Good question

Here`s something interesting....

Most Saturday mornings I teach a guy at work named HIROKI. Let me just start by saying that I`ve met some pretty smart people in my time but this guy is "scary" clever. He is one of the nicest guys I have ever had the pleasure of meeting too and it`s not like we are student and teacher because his English is so good. He works for a steel plant here in Wakayama called SUMIKIN and they have an office in Houston making pipes specifically for oil drilling. Hiroki was transfered there for 4 years and went with his wife (who I also have the pleasure of teaching from time to time) and their 3 kids. As you can imagine they basically came back a bilingual family and especially Hiroki, having worked in an American office, has really natural English so I rarely find things I`m able to teach him but I always try my best to offer him whatever I can and we have had some really really great chats over the years I have known him. One of the things we have in common is our passion for good music, jazz in particular.

So to cut a long story short, about 3 weeks ago Hiroki asked me this question

"If you were told you were going to die today, what 3 CD`s would you listen to?"

Being the person that I am I immediately blurted out 3 CD`s without thinking and was abit shocked myself as I said them. I don`t even remember what they were but he was like "really?" Hiroki had obviously thought about it and brought in his 3 and they were Art Pepper, Miles Davis and Stan Getz....what class!

After thinking about it long and hard I came up with my 3 and in no particular order they are:

1. When Harry met Sally the soundtrack which is a Harry Connick Jr old style big band album and possibly my favourite single album in the world.

2. Snappy Do by James Morrison. Probably abit surprising as he tends to be abit "gimmicky" but as the first "jazz" album I ever bought it carries enough sentimental value to make my top 3.

3. Dangerous by Michael Jackson. I know I know it`s Michael Jackson, that`s right I said it. I do not support many of his decisions or actions but there`s no denying that he`s the greatest artist of our time, probably any time. It`s a great album and I can listen to it top to bottom any day of the week and there aren`t a great many albums I feel that way about.

So there you go. One of my good mates Dave MacIntyre asked me a good one too a while back "what are the 20 songs you`d choose to see live by the original artist?" Dead or alive doesn`t matter. What a tough time I had answering that one!! That`s a whole nother post!!