The Jazz in me

Lately, there's been a real deep urge in me to get more into the jazz side of me. I've started a pretty intense study of the history of Jazz.

I've read jazz artists that say, before you can play jazz you need to know its history. I'm starting to understand what that means.

There's such a rich history that we just don't think about, especially those of us who discovered jazz later and have grown up in the contemporary and pop eras.

To many current folks on the street, Kenny G is jazz. Or Michael Buble.

Both of these guys certainly do good work and have made a career for themselves. But when you look back to the beginnings, with Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, King Oliver, and Duke Ellington, who were all sharpening against each other in the early 20s, it's easy to feel like you are in the wrong place at the wrong time as a jazz musician.

Boy, the 20s were ROCKIN for jazz listeners.

And it gets better from there as swing came in, then bebop, and cool jazz. All those guys you've heard about in the periphery like Stan Getz, John Coltrane, and of course Miles Davis, were all playing together and apart for years, and we missed it all!

So, I feel there is almost an unmistakable pull, maybe even by God, to enter into study of jazz past, so that I can become better at what I feel is the future of what I'm supposed to do here.

To grow past what I am now, which has been great and most people are perfectly happy with. To further figure out the jazz in me.