The first Jazz LP you ever bought?

[maren]

1970, senior in high school:

(I had tried to buy Eddie Harris's "Compared to What" as a single -- since it got a lot of radio play -- but no record store in my home had a clue -- neither did I, till I got to college in Madison the next year)

[PHILLYQ]

1972, 16years old, 'The Inner Mounting Flame' Mahavishnu Orchestra. It totally twisted my head around. Serendipitously, I was in a record store a few months later and noticed that McLaughlin was on a Miles album(Live/Evil). That lead to more Miles, Zawinul, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Jack DeJohnette, and 32 years later I still love that album and I still love jazz.

[erwbol]

My first Jazz CD was Steve Coleman and Five Elements - Curves of Life, not exactly an ideal choice. There was a review published in Oor, a Dutch rock magazine, stating that this was a title that might win curious listeners over for the genre. It was all a bit too much for me. A couple of years later I bought three Miles Davis CDs (Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Nefertiti) and got into Miles' second great quintet's music. That was when I started collecting, bought a Penguin guide, and stopped buying rock CDs.

[BillF]

It was a long time ago now but I can remember a 10" by Humphrey Lyttleton That was probably the first lp. In the effort to discover more, other early purchases were Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert and Dave Brubeck's "Jazz Goes To Junior College".

Well, John, mine was a 10" "Humph", too: Jazz at the Royal Festival Hall, bought in 1957:

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Question - what's a jazz album?

Is it this?

Or these?

The Five Pennies was my 3rd LP, (my Dad had taken me to see the film, which was just out) the MJQ LPs my 7th & 8th (bought in the same transaction, because they were on Atlantic, my favourite R&B label).

Did I know what I was doing, on either occasion? Well, I still don't

MG

[Head Man]

It would have been a Blue Note or Atlantic, possibly Jackie McLean's "Let Freedom Ring" or perhaps John Coltranes' "My Favourite Things".

However the first actual vinyl I ever bought was this single:

[B. Clugston]

My first was Bitches Brew. Or Soft Machine's Third, if you classify that as jazz.

[Larry Kart]

The regular catalogue issue of this Benny Goodman-Make Believe Ballroom Tribute to Fletcher Henderson concert:

http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/2007-March/044757.html

Don't recall that it knocked me out. Probably bought it because it looked like something special.

[medjuck]

Probably Dave Brubeck Jazz Red, Hot and Cool.

[John Tapscott]

in 1972, age 16 or 17

[colinmce]

Before I "listened to jazz" I owned a few LPs: A Love Supreme, Black Saint & The Sinner Lady, Ornette!, Where is Brooklyn?, New Grass, Mingus^5, This is Our Music, etc. When I made a concerted decision to really listen to jazz, I bought Brilliant Corners and then these all at once: Out To Lunch!, Unit Structures, Ascension. Jumped off the deep end, I suppose.

[danasgoodstuff]

November, 1986. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. A store called either Sweet Thunder or Sweet Lightning. (Can't remember which now.) I was 16.

Tenor Madness

I that wass Sweet Thunder and they were in Victoria too? Nice store, NOT cheap!

[jeffcrom]

The first jazz album I bought was Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago Cornets, a Milestone two-fer. It was an odd choice for a 15-year-old who had been into the Grateful Dead, but I had read Ralph Berton's Remembering Bix, and was fascinated and curious. I still remember my first spin of the record - I didn't get anything out of the first track, "Fidgety Feet," but as soon as Bix went into his solo on the second track, "Jazz Me Blues," I got it. I could tell that he was something out of the ordinary from that solo.

[Eric]

Wes Montgomery - Small Group Recordings (two lps of his Verve sides with Wynton Kelly and Jimmy Smith)

[Utevsky]

I think it was Benny Goodman, Live at Carnegie Hall, purchased in 1961 when I was ten. But I didn't get into jazz until about eight years later.

[Steve Gray]

I am going to ignore the Acker Bilk and Chris Barber records :-)

It was actually the English version that only had 5 of the regular 7 tracks but also included one of the tracks from Jazz Giants 56 (why did they do that?). I later bought the missing 2 tracks on an EP.

October 1961, I still have it. I was 14.

[Big Beat Steve]

I've thought long and hard about this but for the life of it can't remember EXACTLY which was the FIRST jazz record I ever BOUGHT.

Before buying records I had been listening to both early jazz ("classic jazz") from the 20s and to swing for quite a few months on the radio but going through my racks (I still have all the records I bought, except a scant handful) I am pretty sure I approached the subject chronologically and the first JAZZ record I ever bought very likely was that ODJB twofer on French RCA that collected all their early Victor recordings as well as a few 30s remakes.

Among the other very early purchases around the same time (bought within a scant few months in 1975 when I was 15) were a 2-LP set (on the French Monkey label) featuring the California Ramblers, another Monkey 2-LP set with early Fats Waller piano roll solos, an LP of James P. Johnson piano solos, the (oft-reissued) set of the 1939 recordings by Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime band, but also a "Best Of" compilation of Duke Ellington (featuring 1929 to 1941 tracks - I remember buying this one because it included "Take The A Train" which IIRC was the theme song of the "Fitch Bandwagon" radio show I used to listen to on AFN at that time) as well as a 2-LP set with the classic Artie Shaw Victor recordings of the late 30s and early 40s.

[Jerry_L]

Probably in 1974, from Third Street Music cutout rack. Wore the grooves out.

Scott Yanow of Allmusic stated, "the quintet casts new light on these tunes, making them sound fresh and flexible. This unusual set is recommended to longtime followers of Art Blakey".

Edited October 15, 2013 by Jerry_L

[Indestructible!]

Bought my first jazz album on vinyl as a teenager. I was working at a record and stereo store in Banff, Alberta (Nexus Sound), and we got a shipment of many of those Pathe Marconi Blue Note albums. I opened the box, and saw perhaps the most badass record cover ever (and I was into punk and hardcore at the time, so had seen many a badass cover)...

Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2. Had to buy it on the spot. That album changed my life. Thank you Sonny!!!

I really dug the drumming on that album, so the next day I bought Indestructible!

The trumpet knocked me out, and the only album we had in the store that had Lee Morgan on it was Evolution... so I bought it. Holy shit, what a game-changer that was!

The vibes on that album was something else, but the only album in the store that had Hutch on it was Out To Lunch... so the next week I bought that too.

And that was it. I was hooked for life. I have learned more about this music than I could have ever imagined from the wisdom of y'all on this board (and the old BNBB before that)... spent far more $$$ than I would have ever expected, too!

Great thread!

[jlhoots]

Garner: Concert By The Sea

[sidewinder]

in 1972, age 16 or 17

That was certainly one of the first jazz LPs (or 2LPs) I ever heard - a relative had a copy.

First LP I bought I think was 'Gerry Mulligan Meets The Sax Giants Vol 2' on Verve and the CBBB 'More Smiles', bought the same day.

[John Litweiler]

Ah, nostalgia. One day when I was about 18 y.o. I finallly got a $10 LP player and read a copy of Down Beat. Bought Manne-Previn-Vinnegar/My Fair Lady and a Benny Goodman Columbia collection from a little record store in the neighborhood - the only jazz records they had in the store. Much pleasure ensued.

[Hardbopjazz]

Wes Montgomery's Somkin' At the Half Note

[Michael Weiss]

In 1973 (age 15) on advice from my high school music teacher: Horace Silver/Blowing the Blues Away. Followed by Four and More and a Coltrane double-LP reissue The Atlantic Years. Over the next couple of years:

Return to Forever: Light as a Feather, Hymn to the Seventh Galaxy

Billy Cobham: Spectrum, Crosswinds

Mahavishnu: Inner Mounting Flame, Birds of Fire

Herbie Hancock: Headhunters, Thrust

Weather Report: Mysterious Traveler

Sun Ra: Jazz in Silhouette

Thad Jones/Mel Lewis: With Joe Williams, Central Park North, Consummation, New Life

Trane: Ascension

McCoy: Sama Layuca, Trident, Echoes of a Friend

Miles: Jack Johnson

Elvin: Genesis

Freddie Hubbard: Straight Life

Joe Farrell: Moon Germs

Ahmad Jamal: Impulse Years reissue

[medjuck]

If we're going to discuss further purchases shortly after buying Jazz Red Hot and Cool I joined the Columbia Record Club's Jazz division and

received KOB, Ellington Indigoes, Lionel Hampton's Silver Vibes and JJ Johnson's Blue Trombone. A pretty good start.