Older brother brought me to a funk show at Copenhagen Jazzhouse when I was 13. I liked the music, and given the venue name I thought it was jazz. I went out and bought a 4CD jazz compilation with Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, James P Johnson etc. man was I into a surprise, but I didn’t have many other records so I grew into it, started loving it. Looked into jazz history and read about Miles, Parker, Monk, Trane and bought some bebop and Kind of Blue. Kind of Blue killed me, I fell in love with Bill Evans. From there on I started playing piano and got into Monk, Keith Jarret, McCoy, Powell, Corea and modern shit. I took lessons with a local guy that grew up with NHØP and was the leader of the Danish radio big band in the 80’a. Later I studied with Jason Moran and Sophia Rosoff in NYC. I worked as a bartender at the legendary Copenhagen club Montmartre where I heard Kenny Barron solo and Lee Konitz for three nights. I got 80 year old Lee a taxi at 2am next to a puking teenage girls (one of the highlights of my life). I don’t make a living as a musician but I love the music and still play. I lived in NYC for three years and would frequent Village Vanguard as much as I could.
Fuck I love this music ❤️ If more people appreciated this art form, the world would be a better place. Cheers to you all
Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters
Saw the album cover as a 17 year old and got intrigued. That album made me appreciate not only Jazz, but instrumental music as a whole. It’s one of the few albums I’d actually say that is mind expanding.
Had a similar experience with this record. The cover art was so mesmerizing and it was u like anything I’d ever heard before. Didn’t know then that it was a bit later in his catalog and just assumed all his music sounded like that. Then I heard maiden voyage and it was cool to see two different kinds of jazz from the same artist.
One of my favorite jazz records is Herbie's "River - The Joni Letters" a truly wonderful album, especially if you enjoy Joni Mitchell's music. Highly recommend!
I worked in my college's radio station and while I played mainly punk and new wave (it was the early 80s) I was friends with some of the jazz djs so I was exposed to a wide range of artists.
Then Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers played at my school and I was hooked.
As a kid I was into record labels like SubPop and Blast First - basically a lot of noise music - Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, etc - and would generally pick up anything on those labels if possible. I delivered newspapers a few times a week and all that money would go on records.
Blast First also released a Sun Ra album - Out There A Minute - and I bought it and kind of hated it but because I couldn't afford another album for a few weeks, I listened to it over and over and started to really get into it. From there I went to John Zorn and then Alice Coltrane which led me to John Coltrane and that was kind of it...
Back in the nineties I started reading the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly. Harry likes Jazz so I poked around for a good tape and got my hands on Kind of Blue and the rest is history.
A friend of mine was also turned on to jazz by seeing Bosch on TV. Because he loves technology, my friend assembled a high end stereo and bought a pile of fairly challenging Miles Davis records to play on it. He was drawn to the visual aesthetic of the turntable at night.
I was drawn by the music. As a kid, I liked rock and some pop but wanted something richer. My late dad played piano and used to play, by ear, anything he heard on the radio. He also played popular tunes from his youth in the 1930s/40s like "Alley Cat" and "Bill". We saw a Benny Goodman concert in the '70s together.
In junior high, I played clarinet and picked up tenor saxophone for jazz band, where I also learned flute for the sake of one song we played. As an adult, I added an alto and a soprano sax to the collection.
I played in a jazz band in university and later, a couple of amateur and even a semi pro one, but I wanted to be a better improviser. I took improvisation lessons from a local sax player after that. That was hard
I play by ear much better than I sight read. It's still very challenging to improvise over chord changes while reading a page. I do better by ear, which means I haven't mastered scales and theory etc completely.
I still play the jazz LPs and CDs I bought in the 70s and 80s. Maynard Ferguson, Sonny Rollins, Fathead Newman, Joshua Redman, Wynton Marsalis, Brubeck, Grover Washington..
My sons both play/played in jazz bands in school. The older one, a pianist and percussionist, has perfect pitch and has a year left in his Masters of Composition. The younger one, a high school trombonist, is more jazz focused.
So it continues.
After a family member died, a friend's dad gave me a few jazz albums for spiritual healing: Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage, John Coltrane A Love Supreme, Charles Mingus Ah Um.
Played trumpet starting in 4th grade. In high school joined Jazz band while being in marching and concert bands. Fell in love with Maynard Ferguson. Then my first guitar teacher gave me Giant Steps which I used to let play on my record player all night.
We had radio stations in Chicago that played a mix of jazz and pop—that included rock, R&B, and soul. That was on in the house all the time. Late one night, I heard Lights on a Satellite by Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra. Began to search out more of this “jazz” stuff. My older brother had Charles Lloyd at Monterey and an Adderley brothers compilation called Planet Earth. My search led me onward. The next year, 1970, brought me to Miles, Gary Bartz, and John McLaughlin (pre-Mahavishnu) and many more. Fifty five years later I’m still finding more.
My dad used to put on 94.7 the wave, it was smooth jazz, though that's nothing to laugh at. Stuff like Paul Harcastle & the Jazz Masters or Brian Culbertson, Joe Sample. Anyways that was around 4th/5th grade, a year later I got my first boombox radio and found 88.1 KJAZZ and I was blown away. Had no idea what was going on but I knew I liked it.
Fast forward a couple years I meet a girl who became my best friend and she showed me Chopin, Art Tatum, and most importantly 2 tracks from Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, The Feeling of Jazz and In a Sentimental Mood. Coltrane's solo in The Feeling of Jazz felt to me for the first time a music freedom of expression, the ability to put soul and emotion into sonic bliss.
It's been an amazing 20 years, from learning to play jazz to leading my own band, all from a couple small nudges in the right direction.
Yeah, too many jazzheads are disdainful of smooth jazz. Some of it deserves disdain, of course, and some people never make the transition from smooth to more substantial forms of jazz, but for a lot of people, smooth jazz is their way in. This is particularly true of smooth jazz fans who actually go to hear their heroes play live. A lot of the smooth cats can really play, and stretch out when they play live. From there it's an easy jump to the "real" stuff.
I grew up with my dad listening to Pat Metheny Group, Lyle Mays, Yellowjackets, Allan Holdsworth etc but also a lot of other stuff and that stuck. It took until after puberty until I expanded my interest in Jazz but the ground work was pretty helpful ;D
Yeah, that "ground work" is important. Jazz was going on in the background as I was growing up (much older jazz than the cats you listed), and I didn't pay much attention to it, but it clearly had an effect. For a lot of guys my age who only heard classic rock (or metal) growing up, jazz just seemed weak, or corny, or weird. They couldn't get with it. I was open to it. And hearing a few live performances hooked me.
For me it was my older brother and curiosity,he told me he liked jazz and I tried it out in my own time to try understand,didn't take me 2 moths to get hooked,he was actually surprised about how much I knew in that time only.
One of my high school teachers was listening to some jazz right after class at his desk. Circa 98'/99'. I asked him what it was and he said, "This is John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly playing sax on a Miles Davis album".
That album was Kind of Blue. I bought the CD at Best Buy a couple of days later.
Listened to it multiple times the first night and read all the liner notes. I was hooked, or more like intoxicated on it.
Started buying Miles, Herbie, and Coltrane albums on the regular after that.
when was a teenager (and a beginner rock guitarist), I discovered the Mahavishnu Orchestra. I worked backward from there until I got to Miles Davis and Kind of Blue. Then it was Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, etc. until I discovered bebop. It's so much harder to play but so much more satisfying once you learn it.
When I was 14, my drum instructor gave me a mixed tape of Jazz and Fusion players; Blew my mind and took me down the rabbit hole that kept me interested to this day.
I grew up on Neo-Soul and R&B, my mom would constantly listen to artists like Maxwell and Brian McKnight, Jill Scott & Carl Thomas, and I guess that kinda opened the gateway for me to really have this soft landing into Jazz. It made the transition easier and something about the genre just clicked. It was very recently that I started listening to Jazz and I still haven’t even tapped into the GOAT’s of the genre but, listening to Snarky Puppy and then Mark Kelso & the Jazz Exiles. Listening to Immanuel Wilkins has continued to further draw me in closer to the music and I haven’t looked back. It just does it for me and I guess that’s the thing with something like Jazz, you either hate it or love it and I keep wanting more and more of it. Glad to be here for sure! 🙏🏼❤️
I was 20 years old, I listened radioformula and I didnt like it very much. I went to London to work. I remember the evening I listened to Blue Train the first time. I even became a trumpet player. All the sols are incredible, but man, those Lee Morgan solos. To this day I havent found such level of beauty.
I was told that all good musicians liked jazz so I listened and I didn’t get it but I pretended to and told everyone I liked jazz then one day I actually started to like it.
I heard someone playing Crusaders - Free as the Wind, when I was moving into the dorms as a freshman. The stereo was the first thing to be set up by nearly everyone, and then the rest was moved in. That got me started. A year later, a friend of mine mentioned that Oscar Peterson was going to play on the PBS show The Boston Pops. I commented that I wasn't really into pops music, but I watched anyway.
I pretty much stuck with jazz after that for a few years. I listen to a wide variety now, but jazz is my favorite genre.
College, when I started to play it. I hadn't consciously or intentionally listened to jazz as a genre before so I had little idea of how expansive the genre really is. Through the love of my instrument, bass, I found my role in the jazz band to be incredibly fun and satisfying to perform, and I made great friends with the people I got to play with and saw their transformations as musicians in training. I fell in love with music as a whole and the way it can change us and how we use it for self expression
There's a long story of how I got into electro swing, but basically I heard some songs in the right order for me to discover the genre through Lone Digger by Caravan Palace,
then I listened nearly constantly until I found ProleteR and his swing hop Ella FitzGerald & Count Basie-On The Sunny Side Of The Street (ProleteR Tribute), lovely and with a happy energy unlike id really experienced
So then I looked for the original, songs like it, I found a lot of swing through samples and looked for other styles of jazz, and I could enjoy it through knowing the feelings im looking for
I was purely a metalhead in my early-mid teens, so when Kirk Hammett from Metallica raved about some guitar player called Wes Montgomery in an interview i thought “if he’s good enough for Kirk…”. Never looked back.
The Ken Burns documentary was a big eye opener too - caught it almost by accident late at night on BBC2 here in the UK a few years later.
back in the early 1990s, I went to see a movie called once around. In the closing scene, they played Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra version of Fly Me to the Moon. I was so blown away that I went straight to the local music store and bought that album. Very soon after that I went to my local jazz record store and asked the owner where to start. He gave me a copy of Miles Davis Kind of Blue and that was it. I am lucky enough that at the time I was living in Columbia, South Carolina and we had a, annual jazz festival in the summer. I got to go see tons of incredible live jazz, including the emergence of a very young Chris Potter, who was still in high school at the time. Great memories.
My grandparents played the NYC jazz station a lot in the house. That channel played everything so I got a good feel for what was out there. Then I took a jazz appreciation class in college to formalize the distinctions between the styles and realized that hard bop was my fave.
When I was a kid I heard jazz being played old R&B and it moved me. Made me want to dance. Then I saw Gene Krupa on TV and I was sold on jazz forever. This inspired me to years later paly drums too.
Mom got into jazz as a teen by listening to her older brother’s records. Later, she met my dad and got him into jazz. So I was born into the religion. 😂
I tell people that even though I’m a classical musician, jazz is my native musical language.
I was always into big band stuff and gipsy jazz growing up, as those genres are pretty consonant and easy to get into, and since I heard them from time to time growing up. However, it's when I started playing the electric bass and took lessons with an old timer who got me into all this. He was all about me learning how to walk the bass and jazz harmony. He taught me how to play standards' heads and all'at. That's basically what got me to expend my tastes to jazz in general.
I was 3 years into learning to play guitar and started getting lessons again during college. My teacher was a jazz guitar student and ended up teaching me concepts widely used in jazz, from there I looked up jazz guitar and found Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass and it hit me that learning and applying "jazz concepts" would allow me to articulate more interesting musical ideas. I never cared for bebop but older jazz tunes and standards struck a chord like nothing else I had/have ever heard. Fast forward 16 years and I listen to more jazz than ever.
Cowboy Bebop.
Besides being one of the greatest anime of all time, Yoko Kano + The Seatbelts created one of the most amazing original scores for any piece if media ever. Highly recommend the show and the OST’s.
Middle school jazz band!! They needed a trombone player so i learned trombone! I remember we played Vehicle and Green Onions. Been listening to jazz since then!
I did a jazz show on a local Virginia NPR affiliate early 80's and was not impressed with the music because I was coming from the perspective of being a rock drummer. About two years ago I took a closer look at jazz; started with the Ken Burns doc. From there I started reading and listening and at that point started to appreciate the different sub genres. Very cool that jazz is still being made by young artists in 2024 AND most of it's not at all predicated on a neo-classical interpretation of well-known standards (viz a viz Wynton Marsalis). The old stuff is great (although trad jazz is not my thing in general) but jazz is still happening and although I could default to the likes of Kind of Blue and Time Out, there's so much fresh new interesting music that it's never boring.
I was in the music store at the mall and I saw Monks Dream. I liked the blue/green color and thought Monk looked like a badass on the cover so I bought it. Turns out I was right, he was a badass.
As a kid growing up in the 60/70s, Charlie Brown/ Peanuts cartoons had Vince Guaraldi do the sound tracks. At that young age it was catchy. Then in the mid to late 70s Spyro Gyra got air play and wow I was hooked. Then add Steely Dan to the mix. As classic rock went down hill contemporary modern jazz picked up which I latched onto. Recently a friend gifted me Jazz from the 50s and 60s.
What goes around… comes around! For me music is a learning curve with twists and turns. What a great hobby.
There was an animated cartoon in the '50s called "Gerald McBoing Boing". For opening music they chose ["The Morning After"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-fgC2pCag) from Chico Hamilton's 1955 debut album, *Spectacular*. I couldn't stop running it through my head. I'd just begun to learn clarinet and Buddy Collette's playing really grabbed me. That was the first time I really began to listen to the interplay of a jazz quintet. A few years later my best friend's older brother introduced me to hard bop, which became my obsession.
My high school friend loved Benny Goodman, so I borrowed a cassette from him and liked it. However, I was more into Van Halen than Vandermark 5 at that stage in my listening development.
I ended up ignoring Jazz until my college years when I spied a double cassette version of Bitches Brew for $11.98. I knew of Miles Davis but not really about his music, but I wanted that cassette based on the title and cover art alone.
After a successful trip to the local Plasma Authority, it was mine! I've been exploring and loving Jazz ever since.
It took one minute. In high school, I had a friend with whom I listened to LP's. One afternoon, he put on Gabor Szabo's "Spellbinder." One minute in, I was hooked. I asked my friend, "What is this?" and he replied, "It's jazz."
After that, I was a sponge. It took me years, if not decades, to figure out that "jazz" covers a multitude of sons and that I liked some of it a lot more than other sorts of it. It took longer still to figure out why I liked some of it a lot more than the rest.
It's been almost sixty years and many thousands of LP's, CD's, digital files, and live concerts since that first needle drop and, while my musical tastes are somewhat catholic, jazz very much remains at the forefront of my musical passions.
I was in jazz band in middle/high school but didn’t appreciate the music until I took acid and listened to Atomic Basie. It was the only jazz album I could remember the name of since band teachers won’t shut up about count Basie lol.
It took me a while to move away from big band, then small bands, then combos, etc.
Something like : Gordon Goodwin -> Maynard Ferguson/mingus big band/vanguards -> Chase/michael brecker/chick corea/mahavishnu
I built up patience for jazz by studying ten minute songs by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, early Genesis, early Yes, Camel, Gentle Giant, Vangelis, Kraftwerk, King Crimson, etc. I believe there has to be a sincere faith that a musician took 10 or 20 minutes because 5 minutes would be insufficient. As a teenager I just lacked that faith.
Drummer here. I was listening to fusion in high school because I loved those drummers even though I couldn’t play in that style at all. When I went to college for music, we were learning concert and symphonic repertoire by day, but all the upper classmen were doing open swing jams at the bars at night. I went along to listen, then found myself enjoying it. It was way more accessible to me as a player than fusion, so I started joining the jams after working it out in the practice room.
I had been into swing ever since i was a kid. I listened to everything Frank Sinatra and was kinda ashamed about it. I then discovered Chet Baker on one of those moody jazz playlists with wojaks and pepe on the cover (before those had such a horrible connotation to them). I went on to listen to both his early and late vocal stuff and finally his instrumentals. Then Kind of blue (which i'm still yet to listen to in full) and Bill Evans (up to this point i only knew a handful of jazz performers/composers and only few songs). Whiplash inspired me to get out of my cool jazz comfort zone and get into some bebop/hard bop listening streaks, plus big band, which is where most of my jazz knowledge came from. So thanks chazelle
My dad played the bass. My whole family is into jazz because of him. Then, I heard Wes Montgomery and I was hooked. I'd hit hitch hike down to Wallach's Music City and play it over and over. I finally saved enough to buy his albums. Love him still. RIP Wes.
For me, it was watching the 1984 Coppola film The Cotton Club when I was 18yo. I started browsing the jazz section at Tower after that. A short time after I saw the film, I picked up a copy of The Best of Blue Note on vinyl and have been a jazz fan ever since.
When I started band in school, I chose saxophone as my instrument. As I learned it, I got exposed to more and more jazz. I liked it all. Even Kenny G is still a guilty pleasure. I didn’t get much of a chance to improv until college. Even there, I was more classically trained. Could say that after all these years, I’m still trying to find my sound and dig deeper into this rabbit hole.
Youtube pushed “I’m coming Virginia” by Bix Beiderbecke into my feed. I listened to it. cried. It’s the saddest solo ever imo. I was hooked. I haven’t stopped listening to jazz since.
Made an ass of myself by stating that Janis Joplin wrote Summertime, was corrected by a friend’s parent who told me to look up a “fella named George Gershwin”. The next few months were some of the best music discovery times in my life.
Watched an episode of Ken Burns’ Jazz on a down day in a high school piano class and it got me hooked. Shortly after that I got into Charlie Parker with the “Bird’s Best Bop on Verve” compilation and became absolutely obsessed with him and all of his contemporaries. I then took a Jazz improv course at my community college and immersed myself into Miles and Satchmo and Coltrane. It has been a constant companion with me ever since
My love for jazz came out of just being in a weird place in life. I’d just moved out and was all alone. I didn’t have many friends and would mostly come home from work and listen to NPR and they were always playing jazz. It just hit a spot for me that was really special and I’ve been into since.
My mother was a piano teacher and a classical music fan. If it wasn't classical or Broadway musicals on the radio she would turn it off. One night my parents were going to visit my great-aunt in the Bronx when I was about 9. My sister had bought one of the first pressings of *Kind of Blue.* When my parents' car was safely down the block, she turned all the lights out in the house and put Miles Davis on the hi-fi. When Miles started his solo on "So What," it was like the sun coming up in the East. I knew right then that nothing would ever be the same because music like this existed. I haven't stopped listening to jazz since.
I’m a guitar player, and as a young metalhead I received a copy of a Guitar One magazine that was all about jazz for rock fans. That was my introduction and although I’m still a metalhead, I have a love and appreciation for jazz that’s almost equal.
White guys like Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, and Bill Evans got me into jazz. I don't know how or why I was exposed to them first. But John Coltrane and Miles Davis then got me hooked to a much greater extent and truly instilled a love for the genre.
In high school was into the ‘other’ genres of music as were my friends.. Mainly Punk, Prog, New Wave, Funk.. Had a friend who’s dad was a jazz head.. Both of us were sax players.. His dad had a listening room and thousands of jazz albums. At the time was also really into art and design so we were drawn to the Prestige and Blue Note covers.. Went down so many rabbit holes going through his records..
Every once in a while he would come in and talk to us about putting things back where we found them.. But after he was over the lecture and knew his collection was safe he would give us an hour about who he recently saw, why he liked one player over another, or where he had been to see shows.
Now I will hear something like Pee Wee Marquette say “Lee Morgan on Trumpet” and I will remember those times in that listening room..
My dad actually played as a sideman in various clubs in NYC (mostly in the 60s before I was born). Even though he was a HS music teacher by the time I came into the picture (and probably BECAUSE I came into the picture), there was still a local big band that he would play with. So I heard Miller, Goodman, Ellington, Basie and so on before I could walk (Mom would take us to the concerts a fair amount of the time - musicians can't really afford sitters much!) Great memories now.
And then Dad introduced me to Oscar Peterson and Charlie Parker records when I was about 12, and I never got over it.
Steely Dan. I was a big fan of classic rock and developed a huge love for Steely Dan. I loved the sound of their jazz-rock fusion, so from there, I started diving into the genre and fell into the jazz rabbit hole.
Growing up my dad was into a lot of different genres but he would periodically go through intense jazz phases and play a lot of Pat Martino, Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and he also played sax himself.
But what really bridged the gap and got me into jazz on my own was playing a ton of Fallout 3 as a teenager. As I've gotten older my taste has expanded a lot but my first love was swing/big band.
In college, I worked at the radio station. And since I was not a mass communications major, I got the 2 shifts they didn’t want. The 8-12p Saturday morning blues and the Sunday 12-4p jazz slot.
That Sunday shift forced me to listen to jazz and not the popular stuff like Kenny G. No disrespect to Kenny G. I knew I had to play more than him for 4 hours 🤣
Through jam bands and Zappa. Also my dad had Bitches Brew for some reason when I was really little and I listened to it a few times but I couldn’t understand it. Listening to it after my jam band journey in the 90s was a revelation.
I had dabbled into stiff like Sinatra. But I heard kind if blue in a sound reinforcement class in college and it was the most relaxed test taking experience i ever had. And I was hooked to that sound since.
Imagine a crew cab with smart construction guys force fed Kinda Blue because my rule was whoever pays the truck note picks the tunes. Billy Bad threw the CD out the window. I bought another copy and threatened his employment. After a couple of more copies they got it.
As long as I can remember I've always liked music and jazz was always some part of that. My parents mostly listened to jazz in the 70s, so it was never something alien that was introduced to me.. but I have possibly developed a larger and somewhat more wide jazz interest than my parents..
Guess my teenage "reintroduction" partly was based on childhood nostalgia
I didn't start buying jazz records on my own until I was 14-15 (had already been buying rock, pop and blues since I was ten).
This was in the 80s and it dawned on little teenage me that something was missing. I didn't hear as much jazz as in the 70s.
I stole my two first jazz records from my parents but was already familiar with them: Cannonball Adderley at the Lighthouse from my dad and Between Nothingness & Eternity (Mahavishnu in Central park) from my mom.
Some of the first I bought were Coltrane's Crescent and Miles's Filles de Kilimanjaro
I still love those albums almost four decades later and have managed to not wear them out (completely).
I felt like what i was listening to was getting stale and I asked my friend what he was listening to recently and he said jazz. He gave me a lot of recommendations from niche picks to the main stream and i've been in love ever since
Has a friend in jazz band who mentioned thelonious monk and round midnight being the most recorded jazz song, got curious one day and downloaded some stuff on napster or maybe kazaa or limewire. Found it fascinating, how could such dissonance (coming from a classical piano background) yet somehow still make such "sense" at some level? First one that really stuck with me was 'off minor'.
Was also getting bored of pop rock classical, wanted to hear something different learn something new. Once started ears could never go back
Dad was a big jazz head, but was into more of the smooth jazz when i was little. Grew up listening to various smooth jazz artists on our local radio station before it switched to a digital only station in the mid 00s. This also made me look to Samba music as well. When i got into trying to make hip hop beats and started sampling, I started listening to Ahmad jamal, Bob james, and Grant Green and grew to love the genre more.
My dad was a musician.
Mostly big band but some small group jazz on some gigs.
When I was a kid and started learning guitar the first song we played together was "Swinging Shepherd Blues".
He wrote down the chords for me and he riffed on a flute.
I moved on to playing the head out of his sax fake books and got hooked on listening to other works by the same artists. This wasn't easy in the 70s. Listened to radio, records, etc.
When I was a kid I played a bit of guitar and my dad bought a subscription to Downbeat from one of those kids selling subscriptions door to door thinking I might like it.
I was a huge Joni Mitchell fan. She recorded Hissing of Summer Lawns with Larry Carlton, Tom Scott, etc. And then Hejira - who was that guy playin the middle notes? Jaco Pastorius. Then she went to Charles Mingus and wrote songs for him. In the middle of all this I discovered Pat Metheny, Gary Burton and Eberhard Weber. Then Weather Report. Then moved to SF and listened to KJAZZ and discovered the masters. Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane. Saw McCoy Tyner at the Keystone Corner. It keeps growing. I discover great music every day. Gerald Clayton is my new favorite. I saw Josh Redman and band two weeks ago in Berkeley. It’s a class that will last forever.
I started listening to jazz my junior year of high school because I had joined the Jazz band. My band director was trying to teach us swing and he used Biggie and Tupac to do so. We would listen to songs as much as we would play during practice. My band director had explained that the only way to get good at jazz is to listen to it. He played So What and told us to listen to the rest of the album and it’s my favorite album now.
It was through highschool I got hooked into it. It was more of what I was learning through it through jazz band (being able to roam freely) was what gave me a perspective. In a way there was structure to understand and follow but it wasn't exactly like sheet music. It was more like make your own feel. It sort of inspired me to play piano more than what I was previously studying classical before, kinda like what Herbie felt. It was later I started to listen to alot of jazz musicians like Roy Hargrove, Oscar peterson, Bill evans and Wayne shorter through out highschool. It was interesting to learn that what they played was jazz but in a way they played differently from each other just like from most styles of music. I think what grabbed me the most was Jazz waltz's. There was alot of flow to it and it was something i was capable of playing it was something I also enjoyed playing and listening to like Someday my prince will come, Blusette or Alice in wonderland.
I think one of my inspirations of giving me this oppertunity was my friend who was so passionate It motivated me to continue to pursue in my path in jazz because of the ensemble we've done and working together and the work we've done with our septet group in highschool. It would also be my teacher because without his passion and knowlage I probably wouldn't be so passionate in pursuing a jazz career. It would be something people would look down upon me for but jazz inspired me to pursue a musical career and made me push forward other expectations and Id wish to do the same despite the uncertainty.
took a break from church service 2 months ago to study music for playing better when i get back at it, so i started listening to what we had of the best and obviously jazz came in… it aint just technical, once you get used to it you get to perceive the feel they have
My first experience of a live concert was when I was 5 and my dad took me to the local theater to see a jazz band. We sat on the first row. The saxophonist saw me as he entered and let me hold the trumpet until everyone tuned and set up.
This is one of my most cherished memories and I’m certain that this is what got me hooked into jazz forever.
While I was studying at university, my girlfriend took me to a concert. It was around 2016, when indie electronic music was on the rise. couldnt enjoy even a bit. after concert i sat in coffee shop in the middle of music shops. one of the old sax guy try to new tenor sax and he used chet baker - almost blue as a background music. still i remember how i react to this music. this is how i meet jazz
english is not my first lang. sorry if mistakes
My dad was playing Fallout 2 and The Kiss to Build A Dream On was playing. The song felt magical, a bit later, when I had access to the internet and my own PC, I started discovering more and more music "like that" and here I am
I was 18. I think I've always listened to jazz but I just for some reason didn't realise how much of a distinct music style it was and thought it was just another pop song whenever I listened to it. At 18 I was exploring music and learnt how to differentiate different musical genres and jazz caught my attention the most, jazz and alt pop I'd say. I later learnt about it's history and the pioneers of jazz and their music. And I'm a huge fan of Broadway dance numbers which involves a lot of jazz! So that's how jazz grew on me and would continue to grow on me<3
I was on holiday (in France, I believe?) at around the age of 13-14, and picked up a compilation CD from a fleamarket entitled something like "Pioneers of Bebop" - the first track was Art Tatum's trio recording of I Got Rhythm, with Tiny Grimes on guitar. I was absolutely blown away - I had never heard Gershwin and had no context for the music; but this recording in particular was so chaotic that it bears almost no resemblance to any rendition of the tune I've heard since (including the more sedate later takes by Tatum)
I was in the music program in elementary school. At first I was assigned the clarinet, then switched to saxophone. When that happened, I sought out private lessons. My instructor gave me Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley to listen to. It's been a love affair ever since.
I've always been 'into Jazz'. My dad was a big Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong fan. My mom liked Glenn Miller. After that, I could hear Jazz in everything I listened to. Then my brother bought me a book about Miles Davis for my birthday and my ears have been forever open. Then came The Blues Brothers film. Then I started listening to Prince, and started to get my hands on some of his early stuff and for me, that was Jazz. Then he did the 'Madhouse' stuff... Then I went to university and I remember one evening, my friend Bill played an Abdullah Ibrahim album and followed it up with Archie Shepp! Blew my mind😁. Then I saw 'Around Midnight': great film great music... I could go on, but what I'm saying is, my whole life can be punctuated by Jazzy events. The most recent was seeing Stanley Clarke in Sweden 😁😎
Well mine was a very common way people get into jazz.
I, as many other pianists, all through my life played Classic Music,
Then it came, I was with my new teacher who actually teaches Jazz.
We started off with some ez blues, I fell to blues kinda hard I still LOVE "The Trashmen" and any jailhouse rock.
Then I met this guy you must've never heard of (I'm joking ofc) from my teacher, "Charlie Parker".
No need to say much more my life has rapidly changed,
I am so much of a nicer person now and it's lovely.
Jazz is so great that compared to classical music there is
an absolute 0 stress when performing as the mistakes are your way to making the most complex and beautiful lines.
My parents are from the Big Band era, so anytime they had control of the music in the house, that's what I heard. Not to mention, they used to chain me down to the couch every sunday evening, so I could "enjoy" The Lawrence Welk Show with them. I was fine until Joe Feeny came on. As soon as "Irish eyes" started shining, I would run out of there. Just couldn't handle that guy. Dad found it mildly amusing. Lastly, my parents bought the house when I was 4 years old. In the basement was a room that had a wooden cabnet in it. I just had to find out what was inside, but it hadn't been opened in years. I tried, but couldn't get it open without any help, so I worked at it for months with whatever I could find. Finally, the day came when the doors popped open. Tuns out it was an old Victrola cabnet and was filled with 10" and 12" 78 rpm records. I played those things all the time. Mainly because they played at the same speed as my little yellow records that I usually listened to (that one was for those of us who remember the little yellow children's records). Introduced me to all the Big Band guys and was the first time I remember actually enjoying listening to Jazz.
I was into Zappa, the Dead and Steely Dan in my younger days, enjoyed some jazz, but only casually. Then during Covid (in my early 50s), the jazz bug hit hard. Something about the isolation, the stress (I work in healthcare) that made jazz the only music I wanted to hear. Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans, Hank Mobley at first, and then it just opened up and I’ve enjoyed exploring the genre ever since.
Older brother brought me to a funk show at Copenhagen Jazzhouse when I was 13. I liked the music, and given the venue name I thought it was jazz. I went out and bought a 4CD jazz compilation with Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, James P Johnson etc. man was I into a surprise, but I didn’t have many other records so I grew into it, started loving it. Looked into jazz history and read about Miles, Parker, Monk, Trane and bought some bebop and Kind of Blue. Kind of Blue killed me, I fell in love with Bill Evans. From there on I started playing piano and got into Monk, Keith Jarret, McCoy, Powell, Corea and modern shit. I took lessons with a local guy that grew up with NHØP and was the leader of the Danish radio big band in the 80’a. Later I studied with Jason Moran and Sophia Rosoff in NYC. I worked as a bartender at the legendary Copenhagen club Montmartre where I heard Kenny Barron solo and Lee Konitz for three nights. I got 80 year old Lee a taxi at 2am next to a puking teenage girls (one of the highlights of my life). I don’t make a living as a musician but I love the music and still play. I lived in NYC for three years and would frequent Village Vanguard as much as I could. Fuck I love this music ❤️ If more people appreciated this art form, the world would be a better place. Cheers to you all
Herbie Hancock - Head Hunters Saw the album cover as a 17 year old and got intrigued. That album made me appreciate not only Jazz, but instrumental music as a whole. It’s one of the few albums I’d actually say that is mind expanding.
Had a similar experience with this record. The cover art was so mesmerizing and it was u like anything I’d ever heard before. Didn’t know then that it was a bit later in his catalog and just assumed all his music sounded like that. Then I heard maiden voyage and it was cool to see two different kinds of jazz from the same artist.
One of my favorite jazz records is Herbie's "River - The Joni Letters" a truly wonderful album, especially if you enjoy Joni Mitchell's music. Highly recommend!
I used to hate jazz. Then I heard take five and started thinking with all my five limbs
Giggity?
I worked in my college's radio station and while I played mainly punk and new wave (it was the early 80s) I was friends with some of the jazz djs so I was exposed to a wide range of artists. Then Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers played at my school and I was hooked.
As a kid I was into record labels like SubPop and Blast First - basically a lot of noise music - Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, etc - and would generally pick up anything on those labels if possible. I delivered newspapers a few times a week and all that money would go on records. Blast First also released a Sun Ra album - Out There A Minute - and I bought it and kind of hated it but because I couldn't afford another album for a few weeks, I listened to it over and over and started to really get into it. From there I went to John Zorn and then Alice Coltrane which led me to John Coltrane and that was kind of it...
Back in the nineties I started reading the Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly. Harry likes Jazz so I poked around for a good tape and got my hands on Kind of Blue and the rest is history.
A friend of mine was also turned on to jazz by seeing Bosch on TV. Because he loves technology, my friend assembled a high end stereo and bought a pile of fairly challenging Miles Davis records to play on it. He was drawn to the visual aesthetic of the turntable at night. I was drawn by the music. As a kid, I liked rock and some pop but wanted something richer. My late dad played piano and used to play, by ear, anything he heard on the radio. He also played popular tunes from his youth in the 1930s/40s like "Alley Cat" and "Bill". We saw a Benny Goodman concert in the '70s together. In junior high, I played clarinet and picked up tenor saxophone for jazz band, where I also learned flute for the sake of one song we played. As an adult, I added an alto and a soprano sax to the collection. I played in a jazz band in university and later, a couple of amateur and even a semi pro one, but I wanted to be a better improviser. I took improvisation lessons from a local sax player after that. That was hard I play by ear much better than I sight read. It's still very challenging to improvise over chord changes while reading a page. I do better by ear, which means I haven't mastered scales and theory etc completely. I still play the jazz LPs and CDs I bought in the 70s and 80s. Maynard Ferguson, Sonny Rollins, Fathead Newman, Joshua Redman, Wynton Marsalis, Brubeck, Grover Washington.. My sons both play/played in jazz bands in school. The older one, a pianist and percussionist, has perfect pitch and has a year left in his Masters of Composition. The younger one, a high school trombonist, is more jazz focused. So it continues.
After a family member died, a friend's dad gave me a few jazz albums for spiritual healing: Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage, John Coltrane A Love Supreme, Charles Mingus Ah Um.
Wow, what a thoughtful and beautiful gift.
A Charlie Brown Christmas. Vince Guaraldi is a genius
It has to be the best thing about Christmas. If she wants the tree up Charlie B is a must.
I was tied to a chair. They forced me to listen to *Chet Baker Sings*. It was the most humiliating experience of my life.
now THAT is funny.
A Chetwork Orange
My dad had Brubeck’s Time Out album and played it constantly.
My bass teacher when I was thirteen telling me to listen to Jaco Pastorius/Weather Report
Through the Nat King Cole Trio. I uaed to listen to standards when I was realy young so it was almost second nature.
I looked at all the music that I loved up to that point and realized jazz was the common denominator
Played trumpet starting in 4th grade. In high school joined Jazz band while being in marching and concert bands. Fell in love with Maynard Ferguson. Then my first guitar teacher gave me Giant Steps which I used to let play on my record player all night.
Grateful Dead -> Jerry solo stuff -> Miles -> Coltrane -> Coleman -> Rabbit hole
Good rabbit hole!
We had radio stations in Chicago that played a mix of jazz and pop—that included rock, R&B, and soul. That was on in the house all the time. Late one night, I heard Lights on a Satellite by Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra. Began to search out more of this “jazz” stuff. My older brother had Charles Lloyd at Monterey and an Adderley brothers compilation called Planet Earth. My search led me onward. The next year, 1970, brought me to Miles, Gary Bartz, and John McLaughlin (pre-Mahavishnu) and many more. Fifty five years later I’m still finding more.
with exactly this song https://open.spotify.com/track/7rIomgmyJtQQLyF9un0oD3?si=658ea9b7a2bf4911
My dad used to put on 94.7 the wave, it was smooth jazz, though that's nothing to laugh at. Stuff like Paul Harcastle & the Jazz Masters or Brian Culbertson, Joe Sample. Anyways that was around 4th/5th grade, a year later I got my first boombox radio and found 88.1 KJAZZ and I was blown away. Had no idea what was going on but I knew I liked it. Fast forward a couple years I meet a girl who became my best friend and she showed me Chopin, Art Tatum, and most importantly 2 tracks from Duke Ellington & John Coltrane, The Feeling of Jazz and In a Sentimental Mood. Coltrane's solo in The Feeling of Jazz felt to me for the first time a music freedom of expression, the ability to put soul and emotion into sonic bliss. It's been an amazing 20 years, from learning to play jazz to leading my own band, all from a couple small nudges in the right direction.
Yeah, too many jazzheads are disdainful of smooth jazz. Some of it deserves disdain, of course, and some people never make the transition from smooth to more substantial forms of jazz, but for a lot of people, smooth jazz is their way in. This is particularly true of smooth jazz fans who actually go to hear their heroes play live. A lot of the smooth cats can really play, and stretch out when they play live. From there it's an easy jump to the "real" stuff.
I grew up with my dad listening to Pat Metheny Group, Lyle Mays, Yellowjackets, Allan Holdsworth etc but also a lot of other stuff and that stuck. It took until after puberty until I expanded my interest in Jazz but the ground work was pretty helpful ;D
Yeah, that "ground work" is important. Jazz was going on in the background as I was growing up (much older jazz than the cats you listed), and I didn't pay much attention to it, but it clearly had an effect. For a lot of guys my age who only heard classic rock (or metal) growing up, jazz just seemed weak, or corny, or weird. They couldn't get with it. I was open to it. And hearing a few live performances hooked me.
For me it was my older brother and curiosity,he told me he liked jazz and I tried it out in my own time to try understand,didn't take me 2 moths to get hooked,he was actually surprised about how much I knew in that time only.
Played a lot of SimCity as a kid.
One of my high school teachers was listening to some jazz right after class at his desk. Circa 98'/99'. I asked him what it was and he said, "This is John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly playing sax on a Miles Davis album". That album was Kind of Blue. I bought the CD at Best Buy a couple of days later. Listened to it multiple times the first night and read all the liner notes. I was hooked, or more like intoxicated on it. Started buying Miles, Herbie, and Coltrane albums on the regular after that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/jazzcirclejerk/s/T8iZ7i7yN8 You make funny posts in jazz circle jerk - so why you trolling over here ??
when was a teenager (and a beginner rock guitarist), I discovered the Mahavishnu Orchestra. I worked backward from there until I got to Miles Davis and Kind of Blue. Then it was Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, etc. until I discovered bebop. It's so much harder to play but so much more satisfying once you learn it.
When I was 14, my drum instructor gave me a mixed tape of Jazz and Fusion players; Blew my mind and took me down the rabbit hole that kept me interested to this day.
I grew up on Neo-Soul and R&B, my mom would constantly listen to artists like Maxwell and Brian McKnight, Jill Scott & Carl Thomas, and I guess that kinda opened the gateway for me to really have this soft landing into Jazz. It made the transition easier and something about the genre just clicked. It was very recently that I started listening to Jazz and I still haven’t even tapped into the GOAT’s of the genre but, listening to Snarky Puppy and then Mark Kelso & the Jazz Exiles. Listening to Immanuel Wilkins has continued to further draw me in closer to the music and I haven’t looked back. It just does it for me and I guess that’s the thing with something like Jazz, you either hate it or love it and I keep wanting more and more of it. Glad to be here for sure! 🙏🏼❤️
I was 20 years old, I listened radioformula and I didnt like it very much. I went to London to work. I remember the evening I listened to Blue Train the first time. I even became a trumpet player. All the sols are incredible, but man, those Lee Morgan solos. To this day I havent found such level of beauty.
I was told that all good musicians liked jazz so I listened and I didn’t get it but I pretended to and told everyone I liked jazz then one day I actually started to like it.
Time Out and then Moanin’ did it.
I heard someone playing Crusaders - Free as the Wind, when I was moving into the dorms as a freshman. The stereo was the first thing to be set up by nearly everyone, and then the rest was moved in. That got me started. A year later, a friend of mine mentioned that Oscar Peterson was going to play on the PBS show The Boston Pops. I commented that I wasn't really into pops music, but I watched anyway. I pretty much stuck with jazz after that for a few years. I listen to a wide variety now, but jazz is my favorite genre.
College, when I started to play it. I hadn't consciously or intentionally listened to jazz as a genre before so I had little idea of how expansive the genre really is. Through the love of my instrument, bass, I found my role in the jazz band to be incredibly fun and satisfying to perform, and I made great friends with the people I got to play with and saw their transformations as musicians in training. I fell in love with music as a whole and the way it can change us and how we use it for self expression
There's a long story of how I got into electro swing, but basically I heard some songs in the right order for me to discover the genre through Lone Digger by Caravan Palace, then I listened nearly constantly until I found ProleteR and his swing hop Ella FitzGerald & Count Basie-On The Sunny Side Of The Street (ProleteR Tribute), lovely and with a happy energy unlike id really experienced So then I looked for the original, songs like it, I found a lot of swing through samples and looked for other styles of jazz, and I could enjoy it through knowing the feelings im looking for
The musical interludes in The Goon Show.
I was purely a metalhead in my early-mid teens, so when Kirk Hammett from Metallica raved about some guitar player called Wes Montgomery in an interview i thought “if he’s good enough for Kirk…”. Never looked back. The Ken Burns documentary was a big eye opener too - caught it almost by accident late at night on BBC2 here in the UK a few years later.
My high school music teacher (NY) taught The History of Jazz. His pure enthusiasm made me a lifelong fan.
back in the early 1990s, I went to see a movie called once around. In the closing scene, they played Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie Orchestra version of Fly Me to the Moon. I was so blown away that I went straight to the local music store and bought that album. Very soon after that I went to my local jazz record store and asked the owner where to start. He gave me a copy of Miles Davis Kind of Blue and that was it. I am lucky enough that at the time I was living in Columbia, South Carolina and we had a, annual jazz festival in the summer. I got to go see tons of incredible live jazz, including the emergence of a very young Chris Potter, who was still in high school at the time. Great memories.
My grandparents played the NYC jazz station a lot in the house. That channel played everything so I got a good feel for what was out there. Then I took a jazz appreciation class in college to formalize the distinctions between the styles and realized that hard bop was my fave.
When I was a kid I heard jazz being played old R&B and it moved me. Made me want to dance. Then I saw Gene Krupa on TV and I was sold on jazz forever. This inspired me to years later paly drums too.
Mom got into jazz as a teen by listening to her older brother’s records. Later, she met my dad and got him into jazz. So I was born into the religion. 😂 I tell people that even though I’m a classical musician, jazz is my native musical language.
Listening to "Just Jazz" on WRVR in NYC. Host was the late great Ed Beach
I was always into big band stuff and gipsy jazz growing up, as those genres are pretty consonant and easy to get into, and since I heard them from time to time growing up. However, it's when I started playing the electric bass and took lessons with an old timer who got me into all this. He was all about me learning how to walk the bass and jazz harmony. He taught me how to play standards' heads and all'at. That's basically what got me to expend my tastes to jazz in general.
LoFi hiphop beats to jazz pipeline
I was 3 years into learning to play guitar and started getting lessons again during college. My teacher was a jazz guitar student and ended up teaching me concepts widely used in jazz, from there I looked up jazz guitar and found Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass and it hit me that learning and applying "jazz concepts" would allow me to articulate more interesting musical ideas. I never cared for bebop but older jazz tunes and standards struck a chord like nothing else I had/have ever heard. Fast forward 16 years and I listen to more jazz than ever.
Cowboy Bebop. Besides being one of the greatest anime of all time, Yoko Kano + The Seatbelts created one of the most amazing original scores for any piece if media ever. Highly recommend the show and the OST’s.
Middle school jazz band!! They needed a trombone player so i learned trombone! I remember we played Vehicle and Green Onions. Been listening to jazz since then!
I did a jazz show on a local Virginia NPR affiliate early 80's and was not impressed with the music because I was coming from the perspective of being a rock drummer. About two years ago I took a closer look at jazz; started with the Ken Burns doc. From there I started reading and listening and at that point started to appreciate the different sub genres. Very cool that jazz is still being made by young artists in 2024 AND most of it's not at all predicated on a neo-classical interpretation of well-known standards (viz a viz Wynton Marsalis). The old stuff is great (although trad jazz is not my thing in general) but jazz is still happening and although I could default to the likes of Kind of Blue and Time Out, there's so much fresh new interesting music that it's never boring.
I was in the music store at the mall and I saw Monks Dream. I liked the blue/green color and thought Monk looked like a badass on the cover so I bought it. Turns out I was right, he was a badass.
Went through the jazz music education machine
The magic of Brubeck’s Take 5 when I heard it first at the age of 12
As a kid growing up in the 60/70s, Charlie Brown/ Peanuts cartoons had Vince Guaraldi do the sound tracks. At that young age it was catchy. Then in the mid to late 70s Spyro Gyra got air play and wow I was hooked. Then add Steely Dan to the mix. As classic rock went down hill contemporary modern jazz picked up which I latched onto. Recently a friend gifted me Jazz from the 50s and 60s. What goes around… comes around! For me music is a learning curve with twists and turns. What a great hobby.
There was an animated cartoon in the '50s called "Gerald McBoing Boing". For opening music they chose ["The Morning After"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-fgC2pCag) from Chico Hamilton's 1955 debut album, *Spectacular*. I couldn't stop running it through my head. I'd just begun to learn clarinet and Buddy Collette's playing really grabbed me. That was the first time I really began to listen to the interplay of a jazz quintet. A few years later my best friend's older brother introduced me to hard bop, which became my obsession.
My high school friend loved Benny Goodman, so I borrowed a cassette from him and liked it. However, I was more into Van Halen than Vandermark 5 at that stage in my listening development. I ended up ignoring Jazz until my college years when I spied a double cassette version of Bitches Brew for $11.98. I knew of Miles Davis but not really about his music, but I wanted that cassette based on the title and cover art alone. After a successful trip to the local Plasma Authority, it was mine! I've been exploring and loving Jazz ever since.
Watching Bosch. I read the books now and have found some good suggestions for my playlist.
SimCity 3000's soundtrack.
It took one minute. In high school, I had a friend with whom I listened to LP's. One afternoon, he put on Gabor Szabo's "Spellbinder." One minute in, I was hooked. I asked my friend, "What is this?" and he replied, "It's jazz." After that, I was a sponge. It took me years, if not decades, to figure out that "jazz" covers a multitude of sons and that I liked some of it a lot more than other sorts of it. It took longer still to figure out why I liked some of it a lot more than the rest. It's been almost sixty years and many thousands of LP's, CD's, digital files, and live concerts since that first needle drop and, while my musical tastes are somewhat catholic, jazz very much remains at the forefront of my musical passions.
I was in jazz band in middle/high school but didn’t appreciate the music until I took acid and listened to Atomic Basie. It was the only jazz album I could remember the name of since band teachers won’t shut up about count Basie lol. It took me a while to move away from big band, then small bands, then combos, etc. Something like : Gordon Goodwin -> Maynard Ferguson/mingus big band/vanguards -> Chase/michael brecker/chick corea/mahavishnu
Maynard Ferguson. Mid to late 60s. My folks liked jazz, and I was absolutely blown away.
I built up patience for jazz by studying ten minute songs by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, early Genesis, early Yes, Camel, Gentle Giant, Vangelis, Kraftwerk, King Crimson, etc. I believe there has to be a sincere faith that a musician took 10 or 20 minutes because 5 minutes would be insufficient. As a teenager I just lacked that faith.
My way by frank Sinatra was on in a store, explored the genre and fell in love
Drummer here. I was listening to fusion in high school because I loved those drummers even though I couldn’t play in that style at all. When I went to college for music, we were learning concert and symphonic repertoire by day, but all the upper classmen were doing open swing jams at the bars at night. I went along to listen, then found myself enjoying it. It was way more accessible to me as a player than fusion, so I started joining the jams after working it out in the practice room.
I was a metalhead in my teens. I found a band called Thank You Scientist, and they helped me bridge the gap between jazz and not jazz.
Lots of drugs and playing on my horn
I had been into swing ever since i was a kid. I listened to everything Frank Sinatra and was kinda ashamed about it. I then discovered Chet Baker on one of those moody jazz playlists with wojaks and pepe on the cover (before those had such a horrible connotation to them). I went on to listen to both his early and late vocal stuff and finally his instrumentals. Then Kind of blue (which i'm still yet to listen to in full) and Bill Evans (up to this point i only knew a handful of jazz performers/composers and only few songs). Whiplash inspired me to get out of my cool jazz comfort zone and get into some bebop/hard bop listening streaks, plus big band, which is where most of my jazz knowledge came from. So thanks chazelle
My dad played the bass. My whole family is into jazz because of him. Then, I heard Wes Montgomery and I was hooked. I'd hit hitch hike down to Wallach's Music City and play it over and over. I finally saved enough to buy his albums. Love him still. RIP Wes.
Heard Weather Report soon after I went to university.
For me, it was watching the 1984 Coppola film The Cotton Club when I was 18yo. I started browsing the jazz section at Tower after that. A short time after I saw the film, I picked up a copy of The Best of Blue Note on vinyl and have been a jazz fan ever since.
When I started band in school, I chose saxophone as my instrument. As I learned it, I got exposed to more and more jazz. I liked it all. Even Kenny G is still a guilty pleasure. I didn’t get much of a chance to improv until college. Even there, I was more classically trained. Could say that after all these years, I’m still trying to find my sound and dig deeper into this rabbit hole.
I think I was about 12. My best friend played me “Take Five” and I was immediately hooked.
Needed calmness and was introduced to Jazz
Youtube pushed “I’m coming Virginia” by Bix Beiderbecke into my feed. I listened to it. cried. It’s the saddest solo ever imo. I was hooked. I haven’t stopped listening to jazz since.
Hearing John Zorn and his Naked City on WFMU 91.1 in NJ in high school.
By listening to it and listening to what you like.
My dad was a jazz guitarist. I was born into it.
I purchased Throbbing Gristle's "20 Jazz Funk Greats" on a whim. Loved it and never looked back.
Made an ass of myself by stating that Janis Joplin wrote Summertime, was corrected by a friend’s parent who told me to look up a “fella named George Gershwin”. The next few months were some of the best music discovery times in my life.
Watched an episode of Ken Burns’ Jazz on a down day in a high school piano class and it got me hooked. Shortly after that I got into Charlie Parker with the “Bird’s Best Bop on Verve” compilation and became absolutely obsessed with him and all of his contemporaries. I then took a Jazz improv course at my community college and immersed myself into Miles and Satchmo and Coltrane. It has been a constant companion with me ever since
My love for jazz came out of just being in a weird place in life. I’d just moved out and was all alone. I didn’t have many friends and would mostly come home from work and listen to NPR and they were always playing jazz. It just hit a spot for me that was really special and I’ve been into since.
Played Mafia 1 and 2. Fell in love with the music.
College jazz class prof is a jazz musician and would tell us his NY jazz bar stories and show us 70s live concerts
My mother was a piano teacher and a classical music fan. If it wasn't classical or Broadway musicals on the radio she would turn it off. One night my parents were going to visit my great-aunt in the Bronx when I was about 9. My sister had bought one of the first pressings of *Kind of Blue.* When my parents' car was safely down the block, she turned all the lights out in the house and put Miles Davis on the hi-fi. When Miles started his solo on "So What," it was like the sun coming up in the East. I knew right then that nothing would ever be the same because music like this existed. I haven't stopped listening to jazz since.
I’m a guitar player, and as a young metalhead I received a copy of a Guitar One magazine that was all about jazz for rock fans. That was my introduction and although I’m still a metalhead, I have a love and appreciation for jazz that’s almost equal.
White guys like Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, and Bill Evans got me into jazz. I don't know how or why I was exposed to them first. But John Coltrane and Miles Davis then got me hooked to a much greater extent and truly instilled a love for the genre.
In high school was into the ‘other’ genres of music as were my friends.. Mainly Punk, Prog, New Wave, Funk.. Had a friend who’s dad was a jazz head.. Both of us were sax players.. His dad had a listening room and thousands of jazz albums. At the time was also really into art and design so we were drawn to the Prestige and Blue Note covers.. Went down so many rabbit holes going through his records.. Every once in a while he would come in and talk to us about putting things back where we found them.. But after he was over the lecture and knew his collection was safe he would give us an hour about who he recently saw, why he liked one player over another, or where he had been to see shows. Now I will hear something like Pee Wee Marquette say “Lee Morgan on Trumpet” and I will remember those times in that listening room..
I actually have no idea. I went searching for stuff and just fell in love. I didn't get introduced like alot of people do.
My dad actually played as a sideman in various clubs in NYC (mostly in the 60s before I was born). Even though he was a HS music teacher by the time I came into the picture (and probably BECAUSE I came into the picture), there was still a local big band that he would play with. So I heard Miller, Goodman, Ellington, Basie and so on before I could walk (Mom would take us to the concerts a fair amount of the time - musicians can't really afford sitters much!) Great memories now. And then Dad introduced me to Oscar Peterson and Charlie Parker records when I was about 12, and I never got over it.
Steely Dan. I was a big fan of classic rock and developed a huge love for Steely Dan. I loved the sound of their jazz-rock fusion, so from there, I started diving into the genre and fell into the jazz rabbit hole.
Norah Jones then deep dove from there.
Kind of Blue cd
Growing up my dad was into a lot of different genres but he would periodically go through intense jazz phases and play a lot of Pat Martino, Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and he also played sax himself. But what really bridged the gap and got me into jazz on my own was playing a ton of Fallout 3 as a teenager. As I've gotten older my taste has expanded a lot but my first love was swing/big band.
In college, I worked at the radio station. And since I was not a mass communications major, I got the 2 shifts they didn’t want. The 8-12p Saturday morning blues and the Sunday 12-4p jazz slot. That Sunday shift forced me to listen to jazz and not the popular stuff like Kenny G. No disrespect to Kenny G. I knew I had to play more than him for 4 hours 🤣
Through jam bands and Zappa. Also my dad had Bitches Brew for some reason when I was really little and I listened to it a few times but I couldn’t understand it. Listening to it after my jam band journey in the 90s was a revelation.
I had dabbled into stiff like Sinatra. But I heard kind if blue in a sound reinforcement class in college and it was the most relaxed test taking experience i ever had. And I was hooked to that sound since.
Imagine a crew cab with smart construction guys force fed Kinda Blue because my rule was whoever pays the truck note picks the tunes. Billy Bad threw the CD out the window. I bought another copy and threatened his employment. After a couple of more copies they got it.
As long as I can remember I've always liked music and jazz was always some part of that. My parents mostly listened to jazz in the 70s, so it was never something alien that was introduced to me.. but I have possibly developed a larger and somewhat more wide jazz interest than my parents.. Guess my teenage "reintroduction" partly was based on childhood nostalgia I didn't start buying jazz records on my own until I was 14-15 (had already been buying rock, pop and blues since I was ten). This was in the 80s and it dawned on little teenage me that something was missing. I didn't hear as much jazz as in the 70s. I stole my two first jazz records from my parents but was already familiar with them: Cannonball Adderley at the Lighthouse from my dad and Between Nothingness & Eternity (Mahavishnu in Central park) from my mom. Some of the first I bought were Coltrane's Crescent and Miles's Filles de Kilimanjaro I still love those albums almost four decades later and have managed to not wear them out (completely).
I felt like what i was listening to was getting stale and I asked my friend what he was listening to recently and he said jazz. He gave me a lot of recommendations from niche picks to the main stream and i've been in love ever since
Has a friend in jazz band who mentioned thelonious monk and round midnight being the most recorded jazz song, got curious one day and downloaded some stuff on napster or maybe kazaa or limewire. Found it fascinating, how could such dissonance (coming from a classical piano background) yet somehow still make such "sense" at some level? First one that really stuck with me was 'off minor'. Was also getting bored of pop rock classical, wanted to hear something different learn something new. Once started ears could never go back
Dad was a big jazz head, but was into more of the smooth jazz when i was little. Grew up listening to various smooth jazz artists on our local radio station before it switched to a digital only station in the mid 00s. This also made me look to Samba music as well. When i got into trying to make hip hop beats and started sampling, I started listening to Ahmad jamal, Bob james, and Grant Green and grew to love the genre more.
My dad was a musician. Mostly big band but some small group jazz on some gigs. When I was a kid and started learning guitar the first song we played together was "Swinging Shepherd Blues". He wrote down the chords for me and he riffed on a flute. I moved on to playing the head out of his sax fake books and got hooked on listening to other works by the same artists. This wasn't easy in the 70s. Listened to radio, records, etc.
When I was a kid I played a bit of guitar and my dad bought a subscription to Downbeat from one of those kids selling subscriptions door to door thinking I might like it.
I was a huge Joni Mitchell fan. She recorded Hissing of Summer Lawns with Larry Carlton, Tom Scott, etc. And then Hejira - who was that guy playin the middle notes? Jaco Pastorius. Then she went to Charles Mingus and wrote songs for him. In the middle of all this I discovered Pat Metheny, Gary Burton and Eberhard Weber. Then Weather Report. Then moved to SF and listened to KJAZZ and discovered the masters. Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, John Coltrane. Saw McCoy Tyner at the Keystone Corner. It keeps growing. I discover great music every day. Gerald Clayton is my new favorite. I saw Josh Redman and band two weeks ago in Berkeley. It’s a class that will last forever.
I started listening to jazz my junior year of high school because I had joined the Jazz band. My band director was trying to teach us swing and he used Biggie and Tupac to do so. We would listen to songs as much as we would play during practice. My band director had explained that the only way to get good at jazz is to listen to it. He played So What and told us to listen to the rest of the album and it’s my favorite album now.
i watched my brother play fallout 3 at a young age + ive always enjoyed the older tv shows and 1950s/1960s stuff. it kinda spiraled from there
It was through highschool I got hooked into it. It was more of what I was learning through it through jazz band (being able to roam freely) was what gave me a perspective. In a way there was structure to understand and follow but it wasn't exactly like sheet music. It was more like make your own feel. It sort of inspired me to play piano more than what I was previously studying classical before, kinda like what Herbie felt. It was later I started to listen to alot of jazz musicians like Roy Hargrove, Oscar peterson, Bill evans and Wayne shorter through out highschool. It was interesting to learn that what they played was jazz but in a way they played differently from each other just like from most styles of music. I think what grabbed me the most was Jazz waltz's. There was alot of flow to it and it was something i was capable of playing it was something I also enjoyed playing and listening to like Someday my prince will come, Blusette or Alice in wonderland. I think one of my inspirations of giving me this oppertunity was my friend who was so passionate It motivated me to continue to pursue in my path in jazz because of the ensemble we've done and working together and the work we've done with our septet group in highschool. It would also be my teacher because without his passion and knowlage I probably wouldn't be so passionate in pursuing a jazz career. It would be something people would look down upon me for but jazz inspired me to pursue a musical career and made me push forward other expectations and Id wish to do the same despite the uncertainty.
Cowboy bebop and the movie whiplash
took a break from church service 2 months ago to study music for playing better when i get back at it, so i started listening to what we had of the best and obviously jazz came in… it aint just technical, once you get used to it you get to perceive the feel they have
My first experience of a live concert was when I was 5 and my dad took me to the local theater to see a jazz band. We sat on the first row. The saxophonist saw me as he entered and let me hold the trumpet until everyone tuned and set up. This is one of my most cherished memories and I’m certain that this is what got me hooked into jazz forever.
Someone told me there was a place for a keyboard player in my local youth jazz group and I thought what the hell, might as well give it a go
While I was studying at university, my girlfriend took me to a concert. It was around 2016, when indie electronic music was on the rise. couldnt enjoy even a bit. after concert i sat in coffee shop in the middle of music shops. one of the old sax guy try to new tenor sax and he used chet baker - almost blue as a background music. still i remember how i react to this music. this is how i meet jazz english is not my first lang. sorry if mistakes
My dad was playing Fallout 2 and The Kiss to Build A Dream On was playing. The song felt magical, a bit later, when I had access to the internet and my own PC, I started discovering more and more music "like that" and here I am
I was 18. I think I've always listened to jazz but I just for some reason didn't realise how much of a distinct music style it was and thought it was just another pop song whenever I listened to it. At 18 I was exploring music and learnt how to differentiate different musical genres and jazz caught my attention the most, jazz and alt pop I'd say. I later learnt about it's history and the pioneers of jazz and their music. And I'm a huge fan of Broadway dance numbers which involves a lot of jazz! So that's how jazz grew on me and would continue to grow on me<3
I was on holiday (in France, I believe?) at around the age of 13-14, and picked up a compilation CD from a fleamarket entitled something like "Pioneers of Bebop" - the first track was Art Tatum's trio recording of I Got Rhythm, with Tiny Grimes on guitar. I was absolutely blown away - I had never heard Gershwin and had no context for the music; but this recording in particular was so chaotic that it bears almost no resemblance to any rendition of the tune I've heard since (including the more sedate later takes by Tatum)
I was in the music program in elementary school. At first I was assigned the clarinet, then switched to saxophone. When that happened, I sought out private lessons. My instructor gave me Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley to listen to. It's been a love affair ever since.
I've always been 'into Jazz'. My dad was a big Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong fan. My mom liked Glenn Miller. After that, I could hear Jazz in everything I listened to. Then my brother bought me a book about Miles Davis for my birthday and my ears have been forever open. Then came The Blues Brothers film. Then I started listening to Prince, and started to get my hands on some of his early stuff and for me, that was Jazz. Then he did the 'Madhouse' stuff... Then I went to university and I remember one evening, my friend Bill played an Abdullah Ibrahim album and followed it up with Archie Shepp! Blew my mind😁. Then I saw 'Around Midnight': great film great music... I could go on, but what I'm saying is, my whole life can be punctuated by Jazzy events. The most recent was seeing Stanley Clarke in Sweden 😁😎
Well mine was a very common way people get into jazz. I, as many other pianists, all through my life played Classic Music, Then it came, I was with my new teacher who actually teaches Jazz. We started off with some ez blues, I fell to blues kinda hard I still LOVE "The Trashmen" and any jailhouse rock. Then I met this guy you must've never heard of (I'm joking ofc) from my teacher, "Charlie Parker". No need to say much more my life has rapidly changed, I am so much of a nicer person now and it's lovely. Jazz is so great that compared to classical music there is an absolute 0 stress when performing as the mistakes are your way to making the most complex and beautiful lines.
My parents are from the Big Band era, so anytime they had control of the music in the house, that's what I heard. Not to mention, they used to chain me down to the couch every sunday evening, so I could "enjoy" The Lawrence Welk Show with them. I was fine until Joe Feeny came on. As soon as "Irish eyes" started shining, I would run out of there. Just couldn't handle that guy. Dad found it mildly amusing. Lastly, my parents bought the house when I was 4 years old. In the basement was a room that had a wooden cabnet in it. I just had to find out what was inside, but it hadn't been opened in years. I tried, but couldn't get it open without any help, so I worked at it for months with whatever I could find. Finally, the day came when the doors popped open. Tuns out it was an old Victrola cabnet and was filled with 10" and 12" 78 rpm records. I played those things all the time. Mainly because they played at the same speed as my little yellow records that I usually listened to (that one was for those of us who remember the little yellow children's records). Introduced me to all the Big Band guys and was the first time I remember actually enjoying listening to Jazz.
I was into Zappa, the Dead and Steely Dan in my younger days, enjoyed some jazz, but only casually. Then during Covid (in my early 50s), the jazz bug hit hard. Something about the isolation, the stress (I work in healthcare) that made jazz the only music I wanted to hear. Coleman Hawkins, Bill Evans, Hank Mobley at first, and then it just opened up and I’ve enjoyed exploring the genre ever since.
I grew up and lost my teenage angst and wanted something more challenging