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Hendrik Decker

About Me

My Jazz Story

I love jazz because it conveys magic and vitality, possibly more so than much other music, which I love as well. I was first exposed to jazz by a few items in my dad's record collection (Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Stan Getz) in the late '60s, then on the radio (mainly J.E. Berendt's broadcast series at SWF), and the Jazz Now festival at the Olympic Games in Munich, 1972. After concerts, I often looked for contacting musicians; off the top of my head, I recall meeting Mal Waldron, Gary Bartz, Alphonse Mouzon, Steve Lacy, Kenny Clark, Lee Konitz, Cooper-Moore, and many more... The best show amongst the many thousands I've attended, that's hard to say... one of several events that deeply impressed me was a concert by the Sonny Rollins Trio or Quartet, with Al Foster, maybe in the late '80s: Rollins excelled with breathtaking, timelessly good solos. The first jazz record I bought was perhaps a secondhand LP from a friend: Stan Getz with Joao Gilberto, or with Laurindo Almeida. At about the same time, I bought Baden Powell LPs recorded on the MPS label. Before, I had bought many soul LPs (Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, etc); the soul singers I admired were at least as expressive and convincing and overwhelming as the jazz singers I came to admire later.