Jazz or smooth jazz??? My brother says smooth is the sound of now.....

[ProfessorGAC]

32. My Favorite

My dad was a west coast jazz guy. (Farlow, Randolph, Brubeck, et al.) He had an album he never listened to that was Monk, Bird, Mingus, but i now forget the drummer. (Jones?)

Anyway, when i'm 10 and had been playing piano for about 6 years, i heard that album and that was it.

Changed teachers to a jazz guy because i wanted to play like Monk. It's so liberating because there are no "rules". Play what sounds right.

Now, as a jazz student, i was required to explain everything i was doing, so it wasn't purely freeform, but i learned more about the construction of music in 2 years, by a factor of 10, than i learned in the first 6.

Still love listening to Monk.

Then, when my last band got together in the late 80's, the drummer had never heard of Monk. This guy he knows gave him a jazz sampler CD and he was in the car listening when he said he flashed "This piano player sounds like GAC." At a red light, he picked up the CD case and it was Monk.

I felt i had accomplished my mission, after that. (BTW: Not saying i was as good. But, enough of a disciple that a non-jazz guy heard it.)