Ill Considered

I go through every album that hits the jazz aisle at Bandcamp.  Every Single One.  I may only listen to it for a hot minute, but I give every album a chance to grab my ear.  So, even those musicians and labels who don’t reach out to me personally still have a shot to get a write-up on my site or in one of my Bandcamp Daily columns.

Some I bookmark for later.  Some of those tags are because the album has some odd trait that makes me want to revisit it later, and perhaps write about the album or form a column around that trait.  One such theme is holiday music.  I was giving a quick listen to one that showed up in the new releases section, and I mumbled to myself, “This is only kind of yule.”  It was an unintentional pun.  The album had a reference that made me think of Miles Davis, which spurred me to think of Kind of Blue, and it just went on from there.  There’s no good way to explain the stream-of-conscious thoughts that ripple through my brain as I listen to music.  But that’s where I landed.

The more I chuckled about the title, the more it occurred to me that, hey, maybe I have enough bookmarked holiday jazz albums to form a column.  That led to a pitch to Bandcamp, and, happily, the go-ahead from my editor to put it together.  As it turned out, I had more music that I had open slots.  The Kind of Yule column may have begun as a chuckle-thon, but it manifested as a collection of some very fine music.

Here’s where you check out the column on The Bandcamp Daily.  The list captures more than Christmas music.  It’s meant to represent all holidays, even those that fall outside the month of December.  Because Jazz is a worldwide pursuit and a worldwide love, and the world is a very diverse place.

And a special shout-out to Thomas Slater for the excellent column art.  It really captures the spirit of the column.  Cheers.

And feel free to check out my Bandcamp Daily writer archives while you’re at it.