jazz

 JAZZ

I used to be considered very into "punk rock", music also "heavy metal", music, but "classical", "techno", industrial", soul", and many other genres have flowed in and out of my ears over the decades.

Jazz is different.  You don't listen to jazz the way you listen to a "rock" record.  There is a certain place your brain goes.  It's not that easy to explain.    It does something.  

The Ren and Stimpy (season 1), intro is an example of up beat, and smooth all at the same time.  The Cowboy Bebop soundtrack is also the same.  Watching the film, "American Pop", brought Brubeck into my head and heart.  Then came Miles, Coltraine, Gabor Zsabo, Betts, and more .....  and then I started getting   into Japanese Jazz and city pop, which is not as fast and hard, but it is smooth and it's also called "fusion", for mixing up jazz, rock and other stuff.  Spyro Gyra, T Square, Jun Fukamachi, are a good start.  

Go look up Japanese jazz, City Pop, and fusion music, you might like it.

Steely Dan was the thing that was the real "ice breaker", though, for me.  People who put jazz riffs and stylings into FM radio hits makes me amazed.  Donald Fagen's solo album, "The Nightfly" album was also important for me to hear the styles blending and solidifying like a clay or a paint... and the record still holds up quite nicely.    Songs like "Reelin' in The Years", on "Can't Buy a Thrill", were just tips of the icebergs of what would become my love of Jazz.

We miss you, Walter.

Thank  you so much for helping me find music I can lose myself in, and not have to think of any political stuff, any violent stuff, any angry stuff.  Jazz says move, don't sit there, but if you're gonna sit there, here's some damn fine music to sit with.

+OCM+

October 15, 2021