After writing yesterday about my time as a jazz DJ at the Stanford student station KZSU in the mid-1980s, I began thinking of albums from that decade that were central to my first encounters with jazz: David Murray's "Murray's Steps" (1982), Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie's "Five Years Later" (1982), Abercrombie's "The Midweek Blues" (1983), Jan Garbarek's "Wayfarer" (1983), Jack DeJohnette's "Album Album" (1984), the World Saxophone Quartet's "Live in Zurich" (1984), Oregon's "Crossing" (1984), Marc Johnson's "Bass Desires" (1986), John Scofield's "Still Warm" (1986), Pat Metheny and Ornette Coleman's "Song X" (1986), Coleman's "In All Languages" (1987), Gil Evans and Steve Lacy's "Paris Blues" (1987), and Lacy's "Only Monk" (1987). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 17 June 2026)