Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s favourite jazz albums of all time
As a master of prog rock, Nick Mason deserves every plaudit he gets when it comes to being the genesis of Pink Floyd’s visionary world – but by the same token, pigeon-holing him as purely a genius of thrashing drums and screaming guitars actually serves him a bit of an injustice. After all, quite simply, you can’t be an experimental maestro without possessing a comprehensive understanding of the entire musical landscape near and far, but Mason proves he has just that.
While there’s no denying that definitive records such as The Dark Side of the Moon redefined much of rock and overall music history at large, Mason’s own personal tastes reflect a much more diverse array of inspirations and sonic callbacks in everything from folk to jazz.
In particular, the latter genre proves to be a dominant force of Mason’s musical picks, especially pertinent as he previously claimed Pink Floyd constantly lapped up the offerings of related movements. He said: “I still don’t quite understand how we got to that point of such free experimentation. We thought of ourselves as an R&B band, playing hits.”
To that end, his love of the jazz world is clear for all to see, most of all in his choice of favourite albums. He lists no less than three jazz records as being seminal soundtracks to his life, the influence of which ever-presently permeates through much of his sonic experimentations and musical outputs.
The first of these comes from the beat of American jazz, Thelonius Monk, whose piano playing on the 1959 album The Thelonius Monk Orchestra at Town Hall Mason reverently describes as “a lesson in timing and percussion, as well as the music”. Another of his top contenders comes in the form of Halcyon Days, the seminal record by Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, released in 2004 and marking a relatively modern fusion of jazz mixed with the rock realm. You can see exactly why it would be up Mason’s street.
Finally, he cites the heart and soul of jazz itself as his defining muse – because when you’re talking about this genre, you really have no other option. America’s leading trumpeter, Miles Davis, released the record Jack Johnson in 1971 to critical acclaim, and ever since, it has also held a particularly special place in Mason’s heart. He enthused that it was “probably the greatest groove album of all time,” in doing so cementing the sense, similar to Halcyon Days, that the jazz-rock fusion is the key to his soul.
It’s clear that Nick Mason possesses a sense when it comes to music that many others will find hard to come by. It’s his intuitive nature combined with the lack of fear to experiment with different sonic patterns that makes him a complete visionary – not just in his output across the tenure of Pink Floyd, but in his ability to pick out songs and albums that speak to him in the way that jazz does. Like so many who lap up the genre, jazz can be seen as a mouthpiece to the world, but in Mason’s eyes, it’s also a view into his inner self.
