What got you into jazz?

[(BB)]

Post college I had a few of the mandatory cd's KOB, Giant Steps, Getz & Gilberto... but would never have called myself a jazz fan.

In the late 90's I was listening to a fair amount of electronica/lounge that then segued into electronica/noise where I started to hear about Bley & Giuffre. After hearing Giuffre Clarinet, the 1961 ecm re-issue and Free Fall I was truly madly deeply in love. After reading Gioia's "West Coast Jazz" it started getting bad. Then I found this place discovered even more great music and now I got a lot records and no money. But I'm smiling.

[Jazzmoose]

I sampled jazz here and there, but I think what really put it in the heart for me was hearing Coltrane on a killer system in a Japanese bar back in my Navy days on a night that was particularly blue. Suddenly I felt like I was home.

[mikelz777]

The seeds were planted when I was pretty young, though I really wasn't conscious of it, listening to Vince Guaraldi's music which accompanied the various Charlie Brown cartoons. I was also fan of The Tiajuana Brass with stuff like Tiajuana Taxi and bought those 45's. Fast forward to high school when I hung around with a lot of band guys who turned me on to Maynard Ferguson and the very album which opened this thread, The Crusaders' Southern Comfort. Not long after that, Taxi was a popular show on TV which lead me to Bob James and other soft jazz like Grover Washington but my relatively passive interest in that and other jazz died out after college. Decades later I rediscovered a mix tape of the Crusaders I had made and that lit the flame which still blazes today. I kind of started at the beginning and listened to Vince Guaraldi which impelled me to look for other piano based trios. That lead me to Oscar Peterson who I thought was pretty good but then I discovered Lester Young with the OP Trio and that tenor sound of his just slayed me. I dove into jazz head first and I haven't looked back since.

Edited June 22, 2007 by mikelz777

[GA Russell]

From the start of my listening to rock and roll on the radio in eighth grade, I always preferred the instrumentals. I bought a number of Ventures and Al Hirt albums and then moved on to the Tijuana Brass. From there it was on to Ramsey Lewis, and I was on my way.

edit for spelling

Edited June 22, 2007 by GA Russell

[Shawn]

It was basically situational for me. As I was growing up I wasn't really exposed to any other music than was being played on the radio or on records at the house (mostly classic rock albums that belonged to my Mother). During my teenage years I became hooked on progressive rock which I think helped down the road. What helped even more was that I grew up a classic film FANATIC and was particularly fond of Hollywood musicals (that went over REAL well with my metalhead friends).

Then I moved to Seattle to go to college and ended up working in a used CD store part-time to fill my need for eating. There happened to be a couple MAJOR jazz freaks that worked there and I began hearing all kinds of stuff from them. At first I remember being really annoyed by it...one of the guys played Africa with Coltrane/Dolphy and I asked him "who's strangling the goose"? But then one day Blue Train hit the stereo and for some reason it just hit me...I bought the CD and listened to it several times that evening. The next day I was back at work quizzing the guys on what other albums/artists I should check out, it quickly escalated to obsession (a common theme with me). Then I picked up Cookin', Workin', Steamin' & Relaxin', studied them, started buying records by the other members of the band and off to the races I went.

Not too long afterwards I ran across the BNBB and started a long, fruitful relationship with Lon...who I owe TONS of credit for really opening my ears and my mind to all kinds of different sounds.

Later I moved to Dallas and started hanging with the ever wonderful Mr. Sangrey, Mr. Milazzo & "The Sheriff" who helped bust the floodgates open even wider. (I should have never left Texas).

[K1969]

Fast forward to high school when I hung around with a lot of band guys who turned me on to Maynard Ferguson and the very album which opened this thread, The Crusaders' Southern Comfort. Not long after that, Taxi was a popular show on TV which lead me to Bob James and other soft jazz like Grover Washington

Crusaders, Grover Washington, Bob James - these kinds of musicians have probably led more of my generation towards discovering Gene Ammons and Booker Ervin than anyone else. Funny when you think how, for some, they and their ilk represented the nadir of jazz.

[jazzbo]

We've done this before.

My dad's love of swing music and Gershwin and his few Ellington lps helped a lot, as well as the few Brubeck lps my mom had (one on red vinyl!) And a few Peace Corps volunteers paved the way with lps by Charles Bell and Leo Wright that were in their Swaziland "care packages" and they didn't dig. . . I did!

I started being a British Blues convert listening to Radio Lourenco Marques, but I also started digging the sounds of Chicago and BS&T with the horns which was a warm ujp for the real thing. I saw Chicago within a month of returning to the US and the horn section excited me.

I was experimenting around with jazz lps in the library in Ohio when I was a junior in high school when I hit "Filles De Kilamanjaro". . . and a door was opened that I rushed in to. And then "Miles at Fillmore" was found. That set me on an odyssey that led me to a number of jazz artitsts associated with Miles. . .and also led me to a copy of "Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy" whick really really changed the course of my listening.

[K1969]

it quickly escalated to obsession (a common theme with me).

No kidding?

[AndrewHill]

My first exposure to jazz was in junior high, when I joined the jazz club (I played in the concert band and it seemed to be a logical move) and I played bass clarinet and tenor sax there. We played pretty straight-forward stuff like Vince Guaraldi, but me and another dude in the club would have these wild-ass jams on our own, just two tenors and we had a blast. My mom bought me the popular jazz records at the time (early 80's) like Grover Washington Jr, Spyro Gyra and Chuck Mangione.

Funny enough, I was watching ESPN Classic the other day and they showed a clip of Grover playing the National Anthem at the 1982 playoffs between the 76ers and the Celtics.

[Kyo]

For me it was something like this (this trip began about ten years ago):

Progressive Rock/Metal (my first musical obsession) ->

Instrumental Prog ->

Fusion (Weather Report, Return to Forever) ->

Miles Davis - In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew ->

'50s Miles

And from there everything else developed. Right now I'm 29 and listening to a lot of

classic '40s bebop (and still very much into Prog, in case anyone is wondering).

[Big Al]

Vaseline.

[Big Al]

It's 1987, and I'm going thru my dad's record collection looking for some classic rock and found his copy of Blakey's MOSAIC. Put the record on, and that first thunderous explosion of drums on the title track hooked me for life.

[jazzbo]

it quickly escalated to obsession (a common theme with me).

No kidding?

And I agree, Shawn never should have left Texas.

With or without the goddess.. .. .. ..

[J Larsen]

A gun to my head. As soon as it is removed, I'm out of here.

[Shawn]

Ah, I got it.

Edited June 22, 2007 by Shawn

[Larry Kart]

Back in the seventh grade (1955), I had a friend who had gotten into jazz a bit, thought it was cool, and had a few records. I caught the bug and got some things of my own -- a Lew Watters Yerba Buena Jazz Band 45, one of the Norman Granz Jam Session albums, a Jazztone Society sampler with the Parker-Gillespie-Norvo "Congo Blues" and a hoarse, scary Pee Wee Russell solo on Max Kaminsky's "Stuyvesant Blues" ("scary" because I had no idea a clarinet could sound like that), and, perhaps most important, a ten-inch reissue of 1940-'42 Ellington material, with "Jack the Bear," "Ko Ko," and "Concerto for Cootie." What still kind of tickles was how immediately and spontaneously my friend and I recognized how great the music on that Ellington album was -- whatever was going on there, it was an education in itself. Our home-room teacher in eighth grade was a jazz fan, found out we were interested, and offered to take us to a JATP concert at the Chicago Opera House in early fall '56. Seeing and hearing Eldridge, Gillespie, Jacquet, F. Phillips. L. Young, et al. in person was overwhelming. Likewise a bit later on when I heard the Basie Band when the Birdland All-Stars tour came to town.

Edited June 22, 2007 by Larry Kart

[JSngry]

It followed me home and my mom let me keep it.

[porcy62]

It followed me home and my mom let me keep it.

That's the way my wife got me.

[RDK]

Vaseline.

There are times when Chuck's terse answers call out for further explication. But this, I hope, isn't one of those times!

[Noj]

I snuck into a bathroom window.

[(BB)]

I snuck into a bathroom window.

My wife's Grandpa "Papa" was a big jazz fan. In college Louis Armstrong (I believe) was playing on campus. Short on cash he and a few buddies decided to try and sneak in through a large air vent. As the story goes it all came crashing down, dumping them into a pile on the floor of the women's rest room. With nothing more than a little cut on the head he and his buddies made their way to the concert, and as Papa would say enjoyed a "damn fine show".

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Some false starts in 1959. My first jazz album was the sundtrack to "The five pennies" - but I hardly thought of that as jazz; showbiz really.

Soon after, like Mike, I became fascinated by the sounds of the MJQ (and Martin Denny). But again, I wasn't seriously into it. What I was seriously into was R&B & Soul. And my hero at the time was Ray Charles.

So it was mostly Ray Charles who got me into Soul Jazz, by introducing me to David Newman, Don Wilkerson and Hank Crawford in 1960. And through Ray's single of "One mint julep" (or maybe it was Phil Upchurch's "You can't sit down" pts 1 & 2 - I don't know which I bought first) I got myself into the organists! But not Blue Note. Blue Notes cost almost a week's wage for me at the time - a LOT more than British releases from Atlantic etc. So I'd take, say, "Midnight special" and a Ray Charles LP into the listening booth, play the Smith and buy the Charles.

It was 1965 before I was earning enough to afford Blue Notes.

MG

[7/4]

Mahavishnu later lead to A Love Supreme and Bitches Brew.

[RDK]

Mahavishnu later lead to A Love Supreme and Bitches Brew.

Funny, but that's exactly what a Hari Krishna said to me once at the airport.

[alocispepraluger102]

my first listens to stan getz ballads and oscar peterson ballads in mid 50's. that music was more beautiful than anything i had ever heard.