Since I became ill, jazz has become essential. Not background music — actual sustenance. The kind of thing I need most days.

It started eight years ago with Kind of Blue by Miles Davis (1959). I play it almost every day still. “So What,” “Freddie Freeloader,” “Blue in Green” — they create this suspended space where time slows down and opens up. I can just inhabit it without having to follow anything or interpret anything.

From there I discovered I wasn’t after modal Jazz as a formula. I wanted hard bop and soul jazz with groove and momentum. Music with life and pulse. Lee Morgan, Kenny Burrell, Art Blakey, Ahmad Jamal, Donald Byrd. That 1957-1962 Blue Note era when everything clicked perfectly.

Lyrics are cognitively exhausting — they demand attention I don’t have. Instrumental jazz lets me float. It creates brain wave patterns that sync me up and keep me going.

This section documents albums that have mattered. Not reviews — just what they do, why they work, and what I hear in them.

More to follow… in the meantime, a selection of vintage jazz tracks (samples) – featuring: Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and others, to hopefully set the mood.

Track List

1. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – So Tired
2. Dexter Gordon – Love For Sale
3. Ike Quebec – Heavy Soul
4. Miles Davis – Freddie Freeloader
5. Thelonious Monk – Blue Monk
6. Sonny Rollins – Decision

Perrenial Favourites:

Related articles:
The Machine That Reminded Us What Music Is
Somethin’ Else & Kind of Blue (The Pivot Point)

This blog is written with the assistance of Claude. That’s not a footnote — it’s rather the point.