Memories in wax started as a way for me to catalog and serialize my buying of records. It stemmed from the idea that every record has a memory attached to it for people. That a record can teleport you back to a time in your life, or transport you to a different life. I originally planned on doing it in order of how I obtained my records, but I’d honestly drive myself crazy doing that.
So I’ll start off with one of the first records I ever bought used, Dave Brubeck’s Bossa Nova USA. This is one of my favorite jazz albums ever, and it’s largely due to the memories attached to it.
The long winded story of how I got my record player will have to be for another day, but once I got my table setup in my dorm, I immediately realized I had a conundrum… Record player with no records. I figured I could resort to Amazon, but at $20 a record, I’d be blowing through my lunch money easily on all my wants. I searched around and found out about flea markets and the fact that they’d have records. I never went to flea markets prior to getting into records, it just wasn’t somewhere my family went and I don’t even know if my area had flea markets aside from the local church on Tuesday afternoons.
My girlfriend at the time lived near Metlife Stadium, and she mentioned the Meadowlands flea market that she grew up going to. I took my roommate Rob there one weekend and at the first pile of records we got to, this Dave Brubeck record along with Billy Joel’s The Stranger were just sitting there. I can only assume the universe put those two records there because of Rob because he used to play piano and those were the only two artists at the time he knew when we first started discussing piano players (he knew more, but was drawing a severe blank.).
From the opening track, Bossa Nova USA, with Joe Morello’s dynamic drum intro, to the smooth Latin soaked vibe of Coraçâo Sensível, this album remains a staunch memory of friendship, art, and, for some reason, a warm California sunset that I’ve never seen.
Memories In Wax 
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