Everything is Connected

So after my post on Gateway, I thought about the impact of albums and artists in my life.



The First album that comes to mind is the album above. The Shape of Jazz To Come is not only the first one that came to my mind, but the one I tell people is the first Jazz album I loved. I was a naive student at Manchester Community College, and I was taking a Jazz class. We were studying the Ragtime, and the Big Band and basically Jazz before 1950. I remember talking to a teacher about this and telling the teacher that I am listening to my uncles stuff. I want to know more. Within the week telling him that, the teacher had a cassette for me. He asked me to see him after class. He handed me a tape. It was a ninety minute cassette. One side was Ornette the other side was Eric Dolphy. The Eric Dolphy album was Out To Lunch.

The Out to Lunch by Eric Dolphy I will save for another day. That album is still in my top 10 of great Jazz albums. Side A of this cassette was The Shape of Jazz to Come. I was so thrown by how great it was, but how it was like I never heard before.



Not soon after that NPR Jazz show focused on Ornette and his music. Now I was even more impressed. So impressed that I had to pull over the car I was driving to hear this stuff. I went to my local record store and found very little. A few albums, but not the stuff I heard. Once again a tribute to my friend who worked the book store said to me that in the fall there is a box set of his stuff coming out. It will be selling for $75.00. I cannot afford that I said to myself. He made me a deal. I will get it at cost for $45.00 I give him the money. I gave him the money and he bought it for me. I still have the box set and every once in a while I will pull it out and listen with good headphones and transport myself to the late 50's and early 60's to watch him do this stuff live. His music was like you never heard before. Ornette is a man who is not only bold, but a forerunner of some of the most important Jazz. I continue today to listen with great ears and really understand what is like to be different, bold and most of all someone who can make it all make sense. When I hear Jazz I think of Ornette Coleman. He may get a little rise of the eyebrow or a jazz purest would say he is not jazz he is noise, but that noise is my music. Enjoy the music below and I hope you wear out your copy as much as I have.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6FXQVB9X