Jazz Is Like The Kind Of Man You Wouldn't Want Your Daughter To Associate With

I slip the disc from its decaying cardboard sleeve and take a moment to fill my lungs with the musty scent of time. I can still detect hints of my father's cigarette smoke, exhaled by his eighteen-year-old self in an unkempt council flat as frantic blue-note rhythms dart against the plasterboard. 

The hue of exhaled nicotine and spilt beer are married to the fibers of the vinyl, and I feel as though I have been granted access to the air of 1977.  Drinking in the aroma of the record, I find myself sitting aside him in one of the ramshackle armchairs immortalised in polaroids, our heads nodding in unison as Coltrane showers us in melodic liquor. The frenzied saxophone notes become almost as intoxicating as the cans of Red Stripe cooling our palms, and through the thick of melody I cast an appreciative nod in my father's direction. "One day this record will be all yours, kid." My fingers itched with anticipation.