#thirstyear: In the beginning, aside from a bunch of Bill Frisell (and associated crew like Ron Miles, Wayne Horvitz, etc), almost all of the jazz I purchased and listened to was 50's and 60's. Part of that was because the bebop, hardbop, and early avant guard sounds were the ones I most wanted to hear, but it also had a lot to do with all the reissues being released in the nineties and beyond, especially on Blue Note. But with the current age of myspace pages allowing for a rich vein of music research, as well as some really decent blogs and music sites and forums, I've really begun to look forward rather than back in time for my jazz. My ear has also changed. It's not that I don't like free jazz anymore, but it's just not what I want to hear these days. Much of the jazz being made now is. Here's guys I listen to that might be considered Nu-Jazz (but I'm not entirely sure, because these categories confuse me sometimes): Brian Blade, Todd Sickafoose, Robert Glasper, Brad Mehldau, Esbjorn Svensson Trio, Ben Allison, Azure, Aaron Parks, Guillermo Klein, and several others who I'll kick myself for not remembering even though I listen to their albums constantly. These are all pretty much recent discoveries for me (except for Brian Blade), and they've kind of pushed by old Blue Notes and Impulse and Prestige albums into the background. For now, at least. I also really like some of the classical jazz that's been getting released. Diego Barber's "Calima" springs to mind as a prime example of that strain of jazz.
My jazz collection extends from Artie Shaw in the 30's to Hiromi in the present, largely centering around Miles Davis and Keiko Matsui. I'm not very much into traditional jazz, bebop, free jazz, or much of what gets called smooth jazz, but I enjoy swing, cool jazz, modal jazz, fusion, and some of the music called smooth jazz. So I'm not tied to a particular time period, but I do have my preferred subgenres, and I favor recent recordings over old recordings for the sake of sound quality. I don't see any special difference between options 5 and 6. Both amount to getting what I like, whatever era it is from. While I like lots of jazz, I do not focus on jazz alone. I listen to several genres of music, jazz being just one of them.
A related question would be, how did you get into jazz? In hindsight, my first exposure to jazz was probably through cartoons. I heard Vince Guaraldi through Peanuts cartoons, some traditional jazz in a Flintstones episode, and maybe some more jazz in Bugs Bunny cartoons. But the first time I really noticed jazz as such was in college when I heard Artie Shaw on NPR. Prior to that, I had been steeped mainly in Classical and Pop/Rock, and I was just getting into New Age and Electronic music. Following my exposure to Artie Shaw, I started listening to the evening jazz programs on the local NPR station. I soon developed an interest in such artists as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. When I went away to graduate school, I listened to a radio station that played Smooth Jazz and New Age. This led to an interest in some artists I've since lost interest in, such as Special EFX, the Yellowjackets, and Michael Franks. When I finished that graduate school and went to another, I found a nearby station (WGMC) that focused on jazz. I also had access to a large CD collection at the public library, some excellent music stores, particularly Record Archive, and the Sibley Music Library at the Eastman School of Music. This gave me the opportunity to explore a lot of jazz. I listened to a variety of styles and found that I generally liked Fusion best. Some of my discoveries of that period were T-Square (a Japanese Fusion band I heard on WGMC), Keiko Matsui (a Japanese Jazz pianist I discovered at the public library), Jean-Luc Ponty (a French electric violinist I first heard on a compilation of Atlantic Fusion recordings I got from the library), and Jacques Loussier (a French pianist who does jazz interpretations of Bach, whom I first heard on WXXI and liked so much I called the station to find out who he was).
My first contact with jazz was during my INdiana University years. Some of the guys would get together in the snack bar of our residence center. They were pretty good.
I didn't buy any jazz until I was out on my own. One of the first albums I bought was Jonah Jones, A Touch of Blue. I really liked that album. Next big influence was when I met my husband. He liked Dave Brubeck, and we would look through the jazz albums at the record store. I have some Monk -- Mysterioso is one I remember. Miles - Kind of Blue. I haven't gone through the vinyl for a while.
I have downloaded a bit of jazz at eMu, but could certainly broaden my jazz horizons. It's great to see the jazz enthusiasts posting. I'm sure I will be picking up some more. Guess I need to use the My Space tip to do some sampling.
We had a nice jazz program on one of the FM stations here a few years ago, but jazz seemed to drop out of favor here. I need to check for stations that do some streaming.
Mine, embarrassingly, was at the most cliched of places; a college town coffee shop in the hipster part of the city. I was only in town for a couple of days, and just needed to find a place to sit and quietly read, and this place fit the bill. Maybe after an hour of doing this, it struck me just how much happier my experience was because of the jazz (some standard be- and hard-bop) they were playing. I already owned a few jazz albums (Dexter Gordan "Around 'Bout Midnight" and a Charlie Parker comp), but it wasn't until then that I realized how much more I wanted to be listening to it. I walked down the street to a little indie record store, and picked up several albums. My budget has never been the same.
My first exposure was by the radio. FM radio was in it's early days - there wasn't any programming or playlists, the dj's simply played whatever they felt like playing. Even on "rock" stations you might hear anything. It was not uncommon to hear Joni Mitchell followed by Stravinsky followed by Miles Davis followed by Frank Zappa. My first chance to really immerse myself in jazz was Temple University, which had a huge jazz record collection. You could listen to the albums in the library but not take them out - unless you needed to do so to complete an assignment. I made sure that semester that I wrote a paper that involved jazz so that I was able to take out records any time I wanted, and spent the whole semester wallowing in the history of jazz.
# jonahpwll - checked out the wikipedia entry on Nu-Jazz. Very informative. Thanks for calling my attention to this category of jazz. Turns out - I'm a big Nu-Jazz fan and never knew it. Wiki cites the label Thirsty Ear (from whence I stole my screen name) as a hotbed of Nu Jazz, and lists some of my favorite artists - Matthew Shipp, Sex Mob, Craig Taborn and William Parker - as representative players in the style. I have a number of Mehldau, e.s.t., and Allison albums, so I'll be checking out some of the other names you list, since I'll probably like them also. For this, I thank you.
# thirstyear - Hey, no problem. Craig Taborn is a relatively new one for me. I was familiar with him, for sure, but I'd never investigated stuff under his own name 'til about about a week ago. Another one to check out on emusic is Brian Patneaude. The two albums emu has, "Riverview" and "As We Know It", they're both really really good.
Cheers.
To answer the first post, I'm definitely in #6. For example, the two closest things I can think of to a religious expirence I've ever had happened at Louie Armstrong's house and a Matthew Shipp Duo concert*. I kind of fell into jazz after burning out on punk and searching for something else. The first two jazz albums that really moved me were Sketches of Spain by Miles and Rip Rig and Panic by Rahsaan Roland Kirk. From there, I basically read liner notes, got albums by sidemen and kept going. Luckily, I had a fairly decent public library, as this was way before the mp3 era.
* That concert was kind of wild. I wasn't the only one vibing out. This older guy fell out of his chair, completely in a trance. Made me a fan on Shipp and Parker for life.
Comments
I didn't buy any jazz until I was out on my own. One of the first albums I bought was Jonah Jones, A Touch of Blue. I really liked that album. Next big influence was when I met my husband. He liked Dave Brubeck, and we would look through the jazz albums at the record store. I have some Monk -- Mysterioso is one I remember. Miles - Kind of Blue. I haven't gone through the vinyl for a while.
I have downloaded a bit of jazz at eMu, but could certainly broaden my jazz horizons. It's great to see the jazz enthusiasts posting. I'm sure I will be picking up some more. Guess I need to use the My Space tip to do some sampling.
We had a nice jazz program on one of the FM stations here a few years ago, but jazz seemed to drop out of favor here. I need to check for stations that do some streaming.
It was not uncommon to hear Joni Mitchell followed by Stravinsky followed by Miles Davis followed by Frank Zappa. My first chance to really immerse myself in jazz was Temple University, which had a huge jazz record collection. You could listen to the albums in the library but not take them out - unless you needed to do so to complete an assignment. I made sure that semester that I wrote a paper that involved jazz so that I was able to take out records any time I wanted, and spent the whole semester wallowing in the history of jazz.
Cheers.
* That concert was kind of wild. I wasn't the only one vibing out. This older guy fell out of his chair, completely in a trance. Made me a fan on Shipp and Parker for life.