What were your landmark / gateway LPs?
tabira
856 Posts
So what are the LPs that took you to the next level?
Got me into all jazz-related music in general - Crusaders Southern Comfort
Got me into Jazz-rock fusion in particuler - Joe Henderson Power to the People
Got me paying over 100$ on a single LP and seeing that as totally rational: AEOC Stances ?? Sophie
Got me into all jazz-related music in general - Crusaders Southern Comfort
Got me into Jazz-rock fusion in particuler - Joe Henderson Power to the People
Got me paying over 100$ on a single LP and seeing that as totally rational: AEOC Stances ?? Sophie
Comments
At age 17, when I went off to college, my pops gave me this cassette.
It was a baptism of sorts for Jazz.
This one changed my world forever
FOR HIP HOP: to me, Freestyle Fellowship's Innercity Griots was so influential on my young life.
FOR Soul: Al Green's I"m Still In Love With You just gets me, and my girl.
FOR FUNK: Meters S/T just hands down, the dopest shit.
FOR Rock: Can Ege Bamyasi just hands down, the dopest shit
FOR Pop: Michael Jackson Thriller: just goes to show an artist can be around for 12+ yrs, reform themselves over again, and influence the world (obviously with the right help: Quincy Jones) at the highest level possible.
FOR World/Latin or Afro: i'm gonna put Nico Gomez 'Ritual' as a beathead, it's just so thick and sounds so great. I just pulled it out again after a few years and it blew me away.
Strangely enough, when I first got into Thelonious Monk, this was the album I bought too (and I loved it).
Not that I was intentionally seeking this LP out, it just happened to be the one Monk record they had in the store that day.
I wasn't really checking for this kind of music up to then, although I liked the occasional R&B/latin/jazz cut that I'd heard on dusties shows, like Mongo Santamaria's "Watermelon Man" and Joe Cuba's "Bang Bang."
But I didn't pursue it farther until somebody told me about this anthology, which contained "Bang Bang," plus a bunch of other Latin tracks with a soulful feel, from the vaults of the Tico and Fania labels.
Since that day in October 1988, I've been on the bandwagon (although Lord knows this stuff wasn't easy to find in Chicago for years).
hearing a friend's older sister's copy of this (and specifially "the Message" by Cymande and "Scorpio"...) when i was 14 made me realize there was a whole world of funky stuff other than James Brown or Aretha...
Compilations were central to getting wind of stuff back in the late 80s in London when record stores and radio were a joke. Nothing pre 1979 was in print or broadcast unless it was by Paul Mccartney and Wings and had already seen a previous UK issue. I was picking up clues to all this mysterious US "rare groove" via obscure compilation LPs and pirate radio featuring music that had never even seen the light of day in the UK. I remember one comp, I think it was called "Focus on Fusion Vol I", that introduced me to Patrice Rushen Haw Rght Now, Johnny Hammond Les Conquistadores Chocolates and Rustry Bryant Friday Night Funk. It was like music from another planet .....
Pink Floyd - The Wall (My dads influence)
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (My Grandfather's influence)
Kiss - Destroyer (My brother's influence)
Bought it when it came out in 1980 because I liked The Breaks and couldn't find a copy of the 12" single. I saw all these unfamiliar names listed in the shout-outs, like DJ Run (Son Of Kurtis Blow), Lovebug Starski, Kool DJ Herc, Busy Bee and Grandmaster Flash. A few months later, I was in another record store and saw a bunch of records by this Grandmaster Flash dude and some group called the Furious 5. I remembered his name from the Kurtis Blow liner notes and thought, "OK, these must be rap records - I wonder if they're any good?" I copped them on spec. They were Freedom and The Birthday Party. I saw that Great Rap Hits compilation with Spoonin' Rap, Funk You Up and some other shit on it in the same rack. I thought, "Fuck it - in for a penny, in for a pound", so I went ahead and copped that too. Been listening to rap ever since.
Before I was ten:
Pete Seeger, Industrial Songs
Leadbelly Library of Congress
About 13:
Robert Johnson King Of Delta Blues Singers
Phil Ochs I Aint A Marchin Any More
About 15:
Mississippi John Hurt Essential
Elizabeth Cotten Negro Folk Songs
BB King Live At The Regal
Donovan Greatest Hits
Beatles Sgt Peppers, Abbey Road
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Will The Circle BE Unbroken
2 lp gospel collection on Columbia from John Hammond Collection with Dorothy Love Coates
About 19:
Bob Wills - Anthology
About 23:
Meters, Cabbage Alley, Greatest on Island, Rejuvination
Wild Tchoupitoulas
Sam Cooke Hits
James Brown Golden Hits
^These are the records that really shaped my listening and that I absolutely wore out.
I came slowly to jazz. I entered through big band (Basie, Ellington) and vocalists (Holiday, Lambert Hendricks and Ross, Fitzgerald). And bluesy stuff (Timmons, Jimmy Smith, Joe Williams, Ramsey Lewis). Today I listen to any thing and everything and like most of it. For Be bop, straight ahead, free, avante... It was really listening to great performers live that was my landmark moments.
Dan
I remember when I was very young I over heard some older boys talking about this record. As soon as I could I went to the library and rented it & Licensed to Ill out.
I didn't particularly like Licensed to Ill, and 3ft didn't make a huge impression on me. I think I still listened to my Bobby Brown & Salt'n'Peper lps more. I was probably just too young to really appreciate it. But I knew it was something kinda special so I didn't give up on it - or chuck my bootlegged home-tapped copy of it out - eventually I grew to love it.
This was probably the record that got me open to jazz.
Obviously not an lp. But this is the record that got me into digging. I'd been buying/collecting records for a while, but this is the first record I tracked down.
Soul/Funk
Rock
he was a dj in a danceschool and had in my eyes the biggest collection i ever seen.
in there where
and
along with hendrix and led zepp
i got to make mixtapes of the songs i loved.
he really got me into music
This started my rap/hip hop horizons to expand beyond tribe called quest, Gang Starr, and De La Soul^^^
When I was a kid and listening to our boring elevator jazz station in the car, they played a night in tunisia and I recognized it from Gang Starr's jazzamatazz. Now when people ask me how and why i got into jazz i hum, badadada dum dum badadada dum dum... My Jazz journey started at that moment but didn't reach full blown addiction until i heard this....
unbelievably good^^^^
Brakhage blew my mind when i first heard it and i subsequently sought out most of their material from there.
Playgrounds - ZOOM TV Cast.
Not a Gateway album per se, but in nursury school, they would play this for us.
Somehow my mommy was able to acquire the record from the school.
My sister and I would sing to this shit(I still do at 40), while it played on her Bugs Bunny portable rekkid player.
I still have it to this day and have copped 4 sealed joints just for collectro vanity reasons.
Just a good ole' Kids record from a bygone era.
Shit comes w/ a poster, decals, and a sing-a-long lyrics booklet.
MY SHIT.
i bought this on cassette, the week it came out, in 1991 on a friends recommendation. i was 12 at the time and my mind was certified blown. all the crazy samples on this record had me hooked. i went thru my dads record collection and had a revelation of sorts when i stumbled on the rare earth records he had. all break heavy and full of loud guitars. i though they were some super underground thing. the 45s had that awesome rare earth label art. more or less what got me into records.
There's a second LP w/ what looks like the second or third season cast w/ the girl who folds her arms all tricky like.
It's way more kid-friendly. The first one is a mix of Funky-lite w/ kid songs.
But yeah - the OG cast is the best.
my brother always played this. I heard it through the wall:
I cannot stand ac/dc now.
I bought this one:
desert island disc.
I rethought "gateway" and changed it to the ac/dc.