got excited by the real deal. Then I got hols of a 6 LP Readers Digest compilation of The Modern Jazz Quartet, Ella, Louis, Brubeck. Basie and Miles (wot? No Ellington ). The first track on the Davis LP was Milestones and I remember thinking 'wow' and then, when Cannonball Adderley's solo starts..... a real 'hairs on the back on the neck' moment. I didn't understand it but I just knew that this was special.

Funnily enough, several horn players I have spoken to have acknowledged that solo as an epiphany as well.

What was the first 'real' jazz (not fusion, jazz rock or jazz funk) tune, album or gig that instinctively made sense to you?

[Thunderthumbs]

I can't remember the track precisely, but I remember many, many years ago, Radio One had a week where differents contemporary singers/musicians took over the evening slot and played just music from their own personal collection.

I was a big Jam fan at the time, and Paul Weller played a lot of stuff from his influences, so there was a lot of old soul, etc.

Then he played an MJQ track, and it just hit me.

That was approximately 30 years ago, and it still makes me want to listen to them even now.

[Wil]

In before someone says Moondance.

[derrenleepoole]

I remember it precisely, the moment when I 'got' jazz! It was Charles Mingus - Song With Orange, from the album Shoes Of A Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers

[risingson]

Jaco.

[derrenleepoole]

[quote name='risingson' post='1191959' date='Apr 7 2011, 04:58 PM']Jaco.[/quote]

Thriller? Smooth Criminal?

[risingson]

[quote name='derrenleepoole' post='1191964' date='Apr 7 2011, 05:00 PM']Thriller? Smooth Criminal? [/quote]

You Rock My World

edit Actually, the first jazz album I bought was 'The Birth of Cool', I still love that album to this day and Budo is one of my favourite Miles tunes. But Jaco Pastorius was the guy that opened my up to it because having read the personnel inside the sleeve it lead me to Herbie Hancock, Don Alias, Wayne Shorter, and a plethora of other great players.

Edited April 7, 2011 by risingson

[voxpop]

I was a student and went to the library and took out a handful of jazz CD,s. I heard stan Getz for the first time and this started me on my Jazz journey.

NICE......

[JTUK]

I had a Headhunters album which introduced a few players but mainly I got a jazz gig and had all these standards thrown at me, so I thought I better do some research.

[bh2]

Kind of Blue... bang!

[Lenny B]

On the same day I was given Milestones, Kind of Blue and A Love Supreme.
And that was it.

[bassace]

I started playing jazz when it was the 'default' music - rock'n'roll had only just been coined in UK- so there wasn't an aaaaaah moment, except when I started to come off the simple trad stuff and it was Milestones, also almost as a pop song there was Miles's 'There's a Boat that's Leaving for New York' from Porgy and Bess. We used to go round singing it, solos and all. Strangely I played Milestones in a pub on Sunday, haven't played that for decades.

[skej21]

Strangely enough, I got into Jazz through literature. When I was about 15 I was a huge Kerouac/[i]On the Road[/i]/Beat generation fan and ended up stumbling across [i]Blues and Haikus[/i] which featured Al Cohn and Zoot Sims.

If you haven't heard it, really worth a listen.

Fell in love with the whole idea of Beat culture and as a result, Jazz. One thing led to another, and now I'd consider myself a fan of Jazz before anything Beat related. Got the bug.

[Doddy]

I got into jazz pretty gradually. I'd always been into Big Bands-Buddy Rich,Basie,Maynard,all that stuff,but
when I started playing I got into Weather Report and of from there. I bought a Miles and a Mingus compilation
and they didn't really do much for me.I was more into the Headhunters/Billy Cobham kind of stuff.
Because I was digging the fusion stuff I went and bought a copy of Bitches Brew and really didn't like it.A bit later I bought
a magazine that had a CD of various Miles tunes on it and the first tune was Milestones....and I loved it.Footprints was also
on it and I loved that too. I revisited Bitches Brew a few years later and loved it.
The biggest thing though,was seeing a regular Jazz gig every Monday. I started to really get into the whole vibe and started to
recognise the tunes and buy more albums featuring the ones that I recognised.I started sitting in,which lead to depping every
few weeks until I was offered the gig. That was when I really started to get what was going on and appreciate it on a whole other level.

[spike]

I'd listened to jazz before, but John Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' was the first jazz album that really blew me away. I still think he's the boss (closely followed by Miles and Mingus)

[spongebob]

My jazz introduction came a little sideways.

Listening to some time back to early Santana in the early 90's - particularly his jazzy period 72-74 - and his album with John Mclaughlin, on which they covered some Coltrane.

I'm also a fan of certain parts of rap and hip-hop - 'The Low End Theory' by A Tribe Called Quest is built heavily on old Blue Note samples.

This led me to check out some of the key records, which led me to get in other elements of jazz. So I kind of came into it by default!

The first jazz track I really enjoyed after this introduction was probably something like 'Better Git It In Your Soul' by Charles Mingus.

[phil.i.stein]

i'm not a major jazz fan, but Miles Davis - Bitches Brew is definetely one of my desert island discs.

as far as trad jazz goes, i love New Orleans style. early stuff like King Oliver makes me smile and want to shake my booty.

[Clarky]

Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
A love Supreme - Coltrane
Birth of the cool -Mile Daviss
Waltz for Debbie - Bill Evans trio

There was a time when all I listened to was jazz (in the eatrly 90s) and those 4 albums were the top of the heap for me. A close 5th would have been Full House by Wes Montgomery.

[thisnameistaken]

When I was still at school I was in a band with a lad whose dad used to be a pretty handy pianist, and he would occasionally feed us his old vinyls (first heard stuff like Graham Central Station from him too) and I think that was the first time I listened to jazz. He had a bunch of stuff I really liked, I remember he was into Cannonball Adderley and Modern Jazz Quartet and generally lots of bop stuff, but I think the first record he had us listen to was a Horace Silver LP and I loved it. Couldn't tell you what it was now though, too many years and too much acid in the interim.

[Len_derby]

[quote name='bh2' post='1191993' date='Apr 7 2011, 05:11 PM']Kind of Blue... bang![/quote]

Yep, this was the one for me too.

The bit of 'So what' where the full band 'swings in' has to be one of the peaks of human creativity in any artform.
Or have I just started drinking too soon for a Thursday?

[TKenrick]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1191944' date='Apr 7 2011, 04:49 PM']The first track on the Davis LP was Milestones and I remember thinking 'wow' and then, when Cannonball Adderley's solo starts..... a real 'hairs on the back on the neck' moment. I didn't understand it but I just knew that this was special.

Funnily enough, several horn players I have spoken to have acknowledged that solo as an epiphany as well.[/quote]


Cannonball's opening phrase on 'Milestones' is one of my all-time favourite moments. Aside from that, the first time I heard Sonny Rollins on 'St Thomas' was a big turning point, as was getting Metheny's 'Bright Size Life' record.

[risingson]

[quote name='TKenrick' post='1192077' date='Apr 7 2011, 06:13 PM']Aside from that, the first time I heard Sonny Rollins on 'St Thomas' was a big turning point[/quote]

That's one of the first tunes that got me into Jazz when I was very young, there used to be a clip of it on Microsoft Encarta, I remember playing it over and over again when I was really young. Sonny Rollins still remains my favourite tenor player I think!

[SteveK]

If we're not allowing fusion or jazz rock then, I've got to say, I'm still waiting.
I've got loads of albums by the greats, Coltrane, Davis, Parker, Mingus et al.
I bought them because I knew that in my formative years these were the guys to learn from if I wanted to be serious about music. I listened, I studied and absorbed all I could, but...

...nothing I heard pushed my buttons in the same way as a good rock song.
I'm often amazed at the complexity and virtuosity in some jazz, I still listen to it, but most often it only reaches as far as my head, and not my heart.

[ShergoldSnickers]

The big one was my mum sitting me down in front of the telly and saying I ought to watch Oscar Peterson guesting on some show or other - this in the late 60s. She was right. I'd previously heard some popular stuff that sounded very vaguely jazz-ish in the household, from Jo Stafford to Glenn Miller, and I guess they laid the first few bricks. Oscar Peterson finished the building.

[BottomE]

Dads a muso so music has always been around since i can remember. He had market stalls selling records on the Portabello Road in the 60s importing blues stuff from the states. He even sold a bass cab to Lemmy! But i found a record he had when i was about 14 and played it cos i thought the name was funny.

Monk doing Round Midnight - holy cow! It knocked me down - the strange chords and timing yet the hypnotically tragic melody. Kerrching. I was/am hooked.