Which of the jazz/blues musicians inspire you?My number one influence is, was, and will always be B.B. King. But when I got home from camp that summer I first got to see him, my mother handed me my saved-up allowance from the summer . . . and I high-tailed it to my favourite record shop, coming away with as many blues albums as I could carry.
Aside from B.B. King, it was Mike Bloomfield who first showed me how beautiful a Les Paul could sound in the right hands. It only took me four and a half decades before I'd finally own one! I first became aware of Bloomfield because of an album someone else was on: I was a Buffalo Springfield fan and bought Super Session because Stephen Stills played on it. Only Bloomfield was on side one. One taste of him and I didn't want to know from Stephen Stills!
I was and am influenced heavily by Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, Peter Green, the Eric Clapton of Blues Breakers, Albert King (oh, God, when I first heard Live Wire/Blues Power!), Otis Rush, Fenton Robinson, T-Bone Walker, Lonnie Johnson, Guitar Slim (he did the original "The Things I Used to Do"---Ray Charles played piano and led the band for that date), Percy Mayfield, John Lee Hooker, the Butterfield Blues Band, Luther Allison, Little Walter, Lowell Fulson, and Robert Pete Williams, among others.
Regarding jazz, I've been a jazz lover since high school. (I had an art teacher who played jazz during our classes, and I got so into that music I sometimes ran the risk of forgetting my art work!) Particularly, I love the jazzmen who didn't forget the blues: Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Count Basie, Horace Silver, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Giuffre, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Smith, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane (before he began going right out of his noodle circa 1963-64), Milt Jackson (you want to hear some lovely blues, pick up Milt Jackson and Ray Charles on Atlantic), Ray Charles, Wynton Kelly, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk . . . among others.
Great playlist. Thanks for posting.