I have been debating when to write about this, what it means to me. Posting a few days before my 47th birthday seems as apropos as any.
As for what to say...well, I've written and deleted about 2,000 words so far. Awfully verbose for an otherwise terse typist, but there's a lot of feeling wrapped up in this freebie from the third year of CMJ New Music Monthly giveaways. It was, indeed, my introduction to Letters to Cleo and Ben Folds Five. That pair of 90s alternative mainstays were key bonding points between the missus and I during our early courting. Urge Overkill and Cracker were getting regular airplay on WHFS, along with Big Audio Dynamite. I'll admit: even at this late date, I still have fond memories of Hagfish's "Stamp", one of the best songs from 1995 about cunnilingus. Even cuts from Folk Implosion and S.C.O.T.S. are stuck in my head 29 years later.
This one's important for track 9. My upbringing exposed me to showtunes, soul music, and country, with a smattering of contemporary pop/rock. But jazz was something I just never encountered until that day in late summer 1995 that I picked up this issue of CMJ. Hearing the second part of "A Love Supreme" was like a lightning bolt from heaven. From those first notes plucked by Jimmy Garrison, I was hooked. I've written a few times about John Coltrane and what his music means to me, Well, this is the Rosetta Stone. This is the thing that unlocked so much; my obsession with Coltrane, my love of free jazz and the avant-garde, my introduction to the vast catalog of Impulse! Records.
Discogs tells me I currently own five copies of "A Love Supreme": cassette and vinyl copies from the mid-80s on MCA Impulse!, a vinyl pressing from 1995, the 2002 Deluxe Edition on 2xCD, and my most recent purchase: the 3xCD "Complete Masters" from 2015. Honestly, that number feels a bit low; I feel like I have to have at least another two CD versions kicking around, and there's a reel to reel that I've been sniffing around about for the past six months. I have a problem; whatever...it's my version of a mid-life crisis.
Anyway, there's Malfunkshun on this, too.
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