A girl I knew in the late 80s turned me on to a lot of jazz---John Coltrane remains one of my favorites. I also got into a little fusion stuff like Sonny Sharrock (you can hear him playing the outro music during the credits on Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast). I never did like the stuff by Spyro Gyra or any of the dorky 'lite jazz' crap.
So anyway, I'll tell you about a couple of really cool jazz shows I saw--Miles Davis at the New Orleans City Center and Sun Ra & his Arkestra at the Palomino in Los Angeles.
Miles was playing during the weeek of Jazzfest, I think it was a Saturday night. I was staying with some friends -of-friends and enjoyed amazing hospitality. The female half of the couple and her mother made lots of delicious Creole dishes for us, and the male half could get us into, and more often than not, free drinks at, bars for free (no small feat during Jazzfest). They both knew the best local bars so we were able to avoid the bars that were overrun with tourists and inflated drink prices.
Miles played a set of tuns that bordered on being pop-jazz; not really the stuff of his I've always liked (Milestones, 'Round Midnight, Kinda Blue, also Sketches of Spain and Bitches Brew). One thing that was really cool was him segue from "Some Day My Prince Will Come" into the Cyndi Lauper tune "Time After Time". In the hands of anyone else, that would have been cheesy, saccharine-coated smarm, but Miles pulled it off with style. All in all, an enjoyable experience, if not necessarily my cup of tea.
A few months later, Miles Davis died, so I am fortunate to have seen him when I did.
Sun Ra and his Arkestra was more my thing, they were talented in an old school, jazz ensemble tradition, with the occasional vocal number, and they were damn weird.....if you have ever heard this guy, you know what I mean. The guy was either a genius, really deranged, or both. They did some jazz standards, including "Autumn Leaves", and "Let's Go Fly A Kite", but they were subtley-----bent. Weird. Sort of like orchestral jazz for people who huff solvents and sniff glue. I liked it.
I must curse jazz legends if I see them live---Sun Ra passed away a few months after I saw him, and again, I count myself lucky to have attended the show.
