My Personal Experience with Jazz
I am not a jazz expert. Far from it, in fact. I have an EXTREMELY rudimentary understanding of basic jazz theory (I know just enough to know that I know nothing). I only really write about jazz because I like it a lot. Some people find it odd that I listen to jazz music. There aren’t that many “zoomers” who listen to jazz that regularly. So, why do I like jazz so much? This is a question that I’ve asked myself many times, and I’ve finally decided that I am going to answer it. Here’s the thing, while you, the reader, are the audience of this short Medium article, I’m also writing this for myself. I hope that maybe in the process of writing and recalling fond memories, I can ignite an even deeper and more sincere appreciation for the art form for myself. Hopefully as you, the reader, read my ramblings on my personal connections with jazz music, you can recall yourself a music genre close to you, and bring up those warm and fuzzy feelings. Let’s get nostalgic.
Jazz music has always been a part of my life, as far as I can remember. I grew up in Saint Louis, Missouri, the jazz capital of the Midwest (I made that up, I just wanted to say something like that)! However, I would say the man responsible for exposing me to the genre would be my father. There are three main genres that I could pin to him, jazz music, military marches, and 80s music (really all over the place). Jazz music would be the music that we would listen to in the car driving from place to place. My parents splurged on Satellite Radio, so the station Real Jazz was one of the few that he listened to. While I have no inherent problems with Real Jazz, they were limited on the full scope of jazz music. Real Jazz only really focused on jazz music that came out roughly from the 30s to the early 60s. So that means lots of big band swing, and smaller traditional jazz ensembles. I have lots of fond memories of my dad happily tapping and humming the chorus of some fast-tempo big band song driving to some location while I sort of half-listened in the middle of playing my black Nintendo DSi.
My first in-depth encounter with music was in the 4th grade. That year, I started learrning how to play the trombone. I originally wanted to learn how to play, because members of the University City High School marching band visited my elementary school one day and basically did a presentation, advertising the arts and so-what. I remember looking at the trombones standing in a line and thinking to myself, “those look unique, I want to learn that one”. I took private lessons for two years, learning the basics, like reading music and how to play the trombone correctly and efficiently. In 6th grade, I joined the Brittany Woods Middle School Concert Band. There were three concert bands, one for each grade level, therefore I was in the 6th grade band. I originally had two other trombone companions in the 6th grade band, but over time they both quit. I remember that I didn't like them that much, probably because they didn’t care that much about playing the music that well. Throughout my time in the concert band program in BWMS, I was immersed in concert band songs from 6th grade to 8th grade.
The 8th grade was probably one of my most important milestones in my musical development for two reasons. The first (and less important) reason was because I started to buy and listen to music on my own. I had some Android smartphone for about a year now, and I wanted to listen to music. With the little allowance money that I would get per week, I would use a portion of that to buy songs from the Google Play Music Store (Rest In Peace). This was pretty important because regardless of the fact that I mostly bought songs that I recognized off the internet and radio, I started forming my own musical opinions. The first album that I bought was, coincendentally, a jazz album: Trombone Shorty’s For True. If I could put a sound to Trombone Shorty’s music, I would call it contemporary New Orleans swing. The only reason why I bought it was because my father made an off-comment saying that I should really listen to his music to gain inspiration. The second reason why the 8th grade was important for me musically was because this is when I joined the jazz band. The BWMS jazz band was exclusively for 8th graders. Jazz music was a lot more technically impressive to play than normal concert band music, so if you wanted to prove yourself (at least from the eyes of your average BWMS musician), you had to join the jazz band, and I did. Every day after school, the jazz band would meet for 45 minutes and play jazz songs. Of my brief time in the jazz band, there were three songs that stuck with me: Chameleon and Watermelon Man, both by Herbie Hancock and Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, by Cannonball Adderley. The song that stuck with me the most was Watermelon Man. I didn't realize it at the time, but that song broadened my horizons on what could be categorized as “jazz music”. Watermelon Man and Chameleon were released out in 1973, they sounded nothing like what I was normally accustomed to as “jazz music”. I remember listening to the official release on YouTube and being confused, almost disappointed. “Is this jazz?” I thought.
I originally didn’t want to attend a private Catholic high school, but that’s where my parents ended up sending me. My freshman year at Saint Louis University High School was a little bit rocky. I originally had a plan to purposefully tank my grades in order to flunk out of SLUH, forcing my parents to send me to UCHS, where all my friends were. I quickly gave up on that plan, sticking to instead showing my fellow classmates the best person I could be. With that mentality in mind, I auditioned to be in the concert band and jazz band at SLUH. SLUH did things a bit differently compared to BWMS, however. There were two jazz bands, Jazz 1 and Jazz 2. Jazz 2 was the more easy jazz course, while Jazz 1 was the flagship jazz band that played at many events, particiapted in competitions, etc. There were also Jazz Combos that you can join, which were small jazz ensembles comprised of no more than 5–6 people, with little supervision from the instructor. Both Jazz Combos and the Jazz Bands met at Zero Hour, which means that class started at 7:00AM, one hour before school officially began. 2 years into my college experience, I almost shudder waking up at 6:00 in the morning almost every day to go to school. For concert band, there were 2 levels, Concert Band and Symphonic Band. The concert band program worked a lot like the jazz program, substituting Jazz 2 with concert band and Jazz 1 with Symphonic Band. While I did great in the concert band section, making Symphonic Band, I fell short and made Jazz 2. I played in Jazz 2 for my Freshman and Sophomore years, graduating to Jazz 1 in my Junior and Senior years.
The music that I listened to in my spare time in my early high school career was mostly rap music and the occasional pop song that I found catchy. I didn't use any streaming service, so whatever music I bought, I listened to extensively. I also discovered that you could rip audio from YouTube videos, so I would mix in some song remixes that I found on YouTube along with my legitimate purchases. The only jazz music that I would really listen to (besides the one Trombone Shorty album that I bought in the 8th Grade), would be youtube videos of songs that we were playing in jazz band. Our teacher for Jazz 2 only let us play big band swing arrangements from the 30s and 40s, to basic high school jazz band arrangements that were made in the late 90s to early 00s (songs that were never popular, but if you asked a kid who did jazz in high school, they would recognize it almost instantly). This would all change at the end of my Junior year of high school. I discovered the wonders of streaming services. It blew my mind that you could listen to almost ANY song that you wanted to, without having to directly pay for it. On the summer of 2018, I transferred fully from Google Play Music to Spotify. I was making playlists left and right for random things like “stuff my mom would listen to” to “meme trash” which would be a collection of songs that would play in meme videos online.
I would say that the move to Spotify seriously kicked off my voyage into the jazz world. I originally made a playlist (now deleted) of the songs that we played in Jazz 1 that year. This was my first instance of listening to random jazz music on my own. The Spotify curated playlist “Late Night Jazz” and “Coffee Table Jazz” helped me a lot on those late nights of studying in my late Junior and Senior Years. In the summer of 2018, I bought a cheap trombone book from Amazon that had a list of 101 jazz standards. In that book, it had the chorus of famous jazz tunes, along with the changes to help noodle on. I think the book was on a different key, though, because when I played the chorus to some of the songs, they sounded *off*. In order to help me better understand these songs, I had made a playlist of these songs and simply named it “trombone book”, nothing too flashy. However, as I discarded the book, I kept on listening to that playlist. It had a lot of good tracks on it, such as Misty by Stan Getz, Take the “A” Train, by Duke Ellington, the list goes on and on! I would say that Spotify has one of the greatest song recommendation algorithms in the game currently. As Senior year of high school progressed, I found myself adding and subtracting songs from the playlist, songs that in my mind “every person who’s into jazz should know”. I changed the playlist from “trombone book” to “Big Lou’s Playlist of Jazz Essentials”. I remember being so proud of that playlist, that I was going somewhere. I plugged, and still do plug that playlist from time to time on social media. Near the end of high school, I changed the playlist from “Big Lou’s Playlist of Jazz Essentials” to “Big Lou’s Jazz Favorites”, because I came to the epiphany that there are tons of “essential jazz” playlists out there on Spotify, and I wanted mine to stick out.
Since graduating from high school and into college at Loyola University New Orleans, my interest for jazz only grew deeper. Jazz, in a sort of a way, helped me fight off homesickness, especially within those first few months. It reminded me of home, and those drives with my father. I had watched the Ken Burns miniseries on jazz history, furthering my interest on the topic. I started expanding my boundaries on the jazz genre, listening to different subgenres extensively, like jazz fusion and bossa nova. I hit a HUGE bossa nova phase in my Freshman year of college, citing Wave by Antonio Carlos Jobim as my favorite jazz album to anyone who would ask. I signed up and worked a desk assistant job for my dorm building. Being a desk assistant meant that I would have to stay up all night and play as a security guard at the front desk of my dorm building. To help pass the time and set a mood in the lobby, I would play relaxing jazz music through my MacBook speakers. Studying and my desk assistant job were the main times that I would listen to and discover new jazz music freshman year via the Spotify algorithm.
My sophomore year had a somewhat major shift in my jazz journey. I began to write Medium articles on the genre, forcing me to heavily research jazz history.I also heavy reorganized my Spotify playlists, creating individual jazz-centered playlists, with each containing music from a time period. The first was jazz1, which focuses on jazz that came out through the 30s through mid 50s. The second was jazz2, which focuses on jazz that came out in the mid to late 50s through the 60s. The third was (you guessed it) jazz3, which focuses on jazz that came out in the 70s. The fourth playlist was jazz4, which focuses on jazz that came out from the 80s to the present. Lastly, the final playlist was the one that I mentioned above, Big Lou’s Jazz Favorites, a culmination of everything that I love from every time period.
Jazz music has played a pretty major part of my life. I’ve grown up listening to it, I’ve physically played it, and I’ve even written about it. However, I’m still far away from considering myself a jazz expert. I see the occasional YouTube video of some dude flexing off his massive jazz record collection, and be able to recall the history behind almost each record. I watch these types of videos and I find myself idolizing these guys. They are the types of dude that I want to be growing up. I’m still in the middle of my jazz journey, I’m learning and listening to new things every week. Like I said above, this article was just as much for me as it was for you, the reader. I had a fun time writing this article and reminiscing on my love for jazz music. As I continue to write about and research jazz music, I hope that there is one day where I can truly call myself a jazz expert. But until then, I can say that my feelings for jazz music are real, and I can appreciate the genre for helping me shape me into the man that I am today. :-)
