Do you remember your first jazz album that made everything click? Mine I think was Miles Davis Kind Of Blue when I was 18/19 years old
Ok, for me, the song that kind of got it all started, was something I heard while I was watching the movie, "A Separate Peace". (BTW, I know how to spell the word "separate", because I'll never forget I got that wrong on a spelling test, and Mrs. Sammis let me know forever forth, that the spelling is not "seperate"!) Anyway, we had also just read the book "A Separate Peace", and coincidentally, there was a new movie of it out that year, which came out in 1972 or '73. Well the movie starts, and not too long into it, it goes into flashback mode, with Phineas and the rest of his school mates playing lacrosse, in the sunny, colorful '40's. And the song that is playing during this scene, which I did not know at the time, is Sy Oliver's "Opus No. 1". The thing is, is that the sound wasn't of an old record or anything, but it was a modern recording of the song, completely fresh and new. Sounded like the band was right there. The song, and the concept of hearing it played that way, hit me full force.
So if you're still with me...I go home and I tell my parents about this, and I start humming the tune. They recognized it, and my mother said, "I think we have that". They had a pretty big collection of 78s and we start going through them. We found the song, put it on the record player, and there it was - "Opus No. 1" by Tommy Dorsey's orchestra - and Buddy Rich was the drummer, who takes a nice break at the end. That was the song that got me started. ("I Dream of You (More Than You Dream I Do))" was the song on the flip side, which I got to know too, because it was there.)