William Rasmussen

When I was young I used to hate jazz! I grew up with “The Girl From Ipanema” ringing in my ears, and I hated it. In 2001, I was attending a live concert by American Singer/Songwriter Willy DeVille (former Mink DeVille) in Rotterdam. Netherlands. Since I live in Malmö, Sweden, I took the occasion to spend a short holiday in Rotterdam. I arrived a couple of days before the concert. So I spent some time shopping around in CD shops. I found a goldmine with a lot of interesting subjects. As I looked around in all the boxes in the store, they played some music. Of course it was one of those horrible jazz-cd:s, I remember. I was looking for cd:s of my three greatest idols, Willy DeVille, Janis Joplin and Gianna Nannini (female Italian rock singer) and some more. As I stood there browsing the boxes, a new tune was heard from the speakers, I lifted my head and thought, well this number is rather nice. I continued to browse the boxes, another tune came up…..hmm that one is also rather good. When I’ve picked up some ten items from the boxes, I went to the checkout. While paying I asked the cashier, “this last cd you´ve been playing, who is that?” “It is Saxophonist Joe Henderson origin from “Blood Sweat and Tears”, he told me. “I´ll take that one too”. Back at my hotel room I remember I sat and looked on the CD-cover thinking “I wonder if I like this cd when I get home or if I just have been affected of all that smoke (of any kind) in the CD-shop. Though when I came home and put the cd on my player I realized, that it truly still was good and enjoyable. At the same time I met a new college through my job. A guy who had a very nice stereo-equipment, and he was a great music-lover too. He introduced my to many good jazz-artists, as well as classical artists. He became my great mentor in jazz-and classical music, and still is. Now I have many idols in both genres, and I love The Girl From Ipanema! My CD collection contains now about 250 jazz CDs, 500 classical and of course some Pop/Rock/R&B, about 300 CDs. My absolute favorite among the jazz CDs is “New York Slick” by Ron Carter.