My grandmother gave me Art Blakey A Night at Birdland Vol.1 for Christmas when I was six, in 1971. She didn't know much about modern jazz but she said the guy at the record store said this was a good one. My father was a jazz nut and knew what it was and didn't think I was old enough to have real records yet. By age 7 I convinced him to let me play records from his collection on his system. I played the Birdland record some, but mostly Dad's dixieland records. The Firehouse Five, and Bob Scobey. He played Bird, Blakey, Kenton and Brubeck a lot. Then at age 9 I started playing trumpet, and started to get more records for Christmas and birthday, mostly trumpet and jazz combo music, as well as a lot of big band stuff. At this point the Blakey Night at Birdland started getting a lot more play, and by high school listening to it had persuaded me to becomes a jazz musician like my idol Clifford Brown, featured on that record. I still have it, although it is warped now. I have given it as a gift many times, and learned from fellow musicians that it was as influential on their decision to become jazz musician as it was for me. I went to college near a record store that speciallized in japanese Blue note reissues cutouts. So my brother and I bought just about every record in the catalog on vinyl for $4 each - new. That was before Bruce Lundvall convinced EMI to restart Blue Note here in US. Interestingly, I met Bruce Lundvall in his manhattan office in 1984, he told me he was about my age then when he attended that Birdland gig and saw Clifford play with Blakey. He said it was electrifying, and started his love of jazz and his professional career in music. By high school I had a few hundred LPs, mostly 50s-60s bebop. I still have them and play them a lot. I started buying CDs after I got married in 92. Had no way to play CDs before then and no interest in the music that was on CDs before then. When I got into classical music along with hifi in 2004 I started buying a lot of classical records. Probably a couple thousand in all now. I listen to about 100 of them regularly. Prokoviev, Beethoven, Bird, Brown, Blakey, Trane, and some 70-80s rock/pop, as well as current pop with my kids.
Rich
