20 albums in 20 days A Kind of Blue Miles Davis

I've been nominated to post 20 album covers in 20 days to Facebook. But I've been a little distracted lately. So I've failed the deadline. It seemed a suitable distraction. The 20 album covers represent music that has had a significant impact on my life. No explanations or commentary is expected on Facebook. However, on this blog, I can make a few comments about these albums.

I don't have much to write about my encounter with this album. But if you pass the cursor over most of the names that are mentioned you can see they are links to performances on YouTube.

I'd heard about jazz and there was something about it - the concept - that fascinated me. But no one I knew in those years was listening to Jazz. So it meant very little to me. I didn't know where to begin. My dad loved the voice of Ella Fitzgerald - that's Joe Paz playing the guitar backing Ella - and Nat King Cole. He also liked musicals like Showboat and Oklahoma. He liked Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra. But this was his music. I liked it but it wasn't mine. 

I saw Stan Tracey in concert back in 1977. Hearing his adaptation of Under Milk Wood was a by-product of my mother's love of the play for voices. So that doesn't really count. Does it? I heard Jazz on the radio but never felt at all connected to it. This went on for years. I remember hearing and then buying an Oscar Peterson LP. That's Ray Brown playing bass on the YouTube link. And of course Louis Armstrong.

I remember walking into a record shop - possibly Discoveries in Harrow - and asked the guy over the counter for a jazz record. Another customer came over and suggested I listen to Joe Sample. Wow! I really enjoyed the 2 albums I bought of his. One of them called Carmel I think. Or did that customer recommend the L. A. 4. I'm a bit confused. But I've fallen completely in love with this unbelievable adaptation of the slow movement of Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto - the piece linked here is probably one of my Desert Island Discs. Oh, and that's Ray Brown playing bass.

But I was still an outsider.

In 1978 I was studying A-Levels at a Further Education college in North West London. A friend got me listening to Weather Report. A jazz fusion group. Oh my goodness. This group were amazing. I saw them live in Hammersmith. It must have been in the early 1980s. There on stage before me was Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter and I think, Jaco Pastorius.

Then in the mid-80s, a friend suggested we go to a jazz festival. I think it was a one day festival in Knebworth Park. Capital Radio sponsored it. They brought together big names from the States and the UK, as well as up and coming bands. We may have gone to the festival over a couple of years.

Here's a list of the musicians I remember seeing there:
Chuck Berry
Dave Brubeck
Benny Goodman
Dizzy Gillespie 
Spiro Gyra
Wynton Marsalis
Muddy Walters

But still, I wasn't really following any jazz.

Years later, someone must have mentioned A Kind of Blue and its significance and influence on modern jazz. So I bought it, played it and loved it. I still do. 

Click here for my favourite track from the album. This piece is one of my Desert Island Discs.