Love for Jazz

Louis Armstrong

          I won't pretend to know everything about jazz.  In fact, I most certainly don't.  I know enough to know that jazz is typically described as having "swing" or out of time notes, improvisation, call and response vocals, blue notes, and polyrhythms, but those last few I only know from my late night Wikipedia sessions and I'm sure that these things mean precious little to most of my readers.  The truth is that I know a decent amount about music, but surely not enough to teach about it, so that's not what I'm going to do here.  Instead, I just want to talk about music, and yes, jazz, in general.  


          I absolutely love music.


          When I was a kid, I never really got into music, but I definitely listened to it.  Specifically, I'd listen to whatever it was at the time that my mom was listening to, with the occasional "Radio Disney" song.  Whether it was my mom's Shania Twain CD or any number of songs from her collection of classic rock, whatever was playing at the time was my jam.  I didn't know enough at first to explore music on my own, but I eventually did discover for myself the wonders of human expression in audio form during homeschool.  

          My mom had me learn about classical composers from a fairly young age, and that was my first introduction to learning about music.  It was also responsible for my current love of classical and orchestral music.  It's actually my favorite genre.  If you want a great piece, look up "Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity" by Gustav Holst.  It's one of my favorite pieces, with plenty of wonderful moments and movement, which is funny, because Holst himself did not consider his "Planets" suite to be his best work.  I digress, back to my childhood journey through music.

          Fast forward to junior high.  At this time, I had my own portable CD player (yes, before iPods, we had to listen to music on portable CD players, although I did get an iPod soon after), and from what I had heard on the radio, I decided to buy my first CDs:  Fall Out Boy's "Infinity on High" and All-American Rejects' "Move Along."  I really got into emo, alternative, and pop-punk, and from there, my taste evolved to include metal, industrial electro, hip-hop, EDM of all kinds, house, dubstep, country, experimental genres...the list goes on, really.  The one I want to talk about today, however, is (you guessed it) jazz.

          My first real experience with jazz happened quite late.  High school, to be exact.  As an avid gamer, I was very interested in a game called "Bioshock."  Though I didn't know it at the time, this game would eventually become my favorite game of all time.  It featured a beautiful, underwater, art deco city in a 1940s-50s setting, and though many things about this game (like the philosophy, sociopolitical commentary, and vintage aesthetic) were attractive to me, it was the music that truly drew me in.  Artists like Django Reinhardt, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, and The Ink Spots featured heavily, and boy, did I fall in love with this genre.  From the soothing saxophones and trumpets to the sultry tones of voices like Billie Holiday, everything about this vintage jazz and swing sound had me in its grasp.

          The next game I would get attached to would only serve to further cement my love of the genre.  I'm talking about Fallout 3.  When I first heard that all too familiar opening guitar of "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" by the Ink Spots, I was hooked again (we won't talk about the fact that all Ink Spots songs follow the same structure; I personally like them).  Fallout's soundtrack was a bit more fast paced, with artists like Bob Crosby and the Andrews Sisters featuring.  Shooting super mutants and ghouls while listening to Three Dog ramble on the radio is honestly one of the more memorable things in modern gaming, in my opinion.  That future-retro look and sound was addicting.  Thus began my obsession with music of the 20th century.

          As I further explored jazz and swing, discovering things such as doo-wop, electro swing, dixieland jazz, and the way in which jazz influenced much of modern music, I found myself feeling enlightened, but it would be some time before I would truly listen to jazz often enough to say that I really appreciated it.  In recent years, after playing more games in retro ages (LA Noire, Mafia II) and falling in love with old film noir, I began listening to jazz more often, exploring the genre outside of the ones I knew just from video games and film.  I had mostly been focusing on jazz from the 50s and older, but as of late, I have been wanting to listen to more modern jazz.  YouTube channels such as Adam Neely have helped me to understand jazz in a more modern context.  

          This may sound funny to those who don't know, but actor Jeff Goldblum actually has a jazz band, and he is quite the gifted musician.  He put out an album recently (of which one of the songs I have featured in the Spotify playlist above; feel free to give it a listen) and I absolutely love it.  Now, I'm still somewhat of a jazz novice, especially when it comes to modern jazz, but I'm very excited to learn more.  I just wanted to share some words and enthusiasm for this wonderful genre which has been referred to by some as "America's classical music."  Many people may consider jazz and classical to be solely the music of the intelligentsia, or inaccessible in some way, or perhaps not worth their time, but I wish they knew what they were missing out on.  To my readers, this is me telling you, in my own way, what you're missing out on.  If you're not already a fan of jazz or even classical, now is the time to give them a try.  While you're at it, broaden your horizons even more, and explore all that music has to offer, across the whole planet and across all of human history.  There's a whole world to explore, so explore!   

~ Danny (DarylOnABarrel)