I came across this goofy social media fad from 17 years ago in my memories tab. Coincidentally it falls a few days after my youngest son’s 17th birthday. I figured this would be a great reflective blog post as my musical preferences have changed and the more I listen to music the more I find that can move me emotionally.

Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill.

1. Fearful Symmetries/Wound Dresser-John Adams-Orchestra of St. Lukes-John Adams cond. This is a great recording of two wonderful works from the pen of John Adams. Sadly, Fearful Symmetries has become a little dated with the synthesizer technology. I was obsessed with this recording for many years as Adams knows how to get the greatest number of kaleidoscopic effects from orchestral textures. Unfortunately I am going to replace this recording on this list. I love the recording, but it does not make it onto my Top 15 any longer.

I’m going to replace this recording with one from a similar time period. The Film Scores-Bernard Hermann-Esa Pekka Salonen-Los Angeles Philharmonic. Bernard Hermann’s music has kind of fallen out of fashion, because film scoring has evolved to incorporate so much more from the technology developments in sound synthesis. Hermann is a master of economy. He can take one single musical motive and impact the emotional setting of the scene with such power. His music from Psycho, North by Northwest, and Taxi Driver all come to mind. When Hermann composed outside the film medium his efforts were lackluster or pedantic. When he had the images to write for he could blow our minds. I never tire from listening to this recording.

2. Tales of Mystery and Imagination-The Alan Parsons Project This recording stays. Released in 1976 this debut release by the Alan Parsons project inspired my love for Edgar Allan Poe’s writings. I was a freshman in high school when I heard it the first time on a band trip to some marching competition. We had a trumpet player in the band named Bill that had some great taste in music. This album has been a regular one for me over the last 40 years. I really like the music for the Fall of the House of Usher, and (The System of) Dr. Tarr & Professor Father.

3. Symphony #3-Ludwig van Beethoven-Cleveland Symphony-George Szell cond. This piece stays in my 15 recordings, but I am changing the conductor and orchestra. Jos van Immerseel with Anima Eterna a period instrument ensemble has become my new obsession with the Beethoven Symphonies. Immerseel’s presentation and interpretation provokes thoughts and reflections of the music being played in the early 19th century. The recording is more classical than romantic in the interpretation. It is crisper rhythmically, a tad subdued dynamically, and it contains fewer idiosyncrasies of other romantic interpretations of the third symphony. I love the Szell for different reasons, but the Immerseel just seems more appropriate. When my maternal grandmother passed away in the early 1990’s I heard this symphony on the way to my hometown at one in the morning. The tragedy of her loss and the funeral march within the symphony have become eternally attached to one another.

4. Basin Street-Canadian Brass This recording was the second compact disc recording I purchased with my hard earned money as a teenager. The first was a recording of The Planets by Gustav Holst and conducted by Leonard Bernstein with the NY Phil. A girlfriend took that first recording, but I still have Basin Street. This one no longer occupies the mind space like it did back then. I’m going to replace it with Synchronicities-The Police. I took this recording for granted when I was a teenager. When listening to this record now, it just hits differently. The textures are sparse and open, the lyrical metaphors are thoughtful, scary, and haunting at times. The 7/4 time Mother as sung by Andy Summer irritated my mother then, it still does now (LOL.) I feel Synchronicity is a time capsule album that captures the music of its time perfectly. When I listen to it I reflect on everything that was going on politically in the world, my youth, and now the artists lives of the time. It is brutal honest piece of art from three struggling personalities.

5. Hi Tech Big Band-Matt Catingub This record is full of clever word play and wonderful big band jazz writing. More Blues for My Abscessed Tooth, The Umpire Strikes Back, and Donna Lee (featuring Lady Madonna Lee) all are wonderful tunes. I just don’t have the fascination with this recording anymore. Matt is a great writer, arranger, and conductor. Sadly his stuff just doesn’t stay in the conscious like others do. Big Train-Wynton Marsalis has since become my large jazz ensemble recording. When I first heard this recording in 1999 I became entranced within the sounds of each train Marsalis composed. It took some time for it to replace the Catingub, but hearing a live version of some of this suite really altered the list. It is a musical suite in the Ellington style that used the rhythms and sounds of the railroad within a jazz context. Having grown up near the Chicago Northwestern (Now Union Pacific) railway I was accustomed to these sounds and textures. The percussionist Herlin Riley is amazing on this recording. He is an underrated jazz drummer. He is incredibly creative on this recording as he captured the rhythms and ostinatos of each train.

6. Kind of Blue-Miles Davis This recording will always be on my list of 15. I am on my third compact disc. I have worn out two previous copies. All Blues and So What are the epitome of cool. The extended solos are beautiful, the space within the texture gives you room to move as a listener. I first heard this recording in the early 1990’s nearly 40 years after its release. I wish I would have heard it sooner. My oldest son bought himself an LP of this record. He loves it as much as I do.

7. Electric Bath-Don Ellis This recording stays too. Don Ellis’ creativity and experimentation with sound, time, and electronics always interests me. The song Turkish Bath and Indian Lady capture his work from its most commercial aspect. I have several recordings of his that periodically grab my attention, but Electric Bath always has my attention.

8. Music for Strings and Brass op.50/Symphonic Metamorphisis-Paul Hindemith-Philadelphia Symphony-Eugene Ormandy-cond. I bought this disc at Rose Records in Chicago. I have always had a fascination with Paul Hindemith’s brass and wind writing. As I have gotten older I’m not as interested in Hindemith’s work as I once was. I am going to place two recordings in place of this one. I just have to. I have been increasingly attracted to the music of American composer Samuel Barber for the last decade. I find his work intriguing and his writing enigmatic. He surprises me constantly. I’m particularly aligned to the Symphony #1-Samuel Barber- David Zinman-Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Symphony #2-Samuel Barber-Marin Alsop-Royal Scottish National Orchestra. These two recordings also include some the early tone poems as well as the Adagio. The treatment Zinman and Alsop give to Barber’s symphonies is spectacular. They feel alive and fresh. Barber’s music is hard to pinpoint. He is full of passion. I like that adventure musically. I do feel Barber is maligned a lot for being a romantic composer within the 20th century.

9. Symphony #2 “The Resurrection”-Gustav Mahler-Sir Georg Solti-Chicago Symphony Orchestra This recording stays. I have the complete recordings of the Mahler symphonies with Chicago and it is a spectacular collection of music. The 2nd, 5th, and 6th symphonies are my favorites. The 2nd is on a whole other playing field dramatically. The climax of the final movement always brings chills to my spine. My hair on my arms is standing up just thinking about the visceral sonic joy this work brings to me. Mahler just has a way of using the orchestra in magnificent ways. The chorale finale can bring tears to one’s eyes. Go watch the Bernstein film. When you listen to the finale in the film it elicits that same response.

10. Under the Table Dreaming-Dave Matthews Band The DMB fans love the commercial aspects of this album. It has some great charts in it like Ants Marching, What Would You Say, and Jimi Thing. 17 years ago this was my favorite DMB recording. No longer. Before These Crowded Streets is now my favorite DMB album. I began listening to this one over and over again as I dealt with my divorce and severe depression. Dreaming Tree, Spoon, Don’t Drink the Water, and Stay (Wasting Time) became lifelines tethering me to the new reality of life as my old life withered away and died. Transitions in life are difficult. Music plays an important role in tethering us to our realities. BTCS became that for me.

11. Symphony #5 and #9-Dmitri Shostakovich-New York Philharmonic-Leonard Bernstein-cond. This recording gets to remain. Bernstein’s interpretations of Russian music are so different than his Russian colleagues. Bernstein’s vibrant tempo in the 5th symphony is so much more exciting than the actual tempo marking printed. The slower tempo leaves the symphony flat and bloated. It runs out of energy. The lift Bernstein gave to it gives it magic. You can feel life course through the winds and strings. The timpanist’s part gets to be the heart of the Russian people. I don’t know if Shostakovich ever got to speak to Bernstein, but I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall secretly listening to that conversation or discussion.

12. Hot-Squirrel Nut Zippers Sadly this weakness of jazz infused popular music no longer occupies a lot of my musical brain. They along with Pink Martini, Brian Setzer Orchestra, and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies get relegated to “when I am in the mood status.” Songs from the Big Chair-Tears for Fears now occupies this spot. I owned this vinyl LP shortly after its release. I have enjoyed everything about it. Shout and Who Wants to Rule the World are the most commercially successful singles but Side 2 of this recording is a masterpiece in synth pop writing. I Believe, Broken, Head over Heels, and Listen just beg to be played as a suite. I tend to listen to side two in the same way I listen to Barber’s 1st Symphony. I’m left breathless and emotionally moved. Getting older made this record better in my eyes.

13. Ten Summoners Tales-Sting In my opinion this is Sting’s perfect solo album. It remains here on this list. There are so many good songs, and the ones I like the most are not the ones that were the most commercially successful. She’s Too Good For Me, Heavy Cloud, No Rain, and St. Augustine in Hell are masterpieces in story telling with a powerful groove by Vinnie Colaiuta on Drumset. Yes, the commercially successful songs are marvelous too, but these three always make me smile. The orchestrated She’s Too Good For Me from the album Symphonicities is a marvelous listen. I have always admired Sting’s music making process. He never lets me down lyrically or musically. There is always another journey we can take together.

14. Monster on a Leash-Tower of Power This shining masterpiece from the ToP catalog stays. There is a nice mix of 1980’s soul, funk, fusion, and smooth jazz on this recording. I like the versatility of the band in numbers like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Funk the Dumb Stuff, and Miss Trouble (Gotta Lotta Nerve.) The music is pure late 80’s-early 90’s postcards but the arrangements are tight and the lyrical play can make you smile. This one has become my weakness record. It replaces the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

15. Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus-Charles Mingus Sadly Charles Mingus no longer obsesses me like he once did. I enjoy his music and artistic voice, but life’s interests have shifted me away from Mingus’ Post Bop/Linear Jazz. I have a lot of great recordings from Ellington, Basie, Mingus, Coltrane, Davis, and Parker. I also have a lot of Kenton and Brubeck in the library, but this style of jazz doesn’t move me like it used to. It is still marvelous music, but I want something a little different, but still traditional… Oh My NOLA-Harry Connick Jr. fits that bill. The new songs and the fresh new arrangements of standards embraced by the city New Orleans, LA foot this bill. Working in the Coal Mine gets a fresh treatment and this old tune feels new. Jambalaya (On the Bayou) by Hank Williams receives a complete renovation. Even Do Dat Thing pays homage to all the late musicians from NOLA in a funk style. This clever album has that perfect mix of newer, polished older material, and traditional Dixieland jazz all wrapped up into one clever package. Harry knows how to get the max out of his big band. His writing really shows their strengths as players.

There is an updated list of 15 albums from a social media post from 17 years ago… I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane. It was fun to look at how I have changed as a listener… Stay safe my friends…