Thad Aerts

I love jazz because it's music for music's sake. It challenges the brain by tempting it with the heart. I was first exposed to jazz when I bought my first record that was actually a cassette. The best show I ever attended for jazz was Wynton Marsalis at the UNL Lied Center. 3rd row-center. The PA delusion of the music was minimal. It was glorious. Best non-jazz and best show in general that I ever had the pleasure of witnessing was Fugazi at Sokol Hall in Omaha, NE in 1989. The first jazz record I bought was Joe Henderson's "So Near, So Far." My advice to new listeners is stick with it. Jazz, for the most part is the antithesis of pop music. The last number of generations have been raised on pop music. Listening to jazz is a switching of gears. I've been digging deep into the rich history of jazz for 25 years and I'm still learning things! Thats the beauty of jazz—t's not a disposable art form. I regularly listen to records that I have been listening to for over 20 years and the way I hear them and the things that I hear on them evolves over time.