Having an ear for Jazz

I am with Erikt. It's all good. I still rock out as a child of the 70s, but I have found as I have gotten older that some genres of music that I didn't quite "get" before make a lot more sense now. Starting back playing the guitar after 30 years has brought me back to the roots of rock music--blues especially. So, I have really enjoyed getting to the heart of things on this journey and rediscovering Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Albert King, Elvis, Johnny Cash, etc. In terms of jazz, I always enjoyed the nonlinearity of it as a fan of bands like the Dead. But now that I have a turntable and have some old original 50s and 60s pressings, I really enjoy hearing jazz played as it was meant to be heard. Late at night, lights down, glass in hand, wow.

I listened to a little jazz until my 40's when jazz exploded for me. Now its mostly jazz with some pop, soul, funk, r&b, jazz fusion, progressive rock, and hard rock mixed in. Hard Bop is my love now though.

noisy is a term I use myself to describe all types of music that annoys me.

I often prefer slower or simpler (and often older - 30s, 40s 50s etc.) music these days...

I too have evolved toward more jazz and find myself listening to it almost exclusivly when I put on a CD.

I moved into jazz initially just because I thought I must be missing something. It took a bit of exploration but I found that I was missing a lot. Interestingly this correlated with a diminishing interest in large orchestral pieces (classical) and a development of interest and appreciation into chamber music, especially solo piano.

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My mother loved the Big Bands as this type of music WAS the Pop music of her day, so I was exposed to Jazz since early childhood. Back in the 60's/70's, Rock artists were allowed to jam so recordings by groups like Traffic, Cream, Zappa, Hendrix, etc. released records with long solos. I enjoyed following the thought process of the musicians when they'd solo. From there it was a short hop to listening to Jazz artists doing their thing! I learned about structure and composition later but yeah...Jazz rules!!!