I admire your taste!

My point of departure, is more of a port of entry, a Burroughs type kick out of the mainstream and into self-actualisation, except it didn't happen overnight and there was no moment of epiphany of storming the reality studio and spliced the tape deck.  There where two albums, not explicity jazz, but the tinged English jazz of TSC's "Cafe Bleu" and later Sting's lightly seared jazz on the live album "Bring on the Night". These opened the door to modern jazz and what later I became aware as "preppiness" and much later, very much later, Ivy-style.

Bruce Weber's film on Chet Baker was also important, turning me onto West coast cool.

There was no jazz in my house, none of my friend's fathers digged jazz, none of my uncles either. I belong to that last generation whose parents generally had all their children by the time there were 25. My father is 20 years older than me, and at times swore he had been a mod and a hippy, what had my generation ever done? He use to ask, whilst also having a go for never volunteering to work on a cancer ward or such like, and inbetween bouts of complaining about my school record.

My father's generation, at least in the suburbs of the North West of England, had no record collections of any worth: a few tapes of John Denver, some rebel Country, Rod Stewart and the Small Faces.  They never listened to anything that was not deemed contemporary.  They dug what was in the charts and considered anything else old hat. They liked their dinner on the table at certain times, liked to get pissed every Sunday afternoon at the British Legion and come back to the house all angry and mean.

They also dressed in stinking jeans outside of work and although they liked to get pissed and drive around completely sloshed, they were serious and narrow minded. If you weren't into football, played rugger or were obsessed with some kind of sport than you were some kind of effeminate mincing queen.

'Effing awful when you come to think of it.

And jazz and the style of Montgomery Clift, was away out of this.  Ofcourse, back in the days before the net, research was more problematic and to become sussed was more difficult, especially out in the suburbs, where there was not much happening. I remember trying to get hold of some Sun Ra in the early Nineties, damn near impossible.

Even at college, everyone was into the indy-pop scene, or wanted to be a goth. It was all pretty grim and deeply unrewarding for me, not connecting with anyone for many, many years.

But jazz had become a guerilla tactic, a way of ensuring I moved on and constantly searched for something else. And fortunately there were plenty of good jazz reissues doing the rounds in the Nineties, starting with the Verve releases of Bird in celebration of his 75th birthday and later, the Columbia Miles reissues. The situation is even better now, what with all the Japanese imports and 24bit remasters.

Style wise, its a constant search for the essence, and BB and English C&J shoes is no longer enough, it's Alden cordovan and the cod-Ivy of Mercer shirts from now on. Bill's Khakis will be next.....

Music wise, its time to go further back into swing and the nascent Ivy-style of the '30's, a time when jazz became sophisticated and urbane.

As Alex rightly states its an "acquired taste" like drinking aged whisky, its not meant for the masses, or indeed, those who close themselves off into aristocracies of mediocrity, it is an elite ministry (open to everyone) of those who dig the greatest music of the 20th century and the genius of potential and style that came out of the Ivy league universities.

But it is indeed more than all of this.

There was absolutely no need to revive this and mention Jimmy and anything around him. Leave the man in peace.

The guy was mentally ill and killed himelf, have you no compassion?

You didn't mention his journey/life as you try to justify it with above - you made an easy pot shot about his attention seeking. Which I think we can all see now as part of a bigger picture that led to tragic consequences.

Last edited by An Unseen Scene (2021-10-13 07:17:44)