an American experiance, an American original
First Times
So I was thinking of a good topic to open up with, and thought I would start with a story of a first. So many important things just fly by us in our lives, however there are moments when we realize that we are experiencing something special and so we slow down and savor the moment. When one of these moments is a first, then it seems to carry a fondness and clarity that most other memories lack. My first that I would like to share with you is the first time I listened to Sonny Stitt.
My senior year of high school, circa 1993-1994, was the year I decided that I wanted to be a jazz musician. That Christmas my parents gave me a box set of with recordings of various jazz artists from the 40s and 50s. This was a time before the internet and my exposure to this type of music had been very limited. I did have one Charlie Parker tape, but other then that, my jazz exposure came from the TV with shows like the Tonight Show.
I spent the next couple of months really immersing myself in the music, one cd at a time. I remember very clearly, driving my parents car down US 23 listening to one of these discs. Then it happened. (I really want to quote the verse to Have You Met Miss Jones now. Those of you who know lyrics may get the joke.) Anyway, I digress. Sonny Stitt's liquid alto sax sound came pouring from the speakers. I was so excited by it I had to pull over and park at the McDonald's in Greenup (Kentucky). The song was Lover Man, and Stitt was doing things to his saxophone I had never imagined possible and it was so fluid and musical. Masterful in technique, deep pocket, soulful, beautiful, my words fall short.
It was amazing, and I knew that was what I wanted to do with my saxophone. It was so amazing I couldn't even drive and listen to it at the same time. I was giddy and it changed me and the way that I looked at playing the saxophone. And I still get excited when I think about it.
Please take a moment and share an important first in your love affair with jazz. We would love to hear what makes you passionate about this music?
My senior year of high school, circa 1993-1994, was the year I decided that I wanted to be a jazz musician. That Christmas my parents gave me a box set of with recordings of various jazz artists from the 40s and 50s. This was a time before the internet and my exposure to this type of music had been very limited. I did have one Charlie Parker tape, but other then that, my jazz exposure came from the TV with shows like the Tonight Show.
I spent the next couple of months really immersing myself in the music, one cd at a time. I remember very clearly, driving my parents car down US 23 listening to one of these discs. Then it happened. (I really want to quote the verse to Have You Met Miss Jones now. Those of you who know lyrics may get the joke.) Anyway, I digress. Sonny Stitt's liquid alto sax sound came pouring from the speakers. I was so excited by it I had to pull over and park at the McDonald's in Greenup (Kentucky). The song was Lover Man, and Stitt was doing things to his saxophone I had never imagined possible and it was so fluid and musical. Masterful in technique, deep pocket, soulful, beautiful, my words fall short.
It was amazing, and I knew that was what I wanted to do with my saxophone. It was so amazing I couldn't even drive and listen to it at the same time. I was giddy and it changed me and the way that I looked at playing the saxophone. And I still get excited when I think about it.
Please take a moment and share an important first in your love affair with jazz. We would love to hear what makes you passionate about this music?
Views: 2
Tags: Lover Man, Sonny Stitt, Vanessa Keeton, firsts
Comment
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Comment by Garin Webb on February 16, 2010 at 6:08pm -
When I was in the fifth grade my father picked up My Favorite Things and Coltrane's Sound for me. I had no idea who Coltrane was or what jazz was but I remember being mesmerized by the music, especially the tracks, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes and My Favorite Things. It wasn't necessarily Coltrane's sound that got me, but the sound of the piano. There was something tranquil and and meditative about Tyner's repetitive rhythms and voicings that drew me in. Associated with the memory of the music was the activity of drawing house floor plans on graph paper usually accompanied by the patter of rainfall during rainy days - a favorite time for me to listen to music. Naturally, I had no intellectual understanding of what the musicians were doing yet the music had a lasting effect on me. This is one of those memories that are like landmarks; so poignant that they are seared into our consciousness.
Like Pat and Vanessa I, too, had a moment of awakening that drew me to want to become a jazz musician. After hearing the opening salvo of Brecker and Dejhonette on Syzygy (Brecker's debut solo album) I distinctly remember thinking, "You can do that on saxophone?" Brecker's remarkable sense of time and rhythm, his penetrating tone and the profuseness of his ideas realized by a staggering technique literally left my jaw agape. Thunderstruck I was. And totally inspired.
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Comment by Pat Kelly on February 14, 2010 at 7:59pm -
I was in a rock band in about 1970. I was 15 years old. We were good. (I actually worked lights for the band - but also contributed musically). I joined a band of some guys a little bit older than me. We played songs from the Beatles' Abbey Road, Led Zeppelin, the BeeGees, Steppenwolf, Country Joe and the Fish, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, The Doors. Pretty sophisticated stuff - we were serious and conscientious. But at my friend Steve's house, where we practiced, his older brother John put on a Jimmy Smith album. That was it. I veered away from rock and wanted to be a jazz musician. It just grabbed me and I got it. It spoke to me. I had had no jazz influence in my life up until then. I totally immersed myself in Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Duke Ellington, Yusef Lateef - well - on and on and on.
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