A Journey Into Jazz
Recollections of a Jazz Fan, With Photos
Anecdotes and Photos of a Jazz Fan
Introduction
I’m not a musician. I’m not a music critic. I am simply a fan of jazz who is also a
photographer. Though I didn't know what
it was called at the time, my earliest recollection of jazz occurred while growing up in
1950's Indiana. My father had a couple
of LP albums I liked listening to; one was by Stan Kenton and the other was the
sound track from the film "The Glenn Miller Story," which had James
Stewart and June Allison on the cover.
My interest in jazz and music didn't really begin until after we moved
to Sacramento, California. Our home had
a basement where my father set up a work bench.
We fooled around with electronics; dad repaired our TV and radio when
they occasionally blinkered out, and I experimented with a variety of projects. Above his work bench my father placed an FM
radio he had salvaged. I learned about
jazz by listening to a Sacramento FM station located in the Elks Building in
downtown Sacramento. Its call letters
may have been KHIQ. Whatever station it
was, it was in business prior to KZAP which followed it at the same location.
During my sophomore or junior year in high school I first heard Dave
Brubeck and became a fan. It wasn't long
before I began frequenting Sacramento record stores. My favorites were Tower
Records (which was the very first one and located in the same building as the
Tower Theater), Pacific Records downtown on J Street, and another downtown on K
Street. Around this time I joined the
Columbia Record Club and subscribed to Down
Beat magazine. The first LP album I
purchased was Gone With the Wind by The Dave Brubeck Quartet and the
second was Kind of Blue by Miles Davis.
Listening to Kind of Blue, I became a huge fan of John Coltrane. Down
Beat magazine and ESP records helped me discover musicians such as Ornette
Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Sunny Murray, Milford Graves,
Jackie McLean, Don Pullen and Albert Ayler.
About
1961 I went to see the Dave Brubeck Quartet in concert at the Sacramento
Memorial Auditorium, the first jazz concert I ever attended. The first half of the program the quartet
played with the Sacramento Symphony under the direction of Howard Brubeck,
Dave's brother. The second half of the
program was just the quartet. Fifteen
minutes prior to the scheduled start of the concert, I decided to go backstage
with some of the albums to gather autographs. Off to stage right was a room where Brubeck
and the rest of the Quartet (Paul Desmond, Gene Wright and Joe Morello) and others
were busy preparing for the concert. Holding my albums, I walked part way into the
room. I was quite nervous and I had no
idea how I was going to penetrate the situation. Since everyone was so busy it seemed like I
was unnoticed. Standing alone on the
right of the room, Desmond looked lost in deep introspection or
meditation. I stood there for what seemed
to be an eternity, wondering what to do when Desmond casually walked across the
room and simply stood next to me without saying a word. At the time I didn't understand what he had
done for me. I seized the opportunity
and ask Mr. Desmond for his autograph. It
would be a few years before I was able to recognize the implication of
Desmond's gesture. The beauty of that
moment will never be lost for me. I only
regret that I did not understand it at the time so I could have told him so.
______________
RBP will publish A Journey Into Jazz early next year.
TS
RBP will publish A Journey Into Jazz early next year.
TS
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