Jean’s Jazz: Smells Good

I began my jazz education in the early ’90s when I brought home some Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller CDs from the public library. Those CDs served as a solid foundation for me and I started making monthly visits to the library to check out different jazz albums and record them onto cassette tapes and soon I had myself a little jazz collection. A few years later, a college friend told me- rather condescendingly- the jazz music I liked was “dinner jazz” though I kind of took it as compliment since I’ve never pretended to understand jazz- but I know what I like.

John Coltrane

On one of his live ‘70s albums, you can hear Frank Zappa tell the audience “Jazz is not dead- it just smells funny.” I think if jazz smells funny then it is probably best to get rid of it. I don’t have a lot of jazz in my music collection these days but most of the jazz I like is melodious, soothing, and pleasurable and if it does not contain at least one of those three elements then for me it stinks and I’m not interested.

Like wine, I wish I had the time, money, and knowledge to find and enjoy the good stuff but for now I guess I’ll just continue as I’ve always done and pick up whatever jazz sounds good along the way and add it to my collection. I assume jazz albums can work really well for dinner and cocktail parties but of course the trick is finding the right album and committing to it and hopefully the guests won’t start to smell anything too funny. Here are some of my favorite jazz songs. Enjoy!

Oscar Peterson

01. Oscar Peterson Trio – “You Look Good to Me” (1964)

02. Paul Mauriat – “Love is Blue” (1968)
03. Herbie Mann – “Muscle Shoals Nitty Gritty”  (1970)
04. Jimmy Smith – “Back at the Chicken Shack” (1960)
05. Charles Mingus – “Far Wells, Mill Valley” (1959)
06. Herbie Mann – “St. Louis Blues” (1957)
07. Nat King Cole – “It’s Only a Paper Moon” (1957)
08. John Coltrane – “Greensleeves” (1963)
09. Chet Baker – “But Not for Me” (1954)

Listen to the playlist on Spotify... 

 

Recommended Links:

True Power of Jazz