Mad About Drums
Pollyanna's Agent
...just thinking "How did you acquire a taste for jazz?" would be a cool topic...
Well, considering the recent threads about jazz, it’s not a bad idea actually, we could all share our little anecdote on how and/or why we came round to enjoy such music.
It would be also a great insight to know each other a bit better, at least on this very topic, there’s been a lot of discussion about jazz these last few days, but no one, at the exeption of Anon La Ply, told the forum how they acquired a taste for jazz, so this thread could be the very place to do such a thing.
So, here we are, I shamelessly “steal” Anon’s idea )
Here’s my storytelling…
Like Anon, and many others I’m sure, I come from a rock background, my first ever “proper” favourite band and drum hero as a teenager were the Beatles and Ringo Starr, from there I moved on to all the classic rock and prog rock band of my time, from the Stones to Cream, from Led Zep to Yes, from Deep Purple to Rush and every other big names in between at that times.
I was very keen on knowing all the names of these players, who’s playing with whom and so on, when Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple, he was replaced by by a guitarist named Tommy Bolin, and I spent an awful lot of time in records shop, looking at the back of albums, trying to find a new gem for my records collection, and there it was, a totally unknown drummer to me back then, going by the name of Billy Cobham, had a record out called Spectrum with the aforementioned Tommy Bolin on guitar, I thought cool, lets have it, when I had listen to it, I was blew away by Red Baron and (especially) Stratus, I thought this was the coolest music I ever heard, so I started to research more about that Billy guy, which led to Mahavishnu Orchestra, from there it just went on to more interesting and inspiring discoveries.
In my mid 20’s, I made a move from rock drumming to play with bands which had some jazz, fusion influences, and playing with these musicians, I discovered more and more jazz music.
I love jazz, and I still love rock, but as a player, I’m no jazz guy, at best I’m a groovy fusion meet jazz meet rock type of drummer.
My story is based on a natural evolution in taste(s) in music and I’m as much an audiophile as I’m a drummer
… so, what’s your story?