That First Memory
As long as I can remember I’ve had a deep fascination and love of Jazz Music. I don’t recall how and or when was the first time I realized how much I loved the genre; however if my memory servers me right it was when I was a little boy maybe 11-12 years old. It was quite evening in Mississauga my mother in the living room watching television and brother asleep in his room, we just moved from Downtown Toronto, Mississauga only a population of 200K + at the time. I was in my room cleaning and organizing my cloths and random toys I was beginning to outgrow. During a break I was beside the window in my room fiddling around with the AM/FM radio trying to get a signal… and then this sound came through the haze and fuzz of radio the signals crossing, I adjusted the dial with surgical precision until, wow that…. flute I knew the instrument because in my grade 4 music class we learned about them and heard the sounds. At that time I was becoming a master of “Hot, Cross, Buns on the Recorder”, the pride I had playing that simple melody you would think that I was Miles Davis prodigy with the grin of achievement and satisfaction on my face once done. However this sound on the radio was a lot different, It defiantly wasn’t Mrs. Burnett’s music class of a bunch of out-of-tune elementary students blowing recklessly on recorders, this sound was, it was…. it was world class! So smooth anyone who was blessed with the ability to hear could realize it instantly.
Photograph: Redferns Redferns/REDFERNS / Redferns via http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/aug/09/john-coltrane-giant-step
Introduced To A Classic
Then the radio announcer said as the music slowly faded the radio honed in super clear, “you were just listening to John Coltrane’s Classic “Favorite Things”, from his 7th studio album in 1961″. That very moment time stood still, it was only 1994-1995, and in between playing my NHL 94′ on Super Nintendo (arguably the best video game ever) from that moment on through the years I would make time in the evenings every weekend to stay up late and listening to Jazz music played on CBC Radio.
[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH3JpqhpkXg” width=”250″]
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