My Dad's Questionable Musical Taste

[Alexander]

I got a lot of my musical education from my father. He's the one who introduced me to the Beatles, Dylan, Paul Simon, and others when I was a kid. To this day, the music that I heard around the house (especially rock) continues to have repercussions through my own musical interests.

Which brings me to his questionable taste in jazz. A few years ago, I inherited my father's LP collection (he's still alive and everything, he just doesn't have a record player any more and I do have one). Aside from the rock LPs I grew up loving (most of which I now own on CD anyway), he had several jazz LPs that well...kind of suck. Even the ones by artists like Bobby Hutcherson or George Benson, who are generally reliable, are pretty much the worst albums these artists have cut. I've looked them up. Most of them are out of print on CD, and listening to them you can really see why. These are minor, minor efforts. Most of them are a kind of weak brand of fusion (my dad was into Spyro Gyra when they were a local band in Buffalo). I just don't understand what was going through his head when he bought them. I seems as though he was just buying things at random. I don't know. He rarely has more than one album by a given artist, and when he does its just embarassing (LOTS of Grover Washington). I dunno. Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy. I do plan on listening to all of these LPs one of these days, but the ones I've heard so far are just so...bad. I'm hoping I'll find a gem or two to sort of rehabilitate my musical opinion of the guy. I mean, some of these albums are really BAD. Where's all the Monk? The Miles? The Trane? He was alive when these guys were releasing new stuff! Why wasn't he buying it?

In addition, the sole Chicago album in my dad's collection was "Hot Streets." Not "Chicago Transit Authority" or "Chicago II," or even "Chicago V." No, just "Hot Streets." I shake my head in befuddled wonder...

[Big Wheel]

I've discovered that my dad's taste in music seems to be highly dependent on external factors. When my dad was a teenager in the late '60s he bought lots of decent stuff - some of the Jimmy Smith Verve sides, some prog rock going into the '70s. I guess he must have had a hip friend or two back then. But in the 1980s, everything started going to hell: lots of Chuck Mangione and Bob James and Earl Klugh, and eventually, everything came to mirror the complete crap that the local smooth jazz station started playing.

In the late 1990s, though, I started buying my own CDs and getting serious about jazz piano, and record collecting for my father started becoming like a way to identify with me. He started listening to the real jazz station in town and buying real jazz records again - nothing too adventurous, but lots of Jimmy Smith and Wes and guys like Russell Malone or Joshua Breakstone (I guess my dad really prefers guitarists). But I moved out to go to college, my parents split up, and my dad eventually moved in with his new ditzy girlfriend and went right back to the smooth jazz, plus stuff like...the Dixie Chicks?! I had never heard my father so much as mention a preference for country/countryish music before he moved out. My best guesses are that either the girlfriend liked them, or that my younger sister did and my absence suddenly opened up this weird musical/bonding vacuum for my dad.

Edited July 14, 2006 by Big Wheel

[B. Clugston]

If you have kids, they'll probably say the same thing about you one day. :-)

Edited July 14, 2006 by B. Clugston

[Dan Gould]

Big Wheel, if your Dad now has a "ditzy" and I presume younger girlfriend, I would strongly suspect that she has made a major impact on his music taste and listening habits. There may also be an element of trying to pretend he's younger by listening to a younger style of music, like the Chicks.

As far as I am concerned, I can't express any problem whatsoever with my Dad's musical taste, for the following reasons:

He's older and therefore his musical interests could never have been polluted by Spyro Gyra or any of the crap Big Wheel mentions. His LPs include plenty of classic 50s Sinatra, plus Ella, Louis, and Ella & Louis.

The Ella and Louis albums were on the stereo with some regularity growing up, and when in the late '80s I was looking for new musical horizons, it was hearing those very same albums, serendipitously, that led me to think that jazz was of possible interest. I am sure it helped that they sounded so familiar.

Last but not least, while his straight jazz interests never got past the swing era, ever since I started collecting jazz and would use his stereo or play CDs in the car, he has expressed appreciation for what he heard. Didn't make him want to go out and buy something - he's rarely been one to listen to music solely for pleasure - but he's always complimented me on particular tunes or artists. Heck, when I was living at home in the early '90s and planned a trip into NY for a show at the Blue Note or Vanguard, without my asking he would offer to meet me at the club from his office.

My dad's one hip dude.

[Sundog]

Inherited a lot of great stuff from my Dad. Among the many include numerous albums by:

Basie, Ellington, Miles, Ahmad Jamal, MJQ, Zoot Sims, Art Pepper, Shelly Manne, Jimmy Giuffre, Stan Getz, Cal Tjader, Diz & Bird, Bud Powell, Dave McKenna, J.J. Johnson, Charlie Ventura, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, and Carmen McRae.

[Big Wheel]

Big Wheel, if your Dad now has a "ditzy" and I presume younger girlfriend, I would strongly suspect that she has made a major impact on his music taste and listening habits. There may also be an element of trying to pretend he's younger by listening to a younger style of music, like the Chicks.

The girlfriend was (I say "was" because I am pretty sure they are not together anymore) younger, but not that much younger. My dad is in his mid-fifties and this woman has grown children, so I assume that she is at least 40, probably closer to 45.

Edited July 14, 2006 by Big Wheel

[marcello]

He rarely has more than one album by a given artist, and when he does its just embarassing (LOTS of Grover Washington). I dunno.

Well. Grover was from Buffalo, ( is your Dad?) so that may explain that.

But hey, give him some music, and see how he likes it!

Edited July 14, 2006 by marcello

[jazzbo]

Wow, Alexander, your father is a lot younger than mine!

I used to think my father had some questionable music in his collection, but a lot of great stuff that I heard growing up. My dad is a Bach, Beethoven, Mozart (and P. D. Q. Bach!) fan, and he had some Ellington ("Uptown" was the one I really dug most!) and Brubeck and he had a lot of Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw (he played clarinet and bass-clarinet in high school). I thought the Glenn Miller was questionable for a long time. . . but I've come to think differently in time.

Also my dad was a Gershwin nut, and a Gilbert and Sullivan nut, and I know that the Gershwin music I heard constantly growing up was a big influence on me.

[Noj]

My dad prefers silence, but my mom listens to the absolute antithesis of my collection. She's got nothing but country pop, American Idol cover tunes, Hootie & The Blowfish, Michael Bolton, etc. Horrors abound. She loves to make snide comments about the music I'm listening to when she's around. I bought her a John Denver box set in the hopes of improving her listening habits. She hates the cdrs I've made her of stuff I like.

[Jim R]

Wow, Alexander, your father is a lot younger than mine!

Lon, why don't we just admit it... we're probably close to his father's age (or at least Big Wheel's father's age).

"Anyone else have this problem?" Well, yes. My father's LP collection consisted of marches, some Mitch Miller, a little Boston Pops (if we were lucky), and he watched the Lawrence Welk Show regularly (thank God I had a pair of headphones in my room, directly above the tv room). Late in his life he developed an interest in John Denver (who I could take or leave, but mostly leave ). At least my mom balanced things out by regularly playing a lot of G.A.S. material on the piano.

I must admit, I owned a few Lee Ritenour LP's at one time... not for long, though!

[Jim R]

I bought her a John Denver box set in the hopes of improving her listening habits.

Jon, I swear, I didn't see that until after I'd posted! What were the odds? Really, though, I never exactly disliked Denver... just didn't seek him out.

[Noj]

I feel exactly the same about Denver. He seemed a genuinely good person outside of music and met quite an unfortunate, undeserved fate.

[Ken Dryden]

My father was a bit of a record collector, though primarily classical. He tended to prefer the better soloists, conductors and orchestras, so I didn't find him buying the low grade budget LPs. He was into jazz a little, but never to the degree I was. While I never got him interested in Eric Dolphy, he had the famous Edgard Varese

Complete Works Vol. 1, the record that inspired a teenaged Frank Zappa.

When someone mentioned John Denver, it reminds me of those idiotic "porn rock" hearings in the Senate. Al Gore started off by telling Frank Zappa he was a big fan of his work, then told John Denver the same thing prior to his testimony (a stretch of credibility or an unusually wide taste in music--nah, I still don't believe that!). Then Dee Snyder of Twister Sister came out to testify and promptly said, "Well, Senator Gore, I suppose you're going to tell me that you're a big fan of mine!"

[Chuck Nessa]

Don't worry about Dad's tastes. They will never line up with yours and "it don't mean shit". Relate to him from "what worked" and ignore the rest. We make life too complicated.

FWIW, I'm still having shitloads of personal issues with my father and he was born in 1917.

[Dan Gould]

My dad prefers silence, but my mom listens to the absolute antithesis of my collection. She's got nothing but country pop, American Idol cover tunes, Hootie & The Blowfish, Michael Bolton, etc. Horrors abound. She loves to make snide comments about the music I'm listening to when she's around.

I have to say I am very curious what snide comments a person who listens to that crap comes up with.

Care to share?

[Noj]

"Why don't they learn the tune already?"

"Can you turn the noise down please?"

One day last fall my mom and my niece were in my room and a strange smell was coming in through the window. My mom said, "something stinks in here." My niece said, "I think it's Uncle Jonny's music." Mom loves to tell that story.

She also loves to repeat the lines those pre-schoolers came up with - "It hurts my ears like a hundred dogs" and "This music is dead and dying."

[JSngry]

Most people use music as little more than a lifestyle accessory. That's the way of the world.

[Alexander]

"Why don't they learn the tune already?"

"Can you turn the noise down please?"

One day last fall my mom and my niece were in my room and a strange smell was coming in through the window. My mom said, "something stinks in here." My niece said, "I think it's Uncle Jonny's music." Mom loves to tell that story.

She also loves to repeat the lines those pre-schoolers came up with - "It hurts my ears like a hundred dogs" and "This music is dead and dying."

The "dead and dying" comment was made by my daughter when she was about three years old. She said it, I believe, about a John Scofield album. My daughter is now six, and she's made great strides since then. She can identify all the songs on "Kind of Blue" by name when she hears them (when she hears a couple of bars of "Freddie Freeloader," she always cries: "Daddy! It's 'Freddie!'"). On the other hand, she's REALLY into Phil Collins (I believe the whole thing started out when Phil did some soundtracks for Disney). Not wanting to be the kind of father who forbids the music he doesn't like, I went out and got her a couple of Phil Collins albums. She's become quite the expert, actually! She knows the difference between a Phil Collins solo track and a Genesis track when she hears it. I've tried exposing her to Peter Gabriel era-Genesis and Gabriel solo material, and she likes it, but not as much as she likes Phil Collins.

Maybe it skips a generation...

I must confess, however, to liking the Dixie Chicks. I was listening to the album "Home" earlier today, and it's quite good. I have their new one, as well, althought it's not quite as good.

Edited July 15, 2006 by Alexander

[Alexander]

He rarely has more than one album by a given artist, and when he does its just embarassing (LOTS of Grover Washington). I dunno.

Well. Grover was from Buffalo, ( is your Dad?) so that may explain that.

But hey, give him some music, and see how he likes it!

My dad is from Buffalo. He was born in 1948 (same year as fellow Buffalonian Rick James). To be fair, his collection did contain quite a bit of Amhad Jamal, which is good (although I already had most of them on CD).

[marcello]

To keep the Buffalo connection going you could turn him on to :

Joe Ford

Mel Lewis

Sam Noto

Lonnie Smith

Don Menza

All from Buffalo.

[Big Al]

Let's see: Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet, The Who Tommy, a couple of Takoma John Fahey records, Art Blakey's Mosaic and Ugetsu, Wayne Shorter's Schizophrenia, and the realization that Chuck Berry is the real king of rock & roll. All courtesy of my father!

[Niko]

my dad (born 1949) left me only 9 LPs (i think he essentially stopped listening to music around 1972 and was just beginning again at the end of his life when I began listening) this is the list

john coltrane - kulu se mama

miles davis - nefertiti

gary burton - feelings and things

don ellis - electric bath

soft machine - vol. 2 and fourth

pink floyd - ummagumma and atom heart mother

rolling stones - it's only rock'n'roll but I like it

very much late 60s but still pretty flawless and a great collection for someone who didn't buy more... looks a little like someone helped him (when I asked him about his LPs in the mid 90s he said, well they were sure not bad, the best ones were by a group from the netherlands called soft machine)

[Parkertown]

my dad (born 1949) left me only 9 LPs (i think he essentially stopped listening to music around 1972 and was just beginning again at the end of his life when I began listening) this is the list

john coltrane - kulu se mama

miles davis - nefertiti

gary burton - feelings and things

don ellis - electric bath

soft machine - vol. 2 and fourth

pink floyd - ummagumma and atom heart mother

rolling stones - it's only rock'n'roll but I like it

very much late 60s but still pretty flawless and a great collection for someone who didn't buy more... looks a little like someone helped him (when I asked him about his LPs in the mid 90s he said, well they were sure not bad, the best ones were by a group from the netherlands called soft machine)

If yer dad had those records, he must've been cool.

[Parkertown]

My daughter is now six, and she's made great strides since then. She can identify all the songs on "Kind of Blue" by name when she hears them (when she hears a couple of bars of "Freddie Freeloader," she always cries: "Daddy! It's 'Freddie!'"). On the other hand, she's REALLY into Phil Collins (I believe the whole thing started out when Phil did some soundtracks for Disney). Not wanting to be the kind of father who forbids the music he doesn't like, I went out and got her a couple of Phil Collins albums. She's become quite the expert, actually! She knows the difference between a Phil Collins solo track and a Genesis track when she hears it. I've tried exposing her to Peter Gabriel era-Genesis and Gabriel solo material, and she likes it, but not as much as she likes Phil Collins.

That's amazing!!! She must be gifted...

She sounds very cool too!

[Dave James]

My Dad was born in 1915. He's been gone for 19 years. He grew up wanting to be a professional singer, but his father insisted that that was not a respectable way for anyone to make a living. He sang in local opera productions here in Portland and had a really good voice. I guess he had what people call perfect pitch. He could figure out how to play instruments kind of by feel. As a matter of fact, he traded in his pedal steel guitar for our very first television. With all that as background, you'd think maybe he'd have had interesting musical tastes. That would be incorrect. He liked Jackie Gleason, Mitch Miller, some sweet big bands, generally really lightweight stuff. He too watched Lawrence Welk religiously. I can, however, pretty safely ascribe my addition to music to him. He used to come home on Friday nights, with two or three LP's tucked under his arm that he'd bought on his way home from work at a place called 6th Avenue Records. My Mom used to blacklist him for that just like my significant other does now. He really hated the stuff my brother and listened to. If I had a dime for everytime he said "Turn that crap down, it's just noise" I'd be a rich man. And I'm talking about bands like the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

Here's an interesting question. I have an identical twin brother. While we both really like music, his taste and mine as adults could not be more different. Wonder how the gene pool stacked up in a way that made that happen.

Up over and out.