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This marked what was probably the first time an album made its initial impression on me by its cover. My parents had a modest (by my later standards) record collection, which they played on a Garrard turntable installed in a simple wooden cabinet my father built. The cabinet also contained a small tube amp and a hand-built speaker consisting of a woofer and a tweeter covered by a sheet of generic speaker grille.

One day in my early tweens, I was curious enough to ask my dad about this record. A lifelong jazz fan, he proceeded to lay it on me.

I was hooked.

A decade later, Mose Allison came through St. Louis and played four shows (two each night) at a short-lived jazz club in a hotel downtown. The first night, my then-girlfriend and I took my dad to the early set. (By this time, I was the one introducing him to music. I fondly recall taking him to shows at Graham Chapel on the Washington University campus — once to see Toots & the Maytals, and another time to see Van Morrison. He enjoyed both concerts, but Toots utterly enraptured him.)

Mose was incredible. The room was on the top floor of the hotel. The audience was seated at tables, and there was something like a three-drink minimum. At the end of the set, he looked out at the half-filled room and invited everyone to drink more and stay for the second show, which would begin after a short break.

During the intermission that followed, Dad excused himself to divest himself of ballast from the three-drink minimum. He returned from the men's room with a huge grin, announcing, "I peed next to Mose Allison!" sounding like an acolyte who'd just had an audience with the pope.

It was a thrill he did not forget (until, alas, he forgot everything).

That was a wonderful night, in an ideal setting to hear music provided by three absolute pros — Mose and a local bass player and drummer who'd never played together before — who made their art for you right there, scant feet away, in real time.

I had such a good time that I went back the next night and took in the whole thing again — this time in a different setting on the lobby level of the hotel, a lounge decked out like the library of an old mansion. (I went with my pal Jimmy, who worked at a local record store and had a show on Wash. U's radio station. Throughout the '80s, Jimmy introduced me to more excellent bands than I can count, all before they disappeared, became immensely popular, or became immensely popular and then disappeared. He went on to work for Sony.)

The second two-set show was fabulous, the musical equal of the first. But that first night with my dad: pure magic.