I didn't choose jazz, jazz chose me

I guess it would have been nice to have a proper instructor to tell me what to listen to and what it all meant. But that's not the lot I drew.

In every child's life there comes a great emptiness, that point in your life when you realize that Santa Claus and everything else you ever believed in is just so much bullshit. But you have built your entire life around it and its not so easy to let go.  Its the same with music.  That which you thought was great turns out to be the mumblings of morons.

I really heard that sound for the first time in the early 80's but I didn't know what it was or where it was going.  I didn't even know how to find it again.  But it knew me and it knew where I was going.  I didn't know what I was looking for but there was definitely something there. I spent the next 10 years trying to figure it out. There were faint clues but not much else to go on. Mind you this was in the days before reliable streaming so finding real jazz was still pretty much a crap shoot. This same journey might only take a couple months today what with Pandora and all the other resources available now.

So you start searching, and what you think you are looking for is just as fake as what you already have so you have to begin anew. And so you fall into a despair that leaves you open to the offers of the universe and it turns out you simply follow that sound wherever it leads. No structure, no pattern, no instructors, just that sound. Like being an infant again, and as an infant, you have no way to communicate your needs, you just know you have had it before and you want it again and you cry out until you get it.  Nothing tells you what is right or wrong, you simply know what's right.  And when you get to that place on your journey where your ears tell you it's right and you find the architects of the music there waiting for you, then you know you are home.

I didn't have the benefit of a paint by the numbers kit, I just had the faint sound to follow.  Consequently, traditionalists become exasperated with my style because I won't stay within the lines.  What lines?  I hear jazz in places I'm not supposed to hear it.  And much of what passes for jazz is just a never ending mathematical equation with all the joy of an 8th grade algebra class. So I follow what I hear.

Sure, there were Thelonius Monk albums left in the wrong section of the record store that lead me to the party but at that time it was more about the funny looking dude with a scraggly beard and the funky hats. Besides, he didn't play the right notes and it sounded funny. But there was always something about it that would not allow you to let go.  Then again, the path leads you right back to Monk's music.

But once I found the architects, more Diz than Byrd, I didn't, and I still don't feel like I need any instruction.  I know it as well as anyone.  If what I am hearing is not to your liking then maybe its you that needs to change.   I let my ears guide me to the place I should be.  And usually, without fail, my ears lead me to the real music.

Throughout the course of this journey, I have found one simple unwavering truth that guides everything; I am the foremost authority in the world on what I like to hear.