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Casey...ouch! Stop busting my chops ;-)
Rok2id...I was into jazz eons before I became an audiophile. So no, I'm not limited to audiophile recordings...as a matter of fact every recording that I own, LP and cd is the off-the-shelf variety that any ordinary Joe bought from the record stores. I have no problem with the seminal figures go, I like what I like....and I just don't care for their music. Now this may really get me kicked off of this forum, but I like Diana Ross's interpretations of Billie Holiday's songs better than Billie's original version.
At 60 years of age, with a ton of existing recordings in my collection that I like...and the great stuff that I'm discovering on Pandora, I feel no obligation to own any records by the seminal figures in jazz if I don't like their music. I only have so much time to devote to listening to music, and when I do, you'd better kick ass and its got to be enjoyable. I'll be damned if I'm going to listen to Armstrong or Ellington when I prefer Freddie Hubbard or Kenny Barron. Historical significance be damned, I listen to what I like.
I'm still open to discovering music by jazz icons of the past. For a lot of them, I simply just have not gotten around to them. When I find a musician that I like, I tend to collect everything they ever did...and play it. Do that a few times over, and you simply run out of time to include every one. Someone's going to get left out.
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