June 2025

When I was in high school, most of the kids were glued to the pop charts. And to be fair, that era—late ’50s through the ’70s—produced some of the best music ever recorded, much of which is still being played today. But thanks to a lucky break during my sophomore year in high school, I was given a free ticket to Jazz at the Philharmonic, a touring group of jazz performers. There I was introduced to something entirely different: Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and a world of sound that wasn’t topping the charts but was quickly grabbing my attention. That one night launched a lifelong love of jazz, even as everyone else seemed to be surfing to the Beach Boys.

Don’t get me wrong, I still loved the pop and folk music of the time. During college, you listened to what the majority was listening to. But my collection of jazz albums was growing and I could get my fix in my room. Later, while living at the beach in Southern California, beach music wasn’t optional if you wanted to be socially acceptable. The Eagles, Bread, Mamas and Papas, Crosby, Stills & Nash—even the Carpenters had their place in the sun. But on weekends, after the sand cleared and the crowds thinned, I could head to places like The Lighthouse or The Manne-Hole in Hermosa Beach for something deeper, more textured. Real jazz.

While my friends were collecting 45s of “Surfer Girl” and following American Bandstand, I was subscribed to the Columbia Jazz Record Club (such a deal! Sign up and get 10 albums and only had to buy one a month for the next year. Do that for a couple of years, and your library would grow to 40 or 50 albums for not a lot of money). Every month, new albums arrived—sometimes Miles Davis, sometimes George Shearing, occasionally something delightfully obscure from artists I had not yet heard of. My tastes didn’t follow the charts; they followed the improvisations and inventiveness of musicians who never seemed to play the same way twice.

Back then, music came to you on someone else’s schedule. The DJs and record producers decided what played. You could change stations to shift the flavor a bit, but it was their show. Some of my friends had decent collections of 45s that we’d listen to at gatherings, but if you wanted jazz? That was on you. I was fortunate to live in the Bay Area and then later in Los Angeles where radio stations were plentiful, but few, if any, played jazz. That meant finding time and space to play my own music.

Truth is, I wasn’t much for standard two- or four-beat music. Either the rhythm moved me or it didn’t. Dave Brubeck proved that odd time signatures could still groove with “Take Five” in 1959—one of the few jazz tracks that cracked the pop charts. A lot of pop was just background to me, though folk and edge-country caught my attention. The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary on one end; Ray Charles and the Rolling Stones on the other—they had something to say and played it well. But jazz… jazz said something without words—except for Ella, Diana, Sarah.

In the 1970s and ’80s, my musical world morphed again. Pop began to sound increasingly processed and shallow. I often refer to the ’80s and much of the ’90s as a wasteland of popular music. Can anyone make sense of why rap is popular?

I was fortunate living on the Peninsula in Northern California to discover KCSM, a radio station that played jazz all day and sponsored events throughout the Bay Area. This was pre-internet, pre-streaming, and it was a welcome and consistent source of both traditional and emerging jazz performers.

When I moved from California to Nevada in 2005, radio became a challenge. I drifted even further toward jazz—and to my surprise, toward country music. By then the internet offered multiple new sources. Country had better singers, stronger stories, and—most importantly—clarity. You could understand what they were saying. That was not always the case with the big hits of the time.

These days, I’ve ditched the turntable and tapes, but not the tunes. With Amazon, Spotify, and Pandora, I can summon Stan Getz or Grace Kelly with a voice command or build a playlist around the soulfulness of Sarah Vaughan. I still get my jazz fix, and sometimes I ask Siri or Alexa for something new in that same spirit. But the thrill of the hunt is gone. It’s all too easy—which, honestly, is fine with me. I’m too tired to chase. I just want the good stuff to show up.

In the next article, I’ll look at how streaming services have changed not just what we listen to, but how we listen—and what jazz means when you’re not trying to impress anyone, just trying to enjoy something real.