I've been listening to jazz since I was 12, and Brazilian music since I was 16. I've been somewhat of a movie buff and a "humor buff" since I was 11. For anyone who's interested, here are some of my recommendations and/or favorites in each of these categories. I like feedback, so feel free to write me at chuck@chuckbraman.com if you'd like.

For anyone unfamiliar with modern jazz and interested in starting a basic collection, I can recommend a few classic CDs to start with: Miles Davis, "Milestones" and "Porgy & Bess"; Bill Evans, "Sunday at the Village Vanguard," or "Waltz for Debby"; John Coltrane, "A Love Supreme"; Charles Mingus, "Mingus Ah Um";  Charlie Parker, "Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker"; Thelonious Monk, "Thelonious Monk Trio"; Sonny Rollins, "Saxophone Colossus." All of these are musically brilliant, historically important, and should be (or become) intelligible to any neophyte listener willing to take the time to become familiar with them. (A very good guide for learning to appreciate jazz is "A Concise Guide To Jazz," by Mark Gridley.) For a more detailed essay describing a basic modern jazz CD collection, click here.

As for my personal preferences, they include Miles Davis and John Coltrane as improvisers/bandleaders, and Paul Motian, Roy Haynes, Elvin Jones, and 1960s Tony Williams as drummers (I'm a drummer myself). Among my personal favorite jazz recordings are Miles Davis, "The Complete Columbia Studio Sessions, 1965-68" (6-CD set), and "Live-Evil" (in addition to nearly every other recording that Davis made between 1949 and 1975); John Coltrane, "The Classic Quartet" (8-CD set); Chick Corea, "Now He Sings, Now He Sobs"; Keith Jarrett, "Life Between the Exit Signs"; and Bill Evans "Sunday at the Village Vanguard," and "Waltz for Debby." (Incidentally, another good strategy for becoming familiar with modern jazz is to collect Miles Davis' almost uniformly excellent 1949-1975 recordings in chronological sequence, since Davis' groups were at the forefront of modern jazz's evolution and included nearly all of the era's greatest musicians as sidemen, and also because Davis himself was an improviser who was extremely melodic and easily intelligible.)

As for Brazilian music, my favorite generation of musicians came to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s, immediately following the Bossa Nova era. The genre they pioneered, called "MPB" (for "música popular brasileira"), draws on all of Brazil's rich musical traditions, as well as American jazz and popular music. The best MPB music makes nearly all of the American popular music of the past several generations pale by comparison. It has the melodic and harmonic sophistication of the very best tin pan alley compositions combined with equally sophisticated Afro-Brazilian rhythms, all in the service of a uniquely beautiful esthetic that projects equal measures of melancholy and joy. 

Obtaining a basic CD collection of MPB music is a slightly more expensive proposition than obtaining a basic jazz collection, since most of the best recordings have to be imported from Brazil. Here are a few of my favorites, in no particular order, one for each of my favorite artists: Joyce, "Gafieira Moderna"; Simone, "Vol. 2-Brazilian Collection"; Gal Costa, "Miha D'Agua Do Meu Canto "; Milton Nascimento, "Geraes"; Ivan Lins, "Anjo de mim"; Gilberto Gil, "Quanta"; Chico Buarque, "As Cidades"; Marisa Monte, "Mais"; Caetano Veloso, "Livro"; Djavan, "Flor de Lis"; Maria Bethania, "Canto Do Paté"; Hermento Pascoal, "So Nao Toca Quem Nao Quer"; Egberto Gismonte, "Água & Vinho." A good resource for learning more about Brazilian music is the book "The Brazilian Sound," as well as The Brazilian Sound web site. Finally, a great site for locating Brazilian Music CDs, Books, Sheet Music, Videos and DVDs is Caravan Music.

(For modern American pop, I like The Beatles, Sly Stone, Steely Dan, James Taylor, and The Police.)

As for movies, my tastes are eclectic. For comedy, when I was 11, some of my favorites were (and still are) the films produced in the 1920s and 1930s by ex-vaudeville comedians, such as Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush,"  W.C. Field's "It's A Gift," and the Marx Brothers "Duck Soup." Recently I've gone back to this era again by collecting the complete Little Rascals series (click here for Vol. 1-2), which I enjoy just as much as an adult as I did as a 6 or 7 year-old kid. Some of my favorite modern comedies include Mel Brooks' "The Producers," Woody Allen's "Play It Again Sam," and the six- episode TV series "Police Squad."

For movies in general, the pre-code era (1930 to mid 1934) is my favorite period. Many of these movies have good plots, feature the greatest Hollywood stars in their youth, and were filmed in New York City during its cultural prime. Following this era, I'm also a big fan of the classic movies made during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, especially those directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Elia Kazan. As for modern movies, a few of my recent favorites include "The Accidental Tourist" (1987), "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), "As Good As It Gets" (1997), and "Central Station" (1998).

In addition to the comedies listed above, here are some of my favorite sources of humor. In the early '70s I began reading a satire magazine called National Lampoon. The magazine itself existed until the early '90s, but only the issues from the early '70s are consistently good. (To give you an idea how good, their 1964 High School Yearbook Parody, which originally retailed for $2.50, regularly sells for $70 to $100 on ebay, and it is not particularly rare.) The sensibility of the humor is similar to the first couple seasons of Saturday Night Live (which was originally an outgrowth of the National Lampoon Radio Hour), only much funnier. If you're curious, try doing a search on ebay for the "Best of" anthologies numbers 3, 4, or 5, which usually sell very cheaply. Also, an amazingly comprehensive site dedicated to National Lampoon during is period can be accessed by clicking here.

R. Crumb is my favorite cartoonist and humorist; since I was 16, I've collected everything I can find by him. His work is too diverse, multifaceted, personal (and warped) to describe. If you've never heard of him, I recommend checking out the documentary "Crumb." For a sampling of some of his best comics, check out the "R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book."

For stand-up comics, I only like the late Sam Kinison. Two of his CDs are hilarious (the others, strangely, are not very good): his first, which, unfortunately, is out of print (check ebay), "Louder Than Hell," and his last (and best), "Live From Hell."

My favorite writers of humor are Woody Allen and P.J. O'Roark. In my opinion, Allen's writing is even funnier than his funniest movies. All of it is collected in "The Complete Prose of Woody Allen."  P.J. O'Roark is a former writer and editor of National Lampoon who is now a pro-free market political humorist. I like most of his books, but my favorite is "Holidays In Hell."

My favorite current TV shows are "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO), and Penn and Teller's "Bullshit" (Showtime), which, believe it or not, is probably the most informative and enlightened show currently on television.