As best I can recall, the first jazz song I remember hearing was the theme song to Peter Gunn written by Henry Mancini in 1958. Other early sightings would include “The Stripper “recorded by David Rose in 1958 and released in 1962 by MGM Records; Mancini’s “Theme to the Pink Panther” released in 1964; and Louis Armstrong’s version of “Hello Dolly” in 1964. These were all pleasant, middle of the road jazz influenced hits.
My heart was smitten, however, by the Sounds Orchestral’s take on Vince Guaraldi’s 1962, “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” Guaraldi wrote this tune to flesh out his album based upon the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim: Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. In the spring of 1965, the British band, Sounds Orchestral, reworked this American bossa nova tune and it became a Top Ten hit opening a whole new realm of music to the American public. It evoked a sense of longing and a quest for solitude that fit the mood of the nation in transition.
Ten months later, Guaraldi was back in my world with the songs he created for the “Peanuts” special on CBS: “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” That same year, Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto won a Grammy for their interpretation of Jobim’s “Girl from Ipanema” and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass took the world by storm with “Whipped Cream and Other Delights.” And in 1966, the brilliant Cannonball Adderly – side man for Miles Davis – had a massively popular hit with Joe Zawinul’s soul jazz masterpiece: “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”
Three other early jazz-infused influences shaped my developing tastes including Van Morrison’s early 1970s work on: “Moondance,” “Tupelo Honey” and “St. Dominic’s Preview” – as well as both Herbie Mann and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Clearly I loved the soulful and cool sounds of jazz – especially with a pop or soul groove. And, truth be told, those early influences continue to touch my heart in 2013. To be sure, my interests have ripened, but I still have no interest in jazz that evokes a recital and strives to that recreate the sounds of the 1930s and 40s.
No, I agree with Ralph Ellison who insisted that jazz must always keep one foot firmly planted in the world of the dance hall – as well as the blues:
“The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically… In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.” (Living with the Music: Jazz Writings)
I need to FEEL the music I am playing – it needs to be incarnated – rather than overly abstract and esoteric. My current favorites include the cool geniuses of the 50s – Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Thelonious Monk – as well as the playful soul artists of the 21st century like Bill Frisell, Joshua Redman, the Cinematic Orchestra and Esperanza Spalding. I am crazy about Gil-Scott Heron and Bud Powell, too.
In 1964, MLK put it like this and his words still ring true for me:
God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations. Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph... Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument...Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all these.So goes my interest in jazz.
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