What I've been listening to this week

About two weeks ago, I ordered seven CD's from half.com. All were musicians I didn't have in my collection yet, except for Miles Davis. All of them are also on the Penguin Jazz recordings core collection (which is the single main driver behind my jazz music purchases, for now). Here's the list:

Pithecanthropus Erectus - Charles Mingus
Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins
Have a Little Faith - Bill Frisell
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
Point of Departure - Andrew Hill
The Big Gundown - John Zorn
Jazz in Silhouette - Sun Ra

Since they arrived one or two a day over about a week, I had a chance to give all but one a good listen last week. John Zorn is certainly the farest out there, with Mingus and Hill not far behind with their avant garde approach and some very weird sounding stuff. So, I was getting my jazz guitar fix (which doesn't take long and lasts a long time, especially after trying out two Pat Metheny CD's from the library the week before) listening to Frisell when Miles arrived. As luck would have it, I've been working on So What for the last two weeks, analyzing and breaking down the So What chords, and playing the song pretty regularly in each practice session. Anyway, after listening to Kind of Blue, I haven't been able to put any other CD in my player since. I just can't stop listening to it. I don't really remember the last time I got an album and couldn't turn it off for the longest time. (It's probably something like Propeller Heads or Fat Boy Slim back when I was on my electro-dance-pop music bender six or seven years ago.) What a simply amazing album Kind of Blue is. So much depth! It's just stunning. And of course, now I can actually play So What and make it sound like it was intended to sound, sort of. To all beginning jazz fans and musicians: If you do not have Kind of Blue in your CD collection, make sure you get a copy. Make it a priority to add that to your collection before you add any other album. I wish somebody had told me as much when I was starting out on my own jazz journey.

By the way, you can see my reviews of the above albums (and many more) on amazon.com. Just go to <http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3QS4WWC1LCA6H/ref=cm_aya_pdp_home>.