And All That Jazz.

It started, as with much of my love of music,

With my Dad.

With him Swing was King

And the monarch was Benny Goodman.

This was my introduction

Of the world and wonder of Jazz.

 

From those early days I have listened

To many types of this music and loved them all.

The very early times of Bix and Jelly Roll

And of course ol’ Satchelmouth leading the way.

Though the thirties of the big bands

Basie, Ellington, Shaw and Miller;

Leading to the swing of the forties.

 

Then out of this came the sound that was bebop;

Bird and Dizzy in the lead, with this strange sound;

Alien noises to the establishment,

But became so wonderful to hear.

It changed the course of Jazz history.

The chromatic changes that weren’t thought possible,

Now becoming the sound, to which many flew.

 

Bebop mutated into so many varied type of Jazz.

It lead to the disaster that was ‘avant garde’.

A sound, to my mind, that just wasn’t music.

That Coltrane record I bought,

Put the needle anywhere on the disc,

The sound was just as bad.

I wonder if I could listen to it now,

With my more open minded view of music.

 

Cool Jazz given birth by Miles;

So harmonic, so soft, so mind-blowing.

This sound of mellow tones coming through my mind

And into my soul.

The beautiful sounds of Chet, Stan and Dave;

Pure melancholy, transporting me

To a world where all is calm and peaceful.

 

Trad, that sound that some decry,

But whenever it is played, all the feet tap.

Acker and Kenny leading the way

With this cheerful and foot tapping sound,

That can never fail to lift any depression

With its sound of unalloyed joy.

 

 

 

And then of course there was Oscar.

The man who can take me to places

That only exist in my dream of heaven.

This man who when he died

Took a piece of my life with him;

A man whose music was part of me,

And still is.

 

Jazz, the sounds that many can’t stand.

But to me, a world of such varying ways

Of contemplating the world of music ,

That has been with me all my life;

And is still there for me.