Jazz was always in our home, from Bird to Coltrane...so I was a jazzer early on. One day on a local underground .college station, I accidentally taped Frank Zappa"s St.Alphonso Pancake Breakfast. It was the most fun in music I had in a while. The metric twists and turns in the song was just so different than listening to Count Basie and such. I absolutely wore that cassette out.
Buying Zappa's music and reading Zappa interviews, I discovered Eric Dolphy and Monk. Then Stravinsky. Then on to Messiaen. Then Sun Ra's Myth Science Orchestra. Then Stockhausen. Then Hindemith. Then on to Aaron Copeland.
Today, I listen to everything. Mos Def, Q-tip (hip hop)....Laraaji, Harold Budd, Steve Roach (ambient)....Henry Cow, Univers Zero, 5uu's, Unexpected, U-Totem (avant-rock)...The Delphonics, The Temptations (Motown).....Indian and Arabic music,,,,and the aforementioned classical music.
It's good to see others with expanded ears beyond the normal pre-packaged pop music. Im scrolling thru pages here to pick up on some artists I might have missed.
|