^ Luckily for me I didn't have that problem the whole time - our store played Top 40 only and often if was only house/club or techno (the pop stuff anyway) and the only time I could play what I wanted was before we opened and when we closed, so I still had some headspace for music when I got home.  Other times I just had a headache.

My very first one was Corea's "The Mad Hatter" (when still in school years) and I wasn't impressed at all

Cannonball With Hat wrote: Christ...I have no idea. Haha. I'm assuming it was something in the fusion field being I only started to get into jazz proper recently. Maybe Brand X's Moroccan Roll? I've also had some The Industrial Jazz Group stuff for what seems like quite a long time, so maybe their City Of Angels.   For jazz proper...idk...hmm...seriously I have no idea. Maybe Bitches Brew (yes yes...technicall jazz-rock but lord knows I can't tell ) But I'm drawing serious blanks here.

Edited by Cannonball With Hat - 17 Jan 2012 at 8:50pm

I Started with kind of blue, I had that for a few years, then I pretty sure it was Porgy and Bess from Miles, but I hate to give to much credit to Ken Burns, But when that Documentary came out, as incomplete as it was, it really does a fine job explaining the history up to 1960, the music really came alive for me, I went and bought that 5 CD companion Box set, and it all really started there, I pretty much bought 200 CD's based on a lot of what was in that set.  I still think it's a great starter set. though it almost completely ignores Jazz Rock and Free Jazz, as did the documentary, but I was exposed to Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor through it.

darkshade wrote: ^ Yea, I watched the Ken Burns Jazz documentary since it's on Netflix, and up until 1967 or 1968, it goes over all the major artists, bands, genres, and eras pretty well. After 1967, the documentary takes a huge dip in quality, as if the makers could care less about jazz after 1967; except for talking about Winton Marsalis, who they seemed to adore. They only "mentioned" jazz-fusion because they were continuing the Miles Davis discussion, and briefly mention that there are new, young artists today.

looking back at Ken Burns Jazz now, I recently re watched it, I had not in at least 7 or 8 years, knowing what I know now, reading dozens of books, and watching countless documentaries, it really is grossly incomplete, artists like Buddy Rich and Woody Herman are hardly ever mentioned, plus its obvious to Burns and Marsalis, Jazz Rock is not jazz at all, if they would have added 2 more episodes, focusing on avant garde jazz and jazz rock, with out any bias of course, I think it could have been a masterpiece, but it really is a good introduction to the music, you just have to explore the music yourself, which is part of the fun of it any way.

darkprinceofjazz wrote: darkshade wrote: ^ Yea, I watched the Ken Burns Jazz documentary since it's on Netflix, and up until 1967 or 1968, it goes over all the major artists, bands, genres, and eras pretty well. After 1967, the documentary takes a huge dip in quality, as if the makers could care less about jazz after 1967; except for talking about Winton Marsalis, who they seemed to adore. They only "mentioned" jazz-fusion because they were continuing the Miles Davis discussion, and briefly mention that there are new, young artists today. looking back at Ken Burns Jazz now, I recently re watched it, I had not in at least 7 or 8 years, knowing what I know now, reading dozens of books, and watching countless documentaries, it really is grossly incomplete, artists like Buddy Rich and Woody Herman are hardly ever mentioned, plus its obvious to Burns and Marsalis, Jazz Rock is not jazz at all, if they would have added 2 more episodes, focusing on avant garde jazz and jazz rock, with out any bias of course, I think it could have been a masterpiece, but it really is a good introduction to the music, you just have to explore the music yourself, which is part of the fun of it any way.

That's the problem with that documentary, and others too, is the bias. You can't have that when documenting a musical genre, especially one as vast as Jazz. The idea of Ken Burns Jazz is a great one, but if you're going to do one episode on the last 40 years of jazz, where the other 12-13 episodes focused on one period of time, like say 10 years, then you're greatly dismissing a lot of music, and possibly keeping newbies to jazz from checking out the genre, because what they might take away from the documentary is that Jazz is "archived" music, "institutional" music, or just plain "old" music, with nothing new going on, so why delve into it, besides a few classics?

You have to cover everything, even including the kitchen "smooth jazz" sink, too.


Edited by darkshade - 27 May 2012 at 12:39pm

I am still slowly making my way into jazz.

Edited by smartpatrol - 30 May 2012 at 6:31pm

^ I agree, absolutely

My first album was Kind of Blue, because I had been told it was "the" jazz album to buy. The first jazz album I bought and really liked was Giant Steps.

Sean Trane wrote: Apparently you liked KoB enough to keep venturing into jazz

I did like KoB, Giant Steps, though, blew me away.