I’m a big jazz lover and plays jazz several hours every day.
And I admit it!
The albums/tracks/artists I normally play are the kind of music a lot of people find difficult – or sometimes even hate.
But it is with Jazz as it is with cheese. You do not start with the nasty, bad smelling & half rotten ones. Cheese is something you learn to like. Your taste for it develops and grows the more you try/eat.
In other words – you have to learn to like Jazz. You begin with the easy stuff and once you crack the code – you get curious and search for new tracks/bands/genres until you – after some years – find your self listening to music you never dreamed off would happen years before.
But where do you start?
I get this question quite often especially the past weeks where we have worked on our Jazz Legend exhibition. So yesterday a spend a couple of hours with my jazz collection trying to remember the tracks that got me hooked.
My intention was to make a #10 Jazz-For-Dummies-chart friends & guests can use if they want easy access to the world of Jazz. To ensure that my list didn’t get too nerdy a asked my friends in my favorite social network Bongorama for in put.
I should never have done that!
I’m DROWNING IN TRACKS – the most fantastic music. So now I have got to he conclusion: My #10 Jazz-For-Dummies-chart is impossible to make!
Instead I have decided to post 5 tracks every day during Jazzmandu ’11.
So if you are curious and want to know a little bit about this genre you can start here…
But I’m warning you: JAZZ IS VERY ADDICTIVE!!!
The following first 5 tracks are all from artists who are portrayed in the up coming Jazz Legends exhibition.
#1 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by Cannonball Adderley Quintet and written by Joe Zawinul
If you don’t get this one – DON’T CONTINUE. And stay away from Tings.
#2 Blue Train by John Coltrane
This one is a proven gate opener.
When my son Kasper was 10 years old, he loved listening to music in the bathroom. Most of the time he was home alone…
One day when I wanted to take a bath a took a CD as usual. But in the CD-player there was one already. Blue Train by John Coltrane. I hadn’t heard that album for a long time and was very surprised to find here:
Who had played it?
It was Kasper – he had chosen this masterpiece himself among my 6.000 CD’s.
#3 Cheesecake by Dexter Gordon Quartet
I never saw Dexter ‘live’ even though he lived in Copenhagen and hung out the same places as my self. But I feel I know him – I think most of my friends in down town CPH agree with me, that you can feel his presence in the old bars around Gothersgade.
I was so privileged to work with his music as executive producer on The Squirrel album from 1997. The photo used on the cover was by Jan Persson.
#4 Freddie Freeloader by Miles Davis. From the best album ever made – Kind of Blue
What to say… when you don’t know what to play. Play this.
NO
Play the whole F***** album… (If you follow these Jazz for Dummies lessons you’ll get a lot more Miles)
#5 Let’s call the Whole thing Off by Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald
Every time I hear Ella & Louis sing this Gershwin Bros. classic I feel happy. The warmth in their smiling voices makes me wanna hug.
/T
Jazz for Dummies
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What a wonderful way to start a day!
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I’m hooked Thomas! this is great stuff..!
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