I didn’t really listen to any Jazz before I worked in a record store.
What happened was that I got sick of digging through the "Misc. S" section to find new CDs to listen to, so I resigned myself to the Jazz section. I ended up getting heavily into anything that said “ballads” or had a depressing title. It Could Happen to You by Chet Baker caught my eye.
“What?!?” I wondered. “What could happen to me?”
Chet Baker - Everything Happens To Me
Apparently everything could happen to me. This song is a lot funnier than I think was originally intended.
Almost every Jazz CD in my collection is there for a reason. I own this Chet Baker record because, one day, it'll be my “dinner-party” CD. (Despite the fact that, according to this song, I'll try to throw a party and the guy upstars will complain).
We all give subtitles to certain CDs in our collections. We all have a “Saturday Night” CD, a "Sunday Morning" record, and a "Slightly-Foggy-Monday-Afternoon-in-August" album.
Other CDs are owned for specific situations. I call them “It’s good if…” albums.
“Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours is good if it’s raining and you just got dumped."
If you really think about it, though, how often are you going to get dumped and subsequently have the day to sit around and listen to Ol’ Blue Eyes bitch about Ava Gardner? Maybe once?
Why would you buy a CD preparing for that occasion? It's like buying a CD in preparation for a locust attack - it could happen, but it probably won't happen to you. (In that case, though, I'd recommend The Locust's Plague Soudscapes. I think if locusts heard you playing this, they'd ultimately let you live for your valiant effort in trying to communicate with them).
I continue to buy CDs and records based on premonitions of situations that haven't happened yet. Invariably, I look at my record collection, see these "mood records", and no matter what kind of mood I'm in, I think “I’m not really in the mood for that….where’s Louder Than Bombs?”
-kevin