I have finally concluded I am officially Old.
Not because not only do I call a lady “Hello there” as I kiss her on the cheek and make direct eye contact with a winning smile simply because I can’t remember her name, but half the time I can’t remember what I am supposed to be doing, why I am there, or even a particular word mid sentence, which is most frustrating. Not because every two minutes I am bursting for, but can’t pee. Not because I still have two hairs on my head only because I’ve pulled them up from my arse crack. Not because I can finally(!) recognise the signals a woman wants my body but what’s more I’m not really interested because she may have been beautiful thirty years ago but still acts like she is. Not because I can’t read the restaurant bill cos I’ve forgotten my specs. And nor is it because (forgive me cos I can’t remember this one…)
As valid as these reasons are for concluding one is entering the hinterland of one’s life I was still in denial until I have finally concluded I really like jazz. Eek!
I fully blame my Denon DCD-1600NE - PMA-2500NE - Monitor Audio Gold 300 for this brutal realisation at my tender age of merely 52. (Yes, dear forum reader, that must make most of you on here feel positively ancient.) For they make even well recorded / played jazz sing beautifully.
Whether it is Jim Brock playing “Jordan” or “O Vazio” (spotify link below - if ever you were looking for a redbook CD where all tracks are worthy of hifi audition then Jazz Kaleidoscope RR-910 is one) or the 3 SACDs in the Jazz at the Pawnshop 30th Anniversary PRSACD 7879, I can at last now fully appreciate and get much pleasure from such skilled and complex musicianship, the hifi revealing it in all its detail, delicacy and dynamic range with both transparency and emotion. Or should that last word be husky sexiness far greater than the afore referred to vain 50 year old man-eater with emotional baggage.
Don’t get me wrong - I still find some jazz decidedly unpleasant. Note the phrase “well recorded / played” above. One or two of you may remember that in my op of my 1st thread I mentioned the first SACD I ever heard. I had only just got the DCD-1600NE player and stuck on Herbie Hancock’s “Sextant” album, which I described thus; “screeches were like fingernails down a blackboard at full volume.” Not knowing the album prior to this initial audition I couldn’t have picked a worse random first candidate. I was quick to suspect the new equipment but have subsequently listened to the CD layer on my oldest system with it’s Castle Chester 1/4 horn floorstanders. These speakers are so laid back in their presentation I suspect they have been internally wired with marijuana. And yet my ears still bled. Going from brutal morning alarm / pub clearing music to the soporific opposite neither am I a fan of Diana Krall. I may be officially old but if I should ever make it so far as a retirement home with my balls still intact and this is playing in the elevator then I will throw myself out of the top window just to feel alive.
I wasn’t planning on expanding my sufficiently large music collection when getting this new system, however the sheer pleasure it gives has had me buying large quantities of SACDs, LPs, CDs and high res downloads of various genres including jazz such as Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Blazing Redheads.
But perhaps most of my new purchases could be better defined as “jazz fusion”, whatever that is (I am not a fan of pigeonholing music - there are to me only 3 types; I like it, I don’t mind it, I dislike it). I have acquired a number of (Devadip) Carlos Santana, Steely Dan, Spyro Gyra, Acoustic Alchemy, Talk Talk and other such “mainstream with jazz influence” albums that are superbly performed, recorded and mastered and which reward concentrated listening. And then there is “jazz / classical fusion” such as Dido & Aeneazz SACD (Eric Vloeimans PTC5186758), Homilia SACD (541470610462) and Eddie Daniels’ Heart of Brazil 5.6DSD download, each one not merely of “audiophile” standard but beautiful music beautifully played, just like me on a 1st date.
Oh yes, I’ve remembered now, but the moment has passed…