The Jazz Purge

I remember when I was in college, I was being exposed to all sorts of new sounds and falling head over heels in love with each and everyone of them at a pretty rapid pace. Old timey country, blues, opera, modern classical, funk and jazz. Indie rock was still my mainstay but I was happy to fill my ears with a wild assortment of new noises. At one point in my Sophomore year, I found myself sick to death of all that boring indie rock and all the old standards I had relied on for years and wanted to sell my entire cd collection and start over fresh. I remember Frank Black's album "The Cult of Ray" as being the impetus for this desired purging. A major disappointment from an artist I thought I could rely on came at the exact right time to highlight what was lacking in my music choices.

I never did sell everything but it started me on a path of constant evaluation, reconsideration and revision of my music collection. It seems lately that every 3 months I am checking the shelves and pulling out the dead weight. I'm not someone who wants a showpiece, I want a vital, active collection that actually gets listened to. Nostalgia affects me as much as anyone, if not more, but I don't want to hang on to too many cds simply for sentimental value when I will never actually listen to them. I've gotten to the point where a memory is good enough.

So during my most recent journey through the stacks, I made significant discovery. I don't care for jazz very much. In college I fell for it hard - every era had something to offer me whether it was hard bop, swing, free or even fusion but over the years I find myself listening to it less and less. There are a number of reasons for its fall from grace, including:

1. No guitars. Unless you're way into Wes Montgomery (I'm not) or *shudder* John Pizzarelli, you're not going to get much guitar action in your typical plunk plunk toot music. I have recently accepted my addiction to and slavery to the guitar and jazz guitar just doesn't feed the sickness.

2. Too many damn solos. If Phish and the rest of the sea of jam band losers are acceptable to mock mercilessly, why not jazzbos? Whether on a guitar, flute or alto sax, wankery is still wankery.

3. No words. I like a melody to sing along with and it's hard to sing a jumpy little trumpet line for long without feeling alittle bit insane.

4. Terrible reissue nonsense. I like jazz but I don't love it which is too bad because many lables like to include alternate takes on their reissues. This wouldn't be such a problem were they to put the Take 3 version after the official release but they don't. Both Impulse and Blue Note, and others I'm sure, like to mix them right into the album so you sometimes get back to back versions of the same song. It's not a hobby of mine to play spot the difference between Bobby Timmons' solo during two different versions of "Sincerely Diana."

I'm not getting rid of all of it, I'm just cutting off the fat. The albums I'm excising have become background music and I feel guilty not giving them my full attention when listening but I just don't have any interest in putting them on these days. Maybe when I'm older I'll get my attention span back.