Thad Jones “The Fabulous Thad Jones”

Posted on November 19, 2007
Filed Under Old Posts |

There was a time in my life when this was the only CD I listened to. I played it constantly, at home and in the car. I had it memorized.

My parents have a plastic bag of pictures in a drawer. Most of the pictures are of me and my sister, but a few feature my father with a stocky old man. They look like they’re on vacation in some tropical place, two round smiling faces under palm trees. When I asked my father who the man was, assuming he was a relative (we have so many cousins), my father said, “Don’t you remember Thad?” He thinks my memories stretch way back into infancy. He can’t remember anything from before he was thirteen.

“No,” I said.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember. ” He shook his head in disbelief and I felt like I had somehow let him down.

I like to listen to this CD and imagine the old man in the photo as the young man who recorded this CD. I like the sound of the trumpet, the melodic solos. I Can’t Get Started, I’ll Remember April, and You Don’t Know What Love Is are my favorites.