Famous jazz musicians have always fascinated me. My father bought me something from Louis Armstrong when I was a little girl. He died the year that I was born. For some strange reason, when I was really young, I thought that it connected us somehow.

Ive always loved the famous jazz musicians like John Coltrane and Duke Ellington. Charlie Parker was one of my dads favorite jazz musicians. I liked Charlie Parker, but my favorite remained Louis Armstrong.

When I was a teenager, I started to nurture my love of jazz musicians by learning all I could about my favorites and finding new favorites. I thought that researching jazz musicians by their instruments would help me find out a lot of things.

My world was opened so wide after I started to explore jazz. I shared with my dad all of the jazz musicians that I found out about. We got our continuing education together and had a lot of fun.

Bill Johnson was 100 years old when he died. He was one of the jazz musicians that made their mark with the double bass. My dad and I had fun tracking down old recordings of his music and marveling at his skills.

I was surprised that Yusef Lateef became one of my all time favorite jazz musicians. I was surprised because Yusef Lateef plays the flute. I had never thought of the flute figuring prominently into jazz music.

My dads favorite jazz musicians changed periodically. He ultimately decided that his favorite was Sidney Bechet. Sidney Bechet played clarinet, soprano sax, trumpet, bass and drums. I thought his style wasnt as good as Helge Schneider, for instance.

Bing Crosby and Josephine Baker are my favorite vocal jazz musicians. I could listen to them endlessly. In the end, jazz music fused my dad and I together in a very distinct way. I have found myself spending an inordinate amount of quality time with him that I would not trade for anything.