well, dear friends, i have to say that tonights chapter enthralled me, moved me emotionally and made me very happy all at the same time. i thoroughly enjoyed the trip through Bix, Bechet, Bennie, Duke, Artie, Louis and the others and it drew out of me an incredible array of feelings about music, being involved in my own small way with music and music people in a general sort of way. i never had any information about jazz in my educational process (come on, i was a white Jewish kid growing up in South Africa in the fifties and sixties at the beginning of the most paranoid and psychotic weirdness in the history of that beautiful country!), but i can remember that the first album that i heard that awoke certain things in me was "Gershwin, Shavers and Strings" with the trumpeter Ernie Shavers. The next musical milestone for me that had some qualifications as jazz and which came while i was in high school was Dave Brubeck and Take Five from the album "Time Out", it is a piece of music that rolls around my head to this day, and it is the one where i learned how music floats on the bassline. My next serious connection to jazz was the Modern Jazz Quartet playing the music from Porgy and Bess and I still absolutely adore that arrangement of "Summertime"! Once I heard Cannonvall Adderley with Joe Zawinul doing "Mercy Mercy Mercy" my heart was fixed on hearing all there was to hear along this particular road and I went on to John Coltrane and "My Favourite Things". Miles and "Kinda Blue" is music that still resonates very deeply for me today as well. When i discovered Stravinsky and "Rites of Spring" a kind of circle was completed that began with my Mother's collection of classical recordings on those old 78 speed albums that broke if you looked at them too long. From Beethoven's Fifth through Elvis to MJQ and Miles to Igor, what a long and wonderful trip it has been!
i would love to see some lists from people that relate to the beginnings of their love of jazz and improvised music. what really made you wake up to jazz? what are the outstanding landmarks in the soundscape of your musical consciousness?
Watching this evening's programme brought a huge rush of the music that has coloured my life to my conscious mind. I learned more tonight about the depth of the blues in jazz than i ever realized existed and i got to understand the incredible depths of what jazz is, my mind is still running through the images, sounds and words!
1/. Gershwin, Shavers and Strings - An American in Paris
2/. Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
3/. The Modern Jazz Quartet - Porgy and Bess
4/. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
5/. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
6/. Julian "Cannonball" Adderley - Mercy mercy mercy
7/. Ella Fitzgerald/Count Basie - Ella and Basie also Ella and Duke
8/. Don Ellis - Live at Monterey
9/. Maynard Ferguson - Ridin High
10/. Sarah Vaughn - Soft and Sassy
This list is interesting to look at from a recall point of view, i know that later tonight i am going to recall some other really important artists and music!
to all of you who have turned me onto so much music in the time that i have been coming to this board, thanks so much!
leslie/The Power of Sound/www.kazu.org
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