How Long Has Jazz Been In Your Ears?

[BruceH]

Started listening to some jazz around '79 and '80. Jazz became more of an obsession in 1985.

[danasgoodstuff]

jazz has been the (non-exclusive) focal point of my listening since the early '70s (when I went to college). Before that it was mostly rock 'n blues.

[Brownian Motion]

Since about 1959. My first couple of album purchases were "The Bix Beiderbecke Legend" and "A Rare Batch of Satch". There was virtually no classic jazz available in reissue in those days.

[take5]

Wow, no wonder I know like nothing about this music compared to you people (though I'm the "expert" amongst people in real life).

I "discovered" it in college (late 90s), but have only been seriously digging it for a few years.

[relyles]

I heard it around the house all my life, but only started to really appreciate the music myself during my fourth year of college in the Fall of 1987 when my then girlfriend was doing a semester abroad in Spain. Since she was not around I had a lot of free time on my hands and spent a lot of time in the music library listening to old LPs and reading old Down Beat magazines.

[John Tapscott]

32 years ago at age 17. Jazz has been my only real musical interest since then. I have probably bought 500 jazz recordings for every one of any other style since then, and since I have 5,000+ jazz recordings, you can figue out how much "else" I have. My wife and daughter buy the "other" stuff around our house.

[Quincy]

More than 21 years ago I briefly thought Louis & Neil Armstrong were one & the same person. I thought it was really cool that an astronaut would get to play trumpet on the moon. My parents helped straighten me that they were different people.

I've owned some Miles and a token Coltrane & Monk for 11 to 20. And 6 to 10 years ago I had stretches where I'd go months playing Miles and little else.

For it to be more than Miles, and seriously so, I'd say fewer than 3 years. Though I'm so bad about judging the passage of time it might be 3 to 5 years. As far as spending a lot more money, about as long as I've been reading this board.

So I answered 3 to 5. What was the question again?

[Larry Kart]

Either 49 or 50 years ago at age 12 or 13; can't say for sure because my birthday is in mid-May, and it hit me at some point in the spring of seventh grade in 1955. Very fortunately, my eighth grade teacher was a jazz fan, and he took me and a friend to a JATP concert and suggested that I buy a Charlie Parker record. Bless you, Bob Zwetz.

[GA Russell]

I bought my first jazz record in Jan. of '66.

Jazz became my main focus by the end of that summer.

[MartyJazz]

I was 13 years old back in '58 when my father brought home two LPs, one by Benny Goodman, the other by Artie Shaw. I was hooked, especially on Shaw whom I still love to this very day. Stopped listening to Elvis et al, although I did a brief stop with doo wop R&B. (Wish I still had those original label '45s, they go for a mint). Anyway, by my late teens, I was stretching out into Bird, Miles, Monk (the latter I caught at the Newport JF in '64 when they allowed we teens back then to camp out on the beach).

Soon thereafter, some pressure to leave home as my dad couldn't really take bebop and "modern" sounds as he was into the pop music of his day, i.e., swing. He never was able to see, or more properly, hear, the connection between swing and bop, the evolution of it all having totally escaped him. So I guess that makes 40+ years.

One question, how do I take my collection with me? Tempus does fugit. B)

[Larry Kart]

A possible sidebar to this question is that for a few year after jazz hit me on the head, I contineed to think of all classical music as a form of Mantovani, nothing but soupy violins and guys with long white hair waving a baton -- yuck! Then I began playing a Vox Box of the Mozart String Quintets that my Mom had around, and another door suddenly swung wide open.

[king ubu]

So even though I'm 46, I'm much younger in jazz years.

One jazz year = seven rock years.

It's like a dog, only not.

so I'm 84 years old despite being only 25, but then I'm only not, right?

ubu

[Chuck Nessa]

Poll looks like a big insult to people discovering jazz before 1993. I beat that by almost 40 years.

Way to go.

Geez - might there be sumpin' you don't know? Probably not.

Edited June 9, 2004 by Chuck Nessa

[Upright Bill]

The first albums I remember buying were Frank Zappa, Barney Kessel, MC5, Herb Ellis, King Crimson, George Shearing, Iggy Pop, John Mayall, Yes, Vanilla Fudge and The Frost.

So, I've loved Jazz since about 1967 (14 years old). I've been totally obsessed by it for about 10 years after about 5 years of classical music snobbery and 10 of nuttin' but the Blues.

[7/4]

I'm overwhelmed by all the music to check out. Thanks to WKCR and their broadcasts, I can check out the older material.

Looking forward to these this summer:

Louis Armstrong

(b. August 4, 1901; d. July 6, 1971)

(he believed his birthdate to be July 4th 1900, so we celebrate both birthdays.)

Lester Young

(b. August 27, 1909; d. March 15, 1959)

Charlie Parker

(b. August 29, 1920; d. March 12, 1955)

(combines with Lester Young to form a three-day broadcast)

[paul secor]

Early 1962 for me.

[Dan Gould]

Poll looks like a big insult to people discovering jazz before 1993. I beat that by almost 40 years.

Way to go.

Geez - might there be sumpin' you don't know? Probably not.

I started in to the jazz world in December of '87, so I guess the poll was meant to insult myself?

[Chuck Nessa]

I started in to the jazz world in December of '87, so I guess the poll was meant to insult myself?

Good to know you can insult yourself. Saves some of us time! I guess you are smarter than I thought.

[Dan Gould]

I started in to the jazz world in December of '87, so I guess the poll was meant to insult  myself? 

Good to know you can insult yourself. Saves some of us time! I guess you are smarter than I thought.

Yes, and you're more of an ornery asshole each day.

[chris olivarez]

Just past the mid 60's Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith, Chico Hamilton,John Handy and Trane pretty much all at the same time.

[kh1958]

1973 or so, when I bought the first two jazz LPs that I connected with--Basic Miles and The Best of Cannonball Adderley.

[SEK]

I've had "jazz" recordings since the mid-'60s. Within five years, "jazz" became my main musical interest.

[LAL]

First introduction to the music was around summer '93 via an EMI 3CD compilation. Only started listening 'seriously' towards end '98.

[CJ Shearn]

serious jazz listener since I was a baby. no lie. will be 23 in a few weeks, so it'll be over 20 years soon.

[Pete B]

1977 - my freshman year at UNC. Charlie Parker and Phil Ford - what a nice pair of discoveries!