did you get Into Jaz via an artist other than Miles Davis?

Nah.

Miles it was.

First Jazz purchase I ever got was a compilation tape and it was two Miles Davis tunes (although they were originally Charlie Parker's), "Ornithology" and "Yardbird Suite" that got me interested.

I got into Jaz via "Wardance"

John Coltrane: 'A Love Supreme'.

Good one, Mark!

Honor the Fire, non-believers!

On the JazZ question (notice the second zed), I got vaguely into via Dave Brubeck, actually.

Charlie Parker, actually, when I was about twelve. The biopic Bird, flawed as it was, really got me interested in jazz. It was quite sudden -- almost as though a light had been switched on.

I hated Miles Davis when I was in eighth grade -- as a trumpet player, I thought he couldn't play, and I couldn't understand why someone who missed so many notes and didn't seem to ever play loud and fast was so well-loved. Now Maynard Ferguson, there was a trumpet player...(!!!)

Obviously, my (preposterously foolish) opinion has changed! (In my defense, the Miles Davis I heard was a very limited and ballad-heavy sample which was, evidently, too subtle for me then.) As I said in an earlier post, if I had to pick someone for "greatest jazz musician of all time", Miles Davis would probably be it. But, strange though it seems to me now, it took me a couple years to appreciate him.

And don't worry about feeling cheap. Great music remains great music whether it's co-opted or not -- and your own relationship with it, and enjoyment of it, can't be commodified without your consent.

Yep . I got into it thru Nina Simone .

Nope. Miles it was. It's not really something to be embarrased about though, eh? Jazz is very old and in many ways quite esoteric, so it's quite handy to have something so heavily touted as 'Kind Of Blue' to break you in gently.

True answer (as opposed to Killing Joke gag): Anthony Braxton.

jazz didn't appeal to me for years precisely because i was so fond of subtlety. and eventually the reason was wondering round oxford street HMV, sale time, shortly after getting my first ever credit card. two of the 13 were kind of blue and bitches brew, which i didn't listen to for months, preferring the avant-kitch tangenial to allt he Momus i'd been listening to. even then took some time to understand. coltrane's love supreme i find quite boring - searching but never happening across anything interesting. miles' 'on the corner', on the other hand, fascinates me for maintaining the same beat for 50 minutes.

"And don't worry about feeling cheap. Great music remains great music whether it's co-opted or not -- and your own relationship with it, and enjoyment of it, can't be commodified without your consent. " Yeah, i know, it's just those moments wheni think i'm being terribly adventurous and i realise i'm being a little less tame that i might have thought before. and i *hate* great music. not really, but i'm always conscious to avoid a shelful of a pantheon of greats, and seeing myself following such a path seem quite like arguing with 17- yar old Dylan fans who find it hard to listen to anything that doesn't have 30 years of analysis behind it.

plus my dad's copy of sketches of spain which i listened to very occasionally for years. i'd aleays put 'saeta' on mixtapes and talk about implication of melody to the recipients. so it appeared i understood Jazz.

I actually can't identify any one artist and I'm interested that people can. While our family was not a jazz household by any means, it was just one of those things where I learned some stereotypical signifiers of the form (sax, acoustic bass, brushed drums and the like) as time went on, and then learned more from there. Sorta like rock -- it was around and then I found out more.

If there was somebody, then likely Vince Guaraldi from _A Charlie Brown Christmas_. Which is actually probably the answer most of the North Americans would give, I'd bet. ;-)

I don't remember if I bought anything before it but I'm pretty sure the first jazz I bought was Kind of Blue. I had already been playing in my school's jazz band for three years, though, so technically I guess I'd say that got me "into" jazz. But Miles was definitely how I got into recorded jazz.

"And don't worry about feeling cheap. Great music remains great music whether it's co-opted or not -- and your own relationship with it, and enjoyment of it, can't be commodified without your consent."

After takign a moment, i'm not so sure of this. COmmodification is essential to keeping a music alive. ponder a choice between wynton marsalis or whoever the acousto-dullard is, and stereolab's 'cobra and phases'. or even the fast show - some wonderful ideas! where the reverential revisions of music, retaining all the signifiers of the form and the lyfestyle lead to being a member of ocen colour scene, or mos def/spooks righteous.

i can't remember what the 1st jazz i liked was but it wasn't miles, i guess i liked this duke ellington record that my dad had. 1st jazz rec that i bought for myself & liked i think was "fanfare for the warriors" by the art ensemble of chicago. that or chuck mangione.

1st time i ever got arrested was for stealing a copy of "sketches of spain" tho.

After looking at the misspelling in the header, I wonder how soon it would take before someone would make a Killing Joke joke. Damn, y'all sharp!

Coltrane's _Giant Steps_ was my official entry into the jazz world (that is, this was ME choosing to listen to jazz, rather than to have jazz forced upon me). _Kind of Blue_, however, gave me a greater appreciation of jazz. Not that I listen to much jazz at all. (I own about 10 jazz CDs, give or take. This includes tossing back Miles Davis' version of _Porgy & Bess_, which I thought was godawful.)

The Shape Of Jazz To Come by Ornette Coleman because both Stephen Malkmus and Graham Coxon recommended it in some music magazine. (I like it!) Can't say that I'm really into jazz yet though.

Great question. The first jazz album I paid attention to was Take Five, because it was the first CD my Dad bought in the early 80s. I love that album because it was the perfect aritifact of jazz when it was "college music." Dave Brubeck was like the REM of the 50s! Didn't he release a couple concert LPs that had some variation of "Dave Brubeck Goes to College" as the title?

But anyway, like many others, the first CD that got me into jazz deep was indeed Kind of Blue. This was also back in the mid-80s, when both I and Columbia were acoustic jazz snobs and any Davis beyond Bitches Brew was looked down on. All that early 70s stuff took a while to be issued on CD (wasn't Get Up With It only released like two or three years ago in the U.S.?)

Yes. I saw these guys, no idea who they were, sax electric guitar drums, at a "jazz bar" called Aggie's on the upper west side, so small it didn't have a stage. The guitar player was sitting in one of the probably 10 chairs; they were pretty relaxed but extremely energetic, and ROCKING OUT, provoking reactions from everyone who could fit in the joint. Drums and sax are LOUD in Real Life. NO!! I've JUST remembered, even earlier on, at the roundabout of my family's Great Trip West By Rail, Victoria Canada (union jacks everywhere! spooooky)there was a jazz fest going on - desperate to flee from Unhep Family I scan the papers for events - not particularly interested in the jazz, I decide on a "reggae" band, name forgotten, family nervous and proud to send their newly minted Eighteen Year Old Son into the world of reggae bands and beerhalls. I flash my ID and am turned down - NINETEEN is the consensus minimum for clubs in Victoria. Spare Hours!! Walking along I hear the craziest wailing, literally insane-style treble rantings, coming from the top floor of some building with a conveniently opened front door - I walk upstairs to find about 30 people sitting on office furniture in a huge gray-carpeted conference room with one strip of fluorescent bulbs on, in the far corner. They are there because there are 3 japanese guys (I think; tho the sounds were from Mars) - cello, drums, and a sax player, who was playing the neck of his sax into a glass of water when I walked in. The drummer proceeded to take a blistering solo that felt like 30 minutes, the drum kick steady thruout at gabba tempo. Trios... I seem to like trios. Tiny Bell trio = GRATE. So eh... Live = mainlining excitement; Whatever = whatever

Monk. Thelonious Monk.

I listened to a lot of metal and prog-whatever when I was in middle school/early high school and starting to learn how to play drums, so Buddy Rich was a natural bridge into jazz. It was loud and had unbelievably kick-ass drumming, and the forms were easy to understand because it's such structured big-band music.

Oddly enough, the first small group jazz album I got was Miles Davis 'Sorcerer', which I still think is one of his most overlooked and esoteric albums. I think it sat under my bed for about three years before I could even start to understand it.

Giant Steps - 11th grade...yellow JOhn coltrane on the cover...inside, a complex beauty supreme

Nope. First jazz album I can remember enjoying was Miles' Tribute To Jack Johnson - steady beat, plenty of rockin', lots of surprises. I still don't get Kind Of Blue to this day.

i'm always conscious to avoid a shelful of a pantheon of greats

Why? I listen to music that I find rewarding, or that holds promise for further listening. I frequently find that music pegged as "great" has better-than-average odds of fulfilling those criteria (especially in jazz and classical music), so my collection has more than a few "great" albums in it. Of course publicity machines and the forces of the market have conferred "greatness" on some awful albums, and have contributed to the overlooking of many many many genuinely great albums, but that's something of a red herring.

After takign a moment, i'm not so sure of this. COmmodification is essential to keeping a music alive. ponder a choice between wynton marsalis or whoever the acousto-dullard is, and stereolab's 'cobra and phases'. or even the fast show - some wonderful ideas! where the reverential revisions of music, retaining all the signifiers of the form and the lyfestyle lead to being a member of ocen colour scene, or mos def/spooks righteous.

Er, you lost me about halfway through...I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the references you made in the last couple sentences. Could you elaborate?

Also, are you speaking in praise of 'Cobra and Phases etc.'? We must have very different opinions on that album, then; about the only thing I like about 'Cobra' is getting the chance to hear more of Mary Hansen's lovely voice than usual. Otherwise, I can't stand it -- it's like listening to 'Dots and Loops', which is one of my favorite albums of all time, but with all the good bits and joy sucked out of it, leaving only a kitschy faux-Bacharach shell. (Perhaps it's the O'Hagan influence that bothers me, as I thoroughly despise the High Llamas, who strike me as incredibly cynical.)

Reconsideration: "can't stand it" is too strong. I don't enjoy it, though -- and it's doubly hard to take, having it be superficially so similar to an album I enjoy tremendously, but without that album's content or loveliness.

You're one of the few people I know who claims _Dots and Loops_ to be an enjoyable album, much less one of the greatest ever. Me, I find it reason #574 to chase down John McEntire with a hammer. What in particular grabs your attention about it?

(I like it too Ned. Maybe it's my favorite Sterelab album.)

yup. my dad's porgy and bess and live evil lps

You're one of the few people I know who claims _Dots and Loops_ to be an enjoyable album, much less one of the greatest ever. Me, I find it reason #574 to chase down John McEntire with a hammer. What in particular grabs your attention about it?

Interesting question! I should make two points by way of background: first, that it was, believe it or not, the first Stereolab album I ever heard -- so, unlike (I suspect) many Stereolab fans, I didn't feel troubled by any degree of departure from previous albums. And second, that as a listener I place relatively little emphasis on lyrics, so that Stereolab's rather muddled Marxist rhetoric usually has little effect on me one way or the other -- although I like them more on this album than on any of the others.

What do I like about it? Well, one big factor for me is that it seems to integrate a great many different musical currents in a way that feels, to me at least, very natural and (ahem) "organic"; all too often, even in Stereolab's own stuff, combining these various elements feels pomo and ironic and smug, but not here. Also, the production is fantastic, and exactly the kind that appeals to me -- I can scarcely think of another album from the nineties whose sound I like so much.

Another main thing is that it's just so damn juicy, for want of a better word. There's so much good stuff going on all the time, and it feels like there are layers upon layers of it. Part of that is the recording quality, which makes everything sound rich and lovely and so damn good -- but it's definitely also the songwriting and production in general. For instance, the different accent patterns of the snare drum, organ, and guitar on "Diagonals" are absolutely beguiling to me -- they all land on different parts of the beat in a way almost reminiscent of a snippet of a Steve Reich piece, and yet it works so well! Or all the different parts on "Miss Modular" -- just for starters, how can that bassline alone not make you want to dance? And I'm not someone who dances easily, but I find it completely irresistible.

I also find that it has a lot of rhythmic and harmonic interest. They probably go to the 5/4 well one too many times, but the results still catch my ear as being both unstereotyped and totally natural. The harmonies on "Prisoner of Mars" or "Rainbo Conversation" make me wish I'd written them; jazz (to return to the subject heading!) has left me spoiled -- I find that conventional rock harmonic progressions often do little for me, or at least often don't excite me as much as the juicy harmonies in ("modern") jazz and classical music, because they're so damned predictable. But when "Prisoner of Mars" bobs back and forth from B minor, to E minor, to B-flat Lydian, to C-sharp minor, and so on, it imparts a feeling of tension and interest that I often don't get from endless I - IV - V. On the other hand, "Miss Modular" is extremely static harmonically -- but those harmonies are so well-chosen, and the melodies and countermelodies that move within them have such strong profile, that it works beautifully. (And don't get me wrong -- harmonic complexity/unpredictability is not a prerequisite for good music, as legions of blues recordings will attest [for starters]. But there are times that it really helps, and all too many bands feel like their harmonic monotony is a product not of choice, but of limited competence and lack of technique.)

I don't know...the whole album just floats, you know? On first hearing, I felt like I'd been trying to find this kind of music for a long time, much as I felt with Low or Morton Feldman when I first heard them; it felt incredibly right, and each new twist or turn was totally satisfying, and felt surprising yet completely inevitable. I wish I could quantify what makes it work so well for me -- and it's all the harder because Cobra and Phases shares so many of the same signifiers. But whereas Cobra and Phases repels me, and seems self-consciously hip and arch and ironic, Dots and Loops seems entirely unaffected -- and, well, just makes me happy. For me it's an album full of surprises, and of best-possible-choices. Occasionally it feels like it's more the product of machine than human, and it does flag a bit towards the end (except for the last track, "Contronatura", which is devastating), but for the most part I take a great deal of pleasure in it. And again, it helps that the production feels so warm and natural (to me, anyway), and doesn't have the in-your-face quality that would very likely destroy the smoothness upon which an album like this so completely depends. (It's odd, too, because a glance at the levels will show it's a heavily compressed album -- so whoever mastered it did one hell of a job.)

I wish I could find more music like it; I have a feeling there's some floaty French Farfisa-driven pop from the 1960s in which strong antecedents could be found, but I don't know what to look for, though I heard a snippet in some sixties movie -- "Joe", was it? -- that sounded promising. And a couple Pizzicato Five tracks have a similar thread, but usually P5 is much too cutesy and bouncy and trebly for my taste.

It was a Kenny G record. And I'm NOT joking. First *real* jazz was probably a Miles compilation that my parents had called "Classic Ballads", with Bye Bye Blackbird, Fall, etc. on it.

Brubeck and a whole host of NY No-Wave attempts. Lady Day later acted as moderator and told me what was what... She still does.

No, got into jazz through 'On the Corner'.

And I like 'Dots & Loops'. ;)

'Technobush' bought the life-affirming Hugh Masekela album due to title - PUERILE, ME ?

Yes. But it was not really Jazz. Keith Jarrett's Sun Bear Concerts were my introduction into the realm of improvisation. Brilliant stuff. 5 live concerts in Japan which Jarrett did in 1976. It is basically a mixture of what Jarrett remembers about classical romantical music (Chopin, Schumann, Satie etc.) and free jazz. Some parts are quite hard to digest but others are magical.

No, it was 'Spiritual Unity' by Albert Ayler that first did it for me - 'gosh, this jazz music can be just as wild and exciting andf passionate as rock music, hurrah".

I like Miles- the only reason i got into him first was that a lot of his records are in my local library collection. As is Coltrane's 'A love Supreme'. For me though, it could have been the end hadn't I heard of Free jazz- so I got hold of some Cecil Taylor. So now I'm exploring a bit more.

Astrud Gilberto

Mingus - Ah Um

yes. i still haven't got into miles davis.

I’d love to say it was Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry or Charlie Parker but have to admit that I first got interested in Jazz through Lord Weller of Woking’ s experiments with the Style Council. Didn’t follow it up for a couple years then got a box of LP’s at an auction and one of them was by Chick Webb and his Band which blew me away. Up until then I’d always thought of Jazz as (warning; Fast show quote coming up) “Hmm. Nice”. Then I realised that it could be every bit as intense (if not more so), furious and funky as Rock/Pop/Soul music.

"On TH e corner" album cover is often subject to my freinds and me 's taunts amd mockery. When will you all realise Dots and Loops is among the best albums ever! (settle down Mike, its your opinion! They have theirs!) From begining to end, its pure heaven. I never understood why so many Lab fans don't like it. I guess they were drawn to Lab for the krautrcok in the first place

'On the Corner' cover = best ever.

check out Stereolab: C&D for Labheads' constant ping pong on 'Dots & Loops'.

Ping Pong is on Mars Audiac Quintet

the last spiritualized album got me into free jazz.

erm...I know...let's say the zee game of pieng ponk is a nice metaphor for the rather mixed stance the Stereolab fan-base has in regards of 'Dots & Loops' knowwotimsayin'?

i dig dots and loops, i find stereolab rather dull before 'mars audiac quintet', mostly. but 'cobra and phases' i find warm and melodic whilst retaining the scientific leanings of dots and loops. 'sound dust' is approaching even more conventional pop, but with such bizarre melodic twists. non 3am translation of: "After takign a moment, i'm not so sure of this. COmmodification is essential to keeping a music alive. ponder a choice between wynton marsalis or whoever the acousto-dullard is, and stereolab's 'cobra and phases'. or even the fast show - some wonderful ideas! where the reverential revisions of music, retaining all the signifiers of the form and the lyfestyle lead to being a member of ocen colour scene, or mos def/spooks righteous. "

okay. leaving a music as it is is boring as it was the freshness and experiment that made the music god in the first place. experiment and be radical re-readings of dated forms such as jazz. the fast show is a sketch show called Brilliant when transmitted in the states, i believe, which features a sketch called Jazz Club. where you get covers of John Cage's 4 1/2 minutes, some guy who sucks trumpet instead of blowing, and a Jay Kay who says stuff like "my father was a mexo-puera-rican-chinese jew. my mother was and is thw wind. mother. mother!" occasionally it happened across ideas i thought could be translatedinto genuinely wonderful music. plus i raked on mos def and spooks, odious retro-hop, arrogant righteous.

Neat response, Phil, actually the best appreciation of the record I've read. I found that I really enjoyed the songs from Dots and Loops live, based on the tour date I saw (and what a line-up! High Llamas opening with string section, Mouse on Mars in two-person days and then Stereolab with MoM on an encore of "Stomach Worm"), so I don't have any particular problem with the material in and of itself. I do think, though, that the McEntire-produced tracks sound absolutely dead on disc. I was marginally more interested by the other songs, but again, I think I'd prefer a clean live recording of Dots and Loops over the album as it stands. There are some radio sessions out there which I really should track down...

Just kidding Omar. I couldn't resist. DO you guys think of Stereolab as Jazz? I think of them as pop.

You fat bastard! ;) Stereolab: think of them as a techno band really (serious).

Blame S Reynolds. He invoked "Astral Weeks", "Solid Air" and "In A Silent Way" in some appreciation of Talk Talk's "Spirit Of Eden", so I bought/taped all three. Only the last intrigued me enough to dig deeper.

Now I need a bigger shovel.

i'm still not really into jazz, but the record that has got me closest to it it Shamek Farrah's First Impresssions.

Just like Jonathan - through John Coltrane's A Love Supreme

I love the green Leprechaun/black man on the On the Corner cover

http://www.towerrecords.com/product.asp?pfid=1002827

Miles was not the first... Louis Armstrong for me... the 50s stuff with Ella was the first things that I picked up... once I got a few vocals albums, I got Miles, and still love his stuff... but I find the trumpet work from Clifford Brown to be much more stunning... but I must say that through Miles is where I go to try other jazz artists... and lately, the singing of Chet Baker...

Stereolab... nice digression... but Transient and Mars are the albums for me... I side with Ned at the sterility of D&L on record, coming from the other albums before it.

I got into jazz through my Dad's old battered records, and he was never into Miles... so for me it was West Coast stuff: Art Pepper, Wardell Gray, Dexter Gordon, Barney Kessel, Chet Baker... and then some Dave Brubeck. I guess I'm provinicial...

I guess after A LOVE SUPREME things *can* only look up, hey foax?

Is your new life mission to make me cry, Mark?

There was some terrible movie on Bravo called "Stormy Monday" with Sting and Melanie Griffith that I saw and at the end it had some eastern european avant-jazz band that really sounded cool to me at the time (though I have no idea what I would think if I heard it now). Then I saw some footage of Cecil Taylor on some Bravo documentary that just blew me away. Then I relistened to my Ornette/Pat Metheny record which I always had, but never really listened to, and it started making sense. Then I met this art student in a Dostevsky class who said he liked free jazz and I asked him if he had heard of Cecil Taylor and he showed me a bunch of records -- Anthony Braxton, Erik Satie, Masonna, Albert Ayler, Fushitsusha are what I remember. That's basically how I got into jazz. I wish I could say it was through "Take 5" or something but it really wasn't. This must have been in 1996 or so.

My dad is a huge jazz afficianado. Never owned any cds for my own listening until i found out about John Coltrane.

Dudu pakwana - in the townships

Andy Shepherd

That's what my mum listened to when I was little so I geuss that's my entry point. also got taken to see Stan tracey at a fairly young age, hugh masakela features in there somewhere aswell. Still love them even now.

I like miles and coltrane but Mingus will probably always be my favorite. Mingus I think brought me back into jazz after a hiatus.

I wonder how many people were intoduced to Jazz by David Sanborn

Ned -- thanks! I've heard a couple Dots and Loops tracks off an Australian radio broadcast. They're appealingly ragged -- sometimes too much so: Laetitia sounds pretty terrible on both of them. (Maybe she was hoarse.) But they're basically enjoyable.

Slim Gaillard and Louis Jordan, for me. Now, some folks might say "they ain't jazz", probably cause they sound like they're having too much fun, but those folks would be wrong.

I got a Stereolab bootleg live performance and they play allot of tracks off Dots and Loops which you would probably like more if you thought the studio album was too staid. Search: Stereolab bootlegs By theway, at a Stereolab fan page Dots and Loops was rated second most popular Lab album by fans. SO I was wrong!