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

Tings introduction to Jazz #1

Tings introduction to Jazz #2

Tings introduction to Jazz #3

Tings introduction to Jazz #4

Tings introduction to Jazz #5

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