Jazz sped up my clock

[Alan H]

I'm a diehard Jazz fan.....from Chicago, circa 1925 and scratchy 78's to todays ongoing experimentation and hybridization of "World Music"....(whatever that is) and Jazz....I love it. Things like how the Bossa Nova movement affected jazz...I love stuff like that.

Listen to this....Joao Gilberto, solo, singing "Estate"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC19UZcqQwY

Now, here's the composer of the music from Black Orpheus, playing Desafinado with American tenor saxophonist Stan Getz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTQt...eature=related

Did you see the movie "Black Orpheus"? You youngsters who haven't seen that movie...SEE IT... Rent it. The music is *Incredible*. Sure, it doesn't have the snazzy special effects of star wars, but watch it and listen. Understand where it came from, the time...all of that. It'd be a great date with your boy/girlfriend.

I tend to the intellectual side rather than the testosterone side, and grew up with, and still love the West Coast Jazz of the 1950's and 1960's. I like Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz.

I'm also a big fan of sophisticated Big Band stuff like the Stan Kenton, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, and Don Eills bands of the 1970's, as well as the admittedly testosterone-soaked big band jazz of Maynard Ferguson.....jazz candy but that's OK.

Yeah, I stand in awe of Charlie Parker and Mingus, John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie...in some ways Dizzy was bigger than just his music, he was a great human being as well. But their sort of blazing technique doesn't really get into my heart.

My own roots as a player? Bennie Goodman leads the list because of my Dad. Brubeck and Desmond come next.

Something I really love about Jazz is that essentially all of it's history is available to listen to....not ALL of it, the pre-1925 stuff we have to imagine. We know what King Oliver sounded like, but we don't have a lot of his stuff. Earlier players like Buddy Bolden we only know by reputation. Nonetheless, you can hear, and learn and understand how in a very short time (30 years, maybe 35) jazz evolved from Ragtime and Society Music and primitive stuff in New Orleans to the intensely cerebral music of Bill Evans. You can follow probably the greatest American Jazz composer...Duke Ellingtons...his career from simple piano player to complex composer over a span of over fifty years. I LOVE that.

Yeah, big jazz fan, here....and mediocre clarinet/sax player.

[beloitpiper]

Now, here's the composer of the music from Black Orpheus, playing Desafinado with American tenor saxophonist Stan Getz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTQt...eature=related

Did you see the movie "Black Orpheus"? You youngsters who haven't seen that movie...SEE IT... Rent it. The music is *Incredible*. Sure, it doesn't have the snazzy special effects of star wars, but watch it and listen. Understand where it came from, the time...all of that. It'd be a great date with your boy/girlfriend.

Yeah, Jobim is amazing. Have you heard his recordings with Sinatra? Even better, in my opinion, is Vince Guaraldi's take on the soundtrack. Wow. Just...wow. He's my favorite pianist (Charlie Brown, anyone?), and I think Jazz Impressions on Black Orpheus is my favorite album of his.