Music - How do you learn to love jazz? Geoffrey Coombe, a lifelong aficionado, has a few tips for the bemused

How did I become a jazz fan? Jazz was mysterious. It seemed respected but not trusted, held at arm's length. When still in short trousers, I caught a late-night radio broadcast. The aristocratic beauty of Miles Davis with Gil Evans made an impression. And the blues singers were unashamedly emotional. Adolescence brought its own pressures. We were tied in knots by notions of masculinity. Even a single tear was so unmanly. The jazz world was almost exclusively masculine - and yet it was also decidedly emotional. The announcement "Now we're going to sort out the men from the boys!" always meant a slow ballad. But it wasn't always plaintive. When Illinois Jacquet celebrated "Easy Living", the bliss suggested often moved other musicians to tears. Tears were a response particularly dear to Duke Ellington. An Ellington record lurked among my father's shellac 78s. I played "Clarinet Lament (Barney's Concerto)" and "Echoes of Harlem" incessantly.

My first visit to a jazz club - Ronnie Scott's - was unforgettable. Sonny Rollins slowly walked to the stand, unfurling music of real power and substance. Yes, it was demanding, but I can hear it even now. Rollins is famous for playing unlikely, "corny" numbers. Here is another virtue: jazz seems to transmute the mundanity of muzak. It finds value in the ordinary.

Celebration - "good times" - is a forte of jazz. Indeed, no other music can claim the same ability to celebrate life in the present. Many people are bowled over the first time they hear the music. All this exciting stuff made up on the spot! But when the second time sounds much the same, they lose interest. However, continuity counts for as much as spontaneity. No one can dictate when lightning will strike. Some real fans tell me that most nights, people play bad jazz. I do not quite agree. As human beings, we all need talk as much as food and drink. But would we want most of that talk recorded for posterity? Dr Johnson et al sat down to conversation the way we do to a game of chess. (The same age gave us the rarefied dialogue of the string quartet.) Another of jazz's strengths is its kinship with unselfconscious conversation.

While the giant soloists inspire each player to find his true identity, the jazz composer inspires that character to surpass itself, creating a whole more than the sum of its parts. This development of character applies to instruments as well. The hybrid saxophone had no identity until jazz musicians invented and reinvented it. And the variety of muted brass sounds in jazz had no precedent.

The Jazz Legends series of albums from Naxos will help start a library. Louis Armstrong's Heebie Jeebies and Charlie Parker's Ornithology are good places to start. (Yes, the other players often struggle to keep pace, but . . .) The greatest Armstrong solo occurs on "Sweethearts on Parade", when he fronts a band. Count Basie offered a format to Lester Young and other less original soloists: "Doggin' Around" is the masterpiece. With Ellington, "Ko-Ko", "Concerto for Cootie" and "Blue Serge" are supreme.

Two artists who understand the Duke are Miles Davis and Gil Evans, who toge-ther made panoramas of sound. Start with Kind of Blue, Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess. Ellington took jazz out on the road. Start with his 1938-42 phase. "Live" jazz? Parker is your man. Seminal saxophonists? Young, Parker - and Ornette Coleman: check out "Lonely Woman" on The Shape of Jazz to Come. Contemporary masters? Since around 1970, jazz has consolidated rather than tried for originality. But Scott Hamilton is more consistent than his heroes Wardell Gray or Paul Gonsalves. There has been a vogue for sax quartets - catch the World Saxophone Quartet.

After hours? Try Charlie Mingus's East Coasting. The pianist had come straight from the club. Socrates and Plato would approve. I think they would like my two-hour jazz symposia, too.

Geoffrey Coombe is a jazz critic and lecturer based in Cambridge

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website