1. Quincy JonesGuta-Matari
I was very lucky that whilst my parents were still together they had a fantastic record collection, and a fantastic library, too, so I always found something to interest me. Later on in the 1970s my mother descended into mental illness and everything changed, but when I was really young my first contact to music was of course through the collection of my parents, and there was a lot of jazz and a lot of early rock like the later Beatles album and so on. So of course that shaped my musical understanding without me even realising it.
Guta-Matari is from 1970 and the music is difficult to describe – it’s very atmospheric jazz and swing. There are only four tracks on this album; they’re in part almost ambient but at the same time they have an immense groove and they’re really subtle. This is an album I’ve been listening to since maybe 1971 or 1972 – I had this natural defence mechanism not to like what my parents would like, but this album is fantastic and it has lasted as one of my absolute favourite albums for all of my life. I still listen to it frequently, and of course the mood of the music, the vibes of this album have influenced me for probably all of my life.
