As John Amato will tell you, when I'm not trying to figure out wingnuts and writing about Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, I'm prowling YouTube for jazz videos to send my soul into the stratosphere. I've been promising John a Music Club post for forever, but I've been procastinating—I had an idea to write some intricate essay laying bare the true spirit of jazz improvisation, etc., etc.; but we writers always think the words can do it better than the music. Stevie Wonder and Toots Theilmans prove us wrong.
The way I personally listen to jazz is, like jazz itself, improvisational. I never buy CDs or downloads from the iTunes store. I just spend hours leading my ears on wonderful YouTube adventures, letting the recommendations lead where they will. It's a great way to discover whole new genres, and it's fun to be evangelical about what you find: when I uncover something exciting and new to me, I tweet it. I hope my jazz leanings don't come as a surprise to the hundreds of folks who follow me on Twitter to learn what I'm thinking about wingnuts and Richard Nixon. (That stuff I update on Facebook: feel free to join my group as a friend—I'd love to have you.)
