Jazz starter list
Since I made a stupid post in another thread, I thought why not try some out. Why the hell not!
Does anyone have a starter list of recommendations? Say 10-20 albums?
Does anyone have a starter list of recommendations? Say 10-20 albums?
Comments
Linky
I got into jazz in the last year or so just by reading the emu message boards, listening to samples and getting what I liked the sound of (back in the day of 90 a month anyway, couldn't do that now). Pretty ad hoc but I found the styles I liked and went out from there. Here's a list I made a while ago of 30 of my favourites. Note, not canonical or anything (tho some are) so not "essential" all of them in a historical sense, but just my favourites. Mostly bebop, and the ones at the top most recently added are soul jazz which i discovered later.
One of the first I got was Sonny Rollins' Way Out West because I knew the old song I'm An Old Cowhand, so I thought at least I would recognise the melody on that one and that might help make the rest of it more accessiable.
I think the first one I got was Dizzy Gillespie and Machito .
"Karma" by Pharoah Sanders - For a sample of avant guard jazz with a world jazz sound.
"Ghost Town" by Bill Frisell - For a sample of Americana jazz
"January" by the Marcin Wasilewski Trio - For a sample of the modern ECM sparse jazz sound.
"A Love Supreme" by John Coltrane - For a sample of Coltrane at his best.
"Thelonious Monk on Bluenote" by Monk - For a sample of the greatest jazz musician ever.
"Mingus Ah Um" by Charles Mingus - For a sample of one of jazzs greatest innovators.
"Night of the Mark VII" by Clifford Jordan - For a sample of one of the greatest live hard bop performances ever.
"Ellington at Newport 1956" by Duke Ellington - For a sample of one of the greatest live big band performances ever.
"Red Clay" by Freddie Hubbard - For a sample of jazzs transition to fusion in the seventies.
"Tribute to Jack Johnson" by Miles Davis - For a sample of jazzs incorporation of rock themes.
"Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival 1965" by John Handy - For a sample of West Coast jazz breaking from be bop to experimentalism.
"Attica Blues" by Archie Shepp - For a sample of a jazz informed by 70s funk, blues, and gospel.
"Tuesday Wonderland" by the Esbjorn Svensson Trio - For a sample of jazz experimentalism in electronica in a piano trio setting..
"Season of Changes" by Brian Blade - For a sample of nu-jazz.
"Unity" by Larry Young - For a sample of inside out jazz.
"Bird: The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker" by Charlie Parker - For a sample of Bird.
"The Real McCoy" by McCoy Tyner - For a sample of hard bop.
"This Is Our Music" by Ornette Coleman - For a sample of free jazz.
"Way out East" by Wayne Horvitz Gravitas Quartet - For a sample of chamber jazz.
Okay, that's twenty. Reading back over it, there's some obvious gaps in it. I don't even mention Louis Armstrong, latin jazz, vocal jazz, and I'm sure, plenty of others. But the above should give you some decent guidance. And keep in mind, the above twenty aren't my favorite albums; just an attempt to give you an overarching representation of seminal albums for different jazz sounds. Hopefully others will add their opinions.
EDIT: Something that'll be a continual oversight by me will be not checking if these albums are available on emusic, which may be important to you.
Cheers.
Diana Krall -The Girl In The Other Room
Art Pepper - Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section
Bill Evans - Waltz For Debby
Thelonius Monk - Underground
The Bad Plus - These Are The Vistas
Pat Metheny - Still Life (Talking)
edit - ditto on the not checking if things are on eMusic.
Thanks to NankerP and Katrina for naming some favorites. And we're big kids. We can do our own checking on eMusic or anywhere else.
JUJ, do you have a list of favorites? I'll check through my music -- see if I can put together a short list.
for example, going backwards, miles plays on a lot of great charlie parker sides, like some of these, and these. (unfortunately those are not album priced, but they are all great tracks, so pick and choose.)
to be continued...
Billy Harper - Black Saint
Charlie Hunter & Bobby Previte - Come In Red Dog This Is Tango Leader
Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane - Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane
Pat Metheny - Watercolors
Pat Metheny Group - Pat Metheny Group
Stan Getz & Jo
Heres some of my favorites. Im sure Im inexplicably omitting some. Most are albums, but I included a couple box sets simply due to their immaculate cohesiveness as a body of work. Many of these albums are simply great music, but some titles have a nostalgic entanglement that gets them put on any kind of favorites or best-of list I make.
Favorites:
A Love Supreme - John Coltrane
Complete Live at the Village Vanguard - John Coltrane
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
This is Billy Mitchell - Billy Mitchell
The Impulse Years 1973-1974 - Keith Jarrett
Straight No Chaser (Soundtrack) - Thelonious Monk
Night of the Mark VII - Clifford Jordan
Codona 3 - Codona
Quartet - Bill Frisell
Intercontinentals - Bill Frisell
The Real McCoy - McCoy Tyner
Ode to Life - Don Pullen
Strange Place for Snow / Tuesday Wonderland (Tie) - Esbjorn Svensson Trio
Jewels of Thought - Pharoah Sanders
Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival 1965" - John Handy
All Mornin Long - Red Garland
African Marketplace - Abdullah Ibrahim
Oblique - Bobby Hutcherson
The Scenic Route - Kamikaze Ground Crew
The Waiting Game - Marty Ehrlich & Mike Nock
January - Marcin Wasilewski Trio
One Flight Up - Dexter Gordon
The Dealer - Chico Hamilton
Search for the New Land - Lee Morgan
Naked Lunch (Soundtrack) - Ornette Coleman and the London Symphony Orchestra
Three or Four Shades of Blues - Charles Mingus
Joyride - Stanley Turrentine
Somethin Else - Cannonball Adderley
Blossom/Stone - Ron Miles
Le Voyage De Sahar - Annouar Brahem
Turkish Women at the Baths - Pete Laroca
The Cry of My People - Archie Shepp
And then a few more that are...
New (to me) that might one day be considered some of my all time favorites, in time
Tiny Resistors - Todd Sickafoose
Season of Changes - Brian Blade
Disfarmer - Bill Frisell
Largo - Brad Mehldau
Europeana - Joachim Kuhn
In My Element - Robert Glasper
Plainville - Jeremy Udden
Calima - Diego Barber
Cheers.
I am downloading "Kind of Blue" 1st. I know I saw a lot of talk about it on the message boards.
@jonah, thanks for your help
@Jackedupjazz, I will never get through your list on dialup
I have heard some jazz courtesy of Paul Ray's Jazz on KUT, but just enough to get me in trouble
I've got some serious sampling to do.
Billyjoebob, I've had 'Kind of Blue" for years, even got it on CD. You just can't have a jazz collection without that album. Mine's old enough that it isn't the Legacy or Anniversary edition. Just plain old Kind of Blue.
That's not jazz.
Cherry on the cake - Robert Wyatt sings "The Insect God"
It seems to me like they were gonna play whether or not anyone was listening. Like they were playing for themselves.
And, I need to download some John Coltrane and Bill Evans. I really love his piano. Wasn't Bill Evans one of the tortured souls with drugs?
@Tim, I really do like Jack Bruce
But the comment did amuse me.
edit: I know Kind of Blue is on all these 'best of' lists, but it just leaves me cold. Good thing I can type this, because my lips would be blue if I tried saying that. That's how cold it leaves me. To each their own, as always. There's ''best of' books I've tried to read that I couldn't get into, either. And five years later, tried reading it again,and loved it. Perhaps one day I'll be struck by that blue thunderbolt of jazz, and love it.
I'll check out your faves. Rats. The library doesn't have those.
The part of your post I put in bold is very understandable. Even though KoB is considered one of the greatest jazz albums, it's not the kind of album that blows you away; it's greatness is found in its subtlety, and to really hear those nuances, it helps to hear a lot of other jazz for context. I'm always hesitant to put it on a jazz starter list for that reason, but the thing is, it's really a great album. If you want to try a different Miles album, a different great one, here's an emusic page with a couple of his quintet dates (and a box set of them)...
http://www.emusic.com/artist/Miles-Davis-Quintet-MP3-Download/10557896.html
These quintet dates are some great jazz. There's a couple others they don't carry, all with the "[verb] with the Miles Davis Quintet" title (I think there's four total: Steamin', Cookin', Walkin', & Relaxin'). All good stuff, and all a bit more accessible. I was lucky to choose them early on in my own jazz experimentation.
I also think that raised expectations leads to an expected let-down when new people hear KoB for the first time. Myself, I listened to it early on, too, but I wasn't aware of the prestige it held in the jazz community; it didn't do a lot for me, but one day I was in Jerry's Record Exchange (on Colfax in Denver, CO), and I heard this great music playing over the speakers, asked him what it was, and found out it was KoB, an album I'd owned for a couple years. My experience was, undoubtedly, not a unique one. I should also add, however, that some very knowledgeable and passionate jazz fans never really get into KoB. Just the nature of music and art; no one thing is for everyone.
And you're right, Katrina, about jazz in general. It might not set your world on fire right now, but like your book analogy, it's good to keep it on your shelf and give it a listen now and then, 'cause one day, you might never be able to put it down. That's the way it was with me, and my budget has never been the same.
Cheers.
If you like Metheny, you might want to try Marc Johnson's "Sound of Summer Running". Pat Metheny (and Bill Frisell) plays on it. I'm not a huge Metheny fan, but I do like this album a lot. It's not on emusic, unfortunately. And fair warning, this album sounds different than other Marc Johnson albums I've heard/owned.
Cheers.
Django Reinhardt
Charlie Christian
Lonnie Johnson
Barney Kessel
Herb Ellis
Joe Pass
Wes Montgomery
Tal Farlow
Mundell Lowe
Chuck Wayne
Howard Alden
George Van Eps
Howard Roberts
Pat Martino
Larry Coryell
Phillip Catherine
Bireli Lagrene
Russell Malone
Jimmy Bruno
in roughly chronological order, any of these guys have something good to say in six or seven strings, and I'm leaving plenty out.
And RIP, Les Paul, music would not be the same without you.
Cookin' is one of my all time favorites of any genre. It's a little tiny thing (4 np's!) but just so wonderful.
The thing I like best about Kind of Blue is how easy it is to connect it to any other jazz album - like Metheny plaid with Chick Corea, who plaid with Miles on fusion stuff and there - back to Kind of Blue.
Bill Frisell and Marc Johnson will be next on my list for jazz acquisitions. What's weird is that the Marc Johnson album looks very familiar. Maybe it's time I come clean about my eMusic UK account (I live in the US), which is how I got a hold of so many ECM albums. Probably a good idea for me to grab some BB cards and d/l some more before they all go album-only...
As a side note, Metheny is the only live jazz show I've ever been to. Saw the Trio a couple years back (with Christian McBride!!! and Antonio Sanchez) - watching him play the Pikasso live was awesome.
Yes, the album was made on Columbia, but the various members of that ensemble all made huge inroads at various other labels as well (Miles at Prestige), Bill Evans (Riverside), Adderley (Riverside, Capitol & Blue Note), Chambers (Blue Note, Prestige), Coltrane (Impulse, Atlantic), Kelly (Blue Note, Milestone, Verve), Cobb (pretty much everywhere). They were all in demand by various bandleaders, and appeared on a whole buncha albums. It's also a great way to explore jazz on your own, by branching out based on players from a particular session. Chambers would lead you to the Red Garland Trio. Kelly would lead you to Dexter Gordon. Cobb would lead you to Wes Montgomery, and so on.
If you're not familiar with it, you might try the aforementioned Mingus album "Three or Four Shades of Blues". He enlists a trio of guitarists for various songs on the album (Phillip Catherine, Larry Coryell, and John Scofield). They each really give a different perspective on songs Mingus had recorded with other ensembles. The treatment this band gives "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" is sheer beauty, which couldn't be achieved without Catherine's fluttering guitar phrasings. Also, Scofield (I think it's him) burns things up on "Better Get Hit in Your Soul".
A severely overlooked album.
I am continuing to work on my jazz education. I am about 13 hours into Ken Burns jazz and really liked the timbre in the snippets I heard of Roy Eldridge. I found The Nifty Cat for $2.94 on emusic and quite liked it. What I read about that album online suggested to me that before that album (around 1970) he had not been given opportunities to record his own stuff as a leader. I am not sure I want to wade through a load of swing band recordings because there is some Eldridge trumpet on them somewhere.
Are there particularly classic Roy Eldridge albums that I should be listening to?
Are there any particularly good compilations that highlight his playing? (There's a bunch of grey market ones on emusic.)
Thanks for any tips.