I'm not entirely sure how I came to find a love for jazz, but I know it started around junior high. The first three videos are of songs that were on the "Malcolm X" soundtrack, a soundtrack I'd originally bought for the Arrested Development songs, but fell in love with completely. When I was younger, I'd play the hell out of a cassette tape until the thing broke and this one in particular was no exception.
As I got older and started dating my first girlfriend in high school, she turned me on to more and more jazz during our relationship. We'd go to jazz band events at her school and maybe a couple at my school...but what I remember most vividly are the weekend afternoon naps with her while Ella Fitzgerald lullabied us into a strange half-sleeping/half-waking place of comfortable. Every once in a very rare occasion, I will smell someone wearing the same body oil that she did and I'm instantly transported back to her room.
John Coltrane - "Alabama"
Ella Fitzgerald - "Azure"
Duke Ellington - "Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Dance)"
I think jazz reminds me of a better me, a more pure (certainly less naive) version of the me that exists now. Or maybe that's just the magic of the music; so much of the old-timey style, when simply listened to, can make a person sway back and forth as if they were actually in the old ballrooms filled with soldiers and debutantes. Maybe it's the idea of crowded smokey bar rooms and whiskeys poured all night long, a four-piece up on stage killing it for the last 2 hours and showing no signs of stopping. Whatever the feeling is, I often find myself having a day of listening to nothing but jazz. It's calming, it's evocative, and it helps me reminisce about some of the earlier parts of my life where things were less complicated and I was infinitely more ignorant.
Miles Davis - "Pee Wee"
Lionel Hampton - "Stardust"
Charlie Parker - "All The Things That You Are"
(1,866)
No comments:
Post a Comment