ALAN BERN

pianist-accordionist with klezmer band Brave Old World

“Let me think for a minute. I remember the first jazz albums that I ever bought as a teenager. I guess it’s easier for me to remember certain genres than particular albums. Probably the first albums that I ever bought were classical music as a kid because I was studying classical piano and I liked to get recordings of the pieces that I was working on.

“As a teenager I was very into the Beatles, of course, and bought all of their albums.

“But at the same time, I was listening to a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. The first jazz albums that I bought were Miles Davis’ ‘Miles in the Sky,’ John Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ and Pharoah Sanders’ ‘Karma.’ Those three albums were very, very significant for me.”