Pictured below are just a few of the covers from my album collection. I can actually play most of my CD's in my head now from start to finish without using a stereo. You can do this too! Did you know that?

I never had the privilege of seeing Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, or John Coltrane live. I got to see almost everyone else in my collection except Keith Jarrett at least once. Live performances are super important as a supplement to album listening. Listening is everything. If you have not experienced the joy of hearing an album from start to finish with no interruptions and no multitasking involved as you listen, you must treat yourself to this incredible experience.

By the time I bought my first jazz album in 1977 I was already playing the popular music of the day. I would either learn it from sheet music or by ear from the radio or my albums. This included songs by Chicago, Elton John, The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Wings, The Bee Gees, Earth Wind and Fire, The Eagles, and even a few country bands. I have never outgrown my love for any of that great music.

My first real musical mentor told me that I should pick my favorite musicians and then find out who they listened to growing up. That would be who I should listen to so that I could develop a well rounded musical personality. This was such a great piece of advice and one I have offered my students over the years. For example, I was heavily into Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Oscar Peterson. All 3 sighted the same classical influences and in particular they shared a love for the bebop pianist Bud Powel. That lead me, of course to Charlie Parker and whole new worlds of sound. They had other influences too as individuals and I followed all of those leads as well.

Another approach I took on the advice of this mentor was to listen to an album all the way through and if I liked the personnel on it I should look them up and see who else they played with. This became a great labor of love and I built a very unique and eclectic album collection over the years (which I eventually replaced totally with CD's as an adult). My first exposure to non-radio music was My Spanish Heart by Chick Corea and shortly thereafter Al DiMeola's Elegant Gypsy and then Land of the Midnight Sun. My guitar playing friend in the high school jazz band started me out on the magical journey of eclectic listening. He also introduced me to the rest of the jazz band.

The start of my journey began with my fist introduction to the full force of a Fender Rhodes electric piano and a Mini Moog Synthesizer. From Chick I met the great drummer Steve Gadd and the great bassist Stanley Clarke. I also began to dream of composing for strings. From Al DiMeola I met keyboardists Jan Hammer and Barry Miles, and bassist Anthony Jackson. (Steve Gadd was here too). From Jan Hammer I met guitarist Jeff Beck. They made some great albums together! I saw Jan Hammer live with Al DiMeola's band, I saw Al live again with his band opening for Santana’s band (they jammed together at the end) and Santana live - once at his own concert and another time with a double concert featuring Jeff Beck’s band!

I fell in love with guitar during my radio listening days and there was no shortage of amazing guitarists showing up on my stereo after I met Al, Jeff, Carlos, and Pat Metheny, (who lead me to pianist Lyle Mays). Of course, new horizons opened when George Benson arrived. He lead me to Wes Montgomery, Charlie Christian and the gentleman of jazz, Kenny Barron, who played fender rhodes on his bad Benson album. Larry Carlton and Larry Coryell were totally different styles of amazing and Paco de Lucia closed the deal on my love of Spanish music when his fabulous flamenco guitar was first introduced to me on Elegant Gypsy.

By now my mom had found a wonderful piano teacher for me and he told me to go out and by The Giants featuring Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and Ray Brown. To this day I can still get lost in that first love of straight ahead jazz in a trio format. Oscar lead me to NHOP and then I discovered Stephan Grapelli - the forerunner to Jean Lucy Ponty who, I met years earlier on and Elton John album and then again on My Spanish Heart. Before long his music was blasting through my speakers as well. With him came Allan Zavod on keys and Allan Holdsworth on guitar and Steve Smith on drums - who went on to play with the rock band Journey.

Christmas of 1977 brought me Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and more Chick Corea. I was on a mission to own everything Herbie had done and was doing and I had the great privilege of seeing him live in those early power funk groups and in a duo acoustic piano setting with Chick Corea. I got a sampler of Keith Jarrett with 2 cuts on it - Margot and First Love. I must have played those 2 pieces every day 2 or 3 times for 2 or 3 years. To this day I will go to both of those tracks to reconnect with my young musician’s heart.

My saxophone playing friend in the high school jazz band turned me on to John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Spyro Gyro, Jeff Lorber, Chuck Mangione, Michael Brecker, (who lead me to pianist Warren Bernhardt), and we spent most of our free time driving around in his car or mine just listening to these guys and trying to understand what they were doing so we could do it too. Saxophone players like David Sanborn, Brecker, and Joe Farrell literally changed the trajectory of my life.

Gradually I began to welcome Chopin and Bach (I first heard Bach pouring out of my Brother John’s room) into the hallowed halls of my soul and that had no small effect upon me as a composer and pianist. Beethoven was soon to follow and then Mozart. Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky dropped in regularly after a while.

I had three quarters of the music I would ultimately remain in love with all my life before I left home in 1982. It would be several years before I had the free flowing cash to buy more listening but I totally immersed myself in what I had for sure. If I wasn’t playing gigs I was practicing. If I wasn’t practicing I was listening. If I wasn’t listening I was asleep.

As I began to truly understand the music and the musicians on my albums, and after seeing many of them perform live, I began to seek new sounds for my foundation. Three names that kept coming up during those years were two pianists, Bill Evans, and Keith Jarrett and the now iconic trumpeter, Miles Davis. Along with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, I had decided to keep these guys out of my listening and study for an indefinite period as I knew they would require full time attention and that they were influencing everyone around in one way of another. By the time I was driving to a trio gig one night in the early 1990’s I owned much of their music and was beginning to understand them and, like all the others I listened to and studied before them, I could hear their influences when they played.

In 1994 I began my recording career. I felt as though it was time for me to begin documenting who I was and who I had become. It is now 2023 as I write this and while I am still studying Bach, all the other musicians and their recordings have long since become joyful places that I return to for sheer listening pleasure. I have gleaned the mystery of me from them and I am comfortable in my own musical skin as I have been since the release of my first CD, Veritas, in 1995.

I am pretty sure I have listened to music more than anyone I know and more than any of my peers. That’s not bragging. That’s just true. My record collection literally trained my ears, formed my soul, lead me to God, taught me to pray, and saved my life. Before I knew how to pray - for that matter before I knew TO pray - in my worst moments, when my life was at it’s worst or if I just had a lousy day - I went to my albums.

Often times as the last song would end and the silence would engulf me I would recognize a deep peace within me. When you listen to music with all your heart you don’t have any negative thoughts. It’s actually impossible to have any thoughts at all - provided the music you listen to is instrumental - and uplifting. That is what I always looked for in the music I listened to. My life was miserable. I wanted my music to be joyful - even peaceful.

That is how God brought me to Himself. He used the beauty in music to draw me towards Him. I discovered Him first in the joy of the listening process and eventually in the silence that followed it. I will continue to listen for new sounds the rest of my life but I have learned to recognize those which come from the soul and those which come from the head. The soul always provides us with the better offering for it is connected to, and emanates from God.

All of the music I have composed and placed on my albums came from God and the Kingdom of God within me. This fact makes my music timeless. As you travel through your life’s journey, may you find the joy, truth, beauty and the very meaning of life - as I did - in the music that you give your heart to.

Mark Christopher Brandt

6/10/23