Jazz for someone who doesn't like jazz.

Oregonpapa is your man for this.
He helped me a LOT with exactly the same quandary.
Some of his choices were excellent.
Maybe shoot him a pm?

@n80 - Good to see you posting. Seems like I haven’t seen you on A-goN for a while. I hope all is well with you.

I’m not really much of a jazz fan, but I do like Steely Dan and I’ve heard plenty of jazz that I do enjoy (and much that I don’t enjoy!). I’ll try to post a few tunes to this thread every once in a while as something comes to mind.

@mortsnets - Mentioned Bill Frisell. I just listened to David Sanborn - "Another Hand" album a couple of nights ago. Bill Frisell plays guitar on that album and it is fantastic, but very melancholy. Probably not the right album if you are depressed. But, it sets a mood that reminds me of the times we’re living in today. Good stuff. Check out the album, starting at the beginning.

Here’s another good album to start with: Ramsey Lewis - "Wade in the Water" Fun, upbeat stuff.

One more - Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery - "The Dynamic Duo" Another fun one.

Have fun and enjoy.

Jazz makes more sense when you know something about how it’s evolved over maybe a century. Get out of that Steely Dan and Van Morrison mindset for a while, and try listening to what they listened to, jazz wise. Dig up a copy of the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz, and give it a listen some evening.  It’s about 5 LPs set up chronologically. All of these selections are well chosen. See if there’s anything that hits home for you. You might get a surprise or three.

@erik_squires , so Erik, the good news is that it looks like I’m not completely dead inside. Trombone Shorty is good. Looking forward to digging deeper of course, just sampling things right now.

Marcus Miller is good. Maybe a little more funky than I’m looking for but a lot to like. Will dig some more there too.

Liking Bill Frisell’s Nashville album. Not sure I’d have called it jazz though.

Almost all of what I’ve listened to sounds well engineered and really exercise the system. I like what I’m hearing all the way around in terms of production quality.

uberwaltz, I might PM him and see if he’ll check in on this thread.

@reubent I’ve been fine. Just sort of settled in with my system; happy with it and no plans for upgrades etc so I haven’t had much to talk about in that regard. Have missed the music discussions here and need to get back into those. Feeling like I’ve gotten into a rut with my current music and like I might need to expand my horizons a little and thought jazz might help that. So I’m going to explore it. Will look into your recommendations as well. Thanks.

A lot of what I’m hearing so far seems very contemporary. Not that that’s a bad thing at all, but I might like to hear some classic jazz (is that a thing?) recommendations as well.
George

@goheelz , thanks for that recommendation. I was typing the question about the foundational stuff as you were posting.