Blake Dowling
The first time I heard the term “jazz” was at a Neil Diamond concert.
The “Jazz Singer” tour, supporting the album of the same name, hit Atlanta on March 1, 1982, and that was my official first concert at the old Omni Arena. There wasn’t a lot of jazz performed, but wow, what a memory! Mom earns serious cool points for that show.
The term “jazz” as a type of music was officially coined in 1917, depending on who you ask.
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band and their recording of “Livery Stable Blues” are considered the first jazz recording. By 1920, artists like Louis Armstrong were becoming American icons, and jazz was the soundtrack to the Roaring ’20s.
For many years after that 1982 concert, the term “jazz” was not part of my musical vocabulary.
In 2024, I was in a Tallahassee record store, Rearview Vintage and Vinyl, where the owner, Carter Jacobs, and my friend Michael Obrecht (my former high school English teacher) engaged me in a conversation about jazz music.
It felt more like jazz peer pressure than a conversation.
I told them my vinyl collection mainly consisted of pre-1990 records from rock bands that I loved. Artists like the Grateful Dead, Ramones, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, and REO Speedwagon dominate my collection.
They encouraged me to expand my horizons and handed me a Dexter Gordon jazz record: Blues Up and Down (1971).
The record was called “One Flight Up,” and the back cover detailed Dexter’s life in France.
The entire album packaging was beautifully done by Blue Note Records, which has been bringing jazz to the world since 1939. Their re-releases are fantastic, each record filled with stories and pictures, and they are made of thick 180-gram vinyl (which enhances the listening experience, if you’re curious).
Carter and I discuss these records and my introduction to jazz on our new podcast.
Blue Note isn’t just a jazz label; they surged into the mainstream in the early 2000s as the launching pad for superstar Norah Jones, who has sold over 50 million albums.
My second jazz record was by Chet Baker, right after I watched “Ted Lasso,” which pays homage to Chet in Season 3, featuring the character Higgins playing bass in an episode. In real life, actor Jeremy Swift is an accomplished musician.
This connection with Ted Lasso ties into everything cool.
Just a week after seeing The Flaming Lips for the first time, I heard their track Fight Song featured in the closing numbers of that show.
Are we ready for a new season? YES.
Ted Lasso is fantastic, and while old-school vinyl introduced me to jazz, there’s plenty of new technology out there bringing jazz to the digital world.
The platform Jazzed is worth checking out to explore modern jazz (if you’re like me and happily stuck in 1950s jazz), along with basics like Spotify and their jazz offerings.
For jazz musicians, there’s a very cool app available to help fine-tune their craft. This app allows a musician to “jam” with a whole jazz ensemble using various loops.
Here in Florida, jazz can be found all over the state. The Word of South Festival, held this spring in Tallahassee, featured a special jazz performance that showcased New Orleans-style jazz.
Jacksonville hosts the Jacksonville Jazz Festival each year. In Miami, they hosted the South Beach Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival Miami in 2025, so look for more info and dates soon from those epic events.
Thank you, Neil Diamond, for the soft introduction to jazz music through your almost-good movie “The Jazz Singer” and the tremendous album of the same name.
Thank you, Carter and Michael, for putting the Dexter Gordon record in my hand. These days, a perfect Sunday afternoon, when I’m not traveling, includes a jazz record playing while I read a new book (this month, it’s Robin Hobb).
Jazz is hip in 2025, unlike in 1965, when the Harvard Crimson reported, “As clubs began to be invaded by hillbillies, jazz lovers became alienated and retreated to their FM radios and phonographs.”
While I am not a jazz expert, there is something phenomenal about the genre, and I am shocked it was once unpopular. With traditional rock, country, metal, folk or pop albums, you might hear the vocals, guitar or drums in certain songs, or the chorus or melody jumping out at you.
But the texture of jazz — the layering of the tracks — is so complex that it’s like unpacking everything in a new house. You discover something new and fresh with each listen. It combines the structure of classical music with the freedom of a jam band.
In the words of Gordon, the man who created my first jazz album: “Jazz to me is a living music. It’s a music that, since its beginning, has expressed the feelings, dreams and hopes of the people.”
So, don’t be like me and retreat to your phonograph; get out there and enjoy all that jazz.
