THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: Merkava on 20 Sep 2005, 12:03
-
Though I love jazz and happen to think that jazz drumming is the greatest thing to happen to music ever, I have realized that I don't really have much of a collection. I thought, since there are some enthusiasts here, that someone may point me to some superduperfabulous jazz albums.
-
My all-time favorites:
-- The Marsalis Family - A Jazz Celebration (All five of the musical Marsalises: Ellis, Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, Jason; playing in a septet, shortly after a momentous reconciliation between Wynton & Ellis);
-- John Coltrane - Giant Steps;
-- Complete Jazz at Massey Hall (The legendary set featuring Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach at Massey Hall, Toronto in 1953. Legend has it that Charlie Parker played on a plastic alto saxophone, Powell was drunk as a skunk, and the hall was half full. Often referred to as the "Best Concert Ever");
-- The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out.
Looking forward to what other people recommend. Thanks for a good thread idea :)
-
For the love of all things holy, get Mingus, Ah Um by Charles Mingus. It's the best Jazz album I've ever heard. While far from a jazz buff, I've heard a fair amount, and Mingus Ah Um wins. Coltrane - Giant Steps and Miles Davis - Bitches Brew are kinda obligatory. Other than that, I'm a big fan of Ornette Coleman.
Basically though, you want Inlander on the case. That's who I went to for Jazz Recs, and I'm thankful I did.
-
Bitches Brew deserves a warning though -- it's one of the big jazz fusion bibles/progenitors, so if you're looking for so-called "classical" jazz, you might be in for a bit of a surprise.
If you're looking for a nice Ella Fitzgerald starting CD, Fine & Mellow is a pretty sweet place to start. 'Course, it's hard to go wrong with Ella.
-
Coltrane is a big one here. I'm partial to A Love Supreme if only because of Elvin Jones' drumming or Meditations.
Also, Albert Ayler is another great saxophonist who deserves to be checked out. Spirits Rejoice is really good.
-
I'm kinda new to this whole jazz thing, but Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue is the most relaxing thing I've ever heard. I love it.
(this is possibly a very obvious choice, but as I say I'm a jazz-n00b)
-
If Kind of Blue is the most relaxing thing you've ever heard, then you obviously haven't heard Stan Getz & Joćo Gilberto's Getz/Gilberto album. That is the essence of relaxation, and highly recommended.
Some others:
The Cowboy Bebop Soundtracks have some great modern takes on classic jazz styles (although there are some terrible tracks mixed in there as well).
Check out the old Nat King Cole trio albums, before he went solo, for some incredible combo work.
Charles Gayle is excellent if you're into free jazz.
-
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew.
Also, pretty much every fucking album by Sun Ra. Freeform experimental fusion jazz of the early 20th century with a guy who thinks he's a being from another plane of existance? Yes please!
-
For the love of all things holy, get Mingus, Ah Um by Charles Mingus. It's the best Jazz album I've ever heard. While far from a jazz buff, I've heard a fair amount, and Mingus Ah Um wins. Coltrane - Giant Steps and Miles Davis - Bitches Brew are kinda obligatory. Other than that, I'm a big fan of Ornette Coleman.
Basically though, you want Inlander on the case. That's who I went to for Jazz Recs, and I'm thankful I did.
Aww shucks, I'm glad you like the Mingus! For everyone else, here's the list I sent to MilkmanDan when he asked me for recommendations (there's a hell of a lot that's not on here, which I'll probably elaborate on later):
1920s:
- Louis Armstrong: Hot Fives and Hot Sevens, volume 3
- Bix Beiderbecke: Singing the Blues
1930s:
- Lester Young: The 'Kansas City' Sessions
- Count Basie: If you can find a C.D. of the 1938 Decca recordings, grab it. Failing that, anyu compilation of the '30s stuff would do the trick - but make sure it has "Jumping at the Woodside" on it!
- Duke Ellington: Try and find a compilation of the early '40s R.C.A.-Bluebird recordings - a few tunes to look for: "Ko-Ko", "Jack the Bear", "Concerto for Cootie". These are all amazing orchestral recordings.
- Billie Holiday: You should be able to track down a compilation of her '30s recordings. Focus on the Columbia releases - these are her best, and the sound quality on the recent reissues is unbelievable.
1940s:
- Charlie Parker: get a copy of the Dial master recordings. This is absolutely essential! If you stick to the masters rather than the complete Dials, you should be able to get it for in a fairly cheap 2-C.D. set, but you might be struggling to get a single C.D. If you somehow manage to find one, the East Coast Dial recordings are the ones to look out for.
Dizzy Gillespie: Try and find some of the R.C.A.-Bluebird big-band recordings - these are amazing. If you don't get anything else, at least get the tune "Manteca" (the original studio recording, that is.)
1950s:
- Miles Davis: a whole swag of recordings, but two that are particular favourites of mine are Round About Midnight and Miles Ahead - the former is small-group, the latter is orchestral arranged by Gil Evans. Round About Midnight features a young John Coltrane on tenor saxophone.
- Charles Mingus: Mingus Ah Um is one of the great jazz albums. It's probably also Mingus's most melodic album. For some of his more avant-garde stuff, try The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady from the '60s, or Let My Childeren Hear Music from the '70s.
- Gerry Mulligan: you should be able to get a single-disc selection of the recordings made by Mulligan's famous pianoless quartet with Chet Baker. Also check out a great big-band C.D. by Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band, called At the Village Vanguard.
- Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz. Just like the title says - if you're feeling adventurous!
- Sarah Vaughan: Self-titled. Brilliant jazz vocal album, with a great band in support.
1960s:
- Bill Evans: Waltz For Debby. Pretty much as good as jazz gets.
- John Coltrane: A Love Supreme - though you might already have this.
To be honest I don't really get into fusion and all that stuff, so I can't recommend you anything much from the '70s and '80s. A few other slightly less famous albums to look out for, though, are: Nothing But the Blues by the guitarist Herb Ellis, At the Cafe Bohemia or Una Mas by Kenny Dorham, Clifford Brown and Max Roach by, well, Clifford Brown and Max Roach . . .
I would also consider "Louis Armstrong Sings W.C. Handy" to be absolutely essential. Likewise "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Songbook" - although that's a 4-C.D. set, which might be more than some people are willing to commit to! Oh, and before I forget: Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson. Also Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster Screw it, this topic's too big for one post!!
EDIT: Oh, and as for Moiche's recommendation of the Massey Hall concert - there was a limited-edition print of it a few years ago, with some fancy jiggery-pokery done to the remastering, and the sound quality is a bajillion times better than on other versions. I think it was only limited to 10,000 copies or something, but if you can get your hands on it then do so.
-
McCoy Tyner - Trident
Chick Corea - Compact Jazz
McCoy is the best jazz piano ever. Also check out anything by John Scofield.
-
-- The Marsalis Family - A Jazz Celebration (All five of the musical Marsalises: Ellis, Branford, Wynton, Delfeayo, Jason; playing in a septet, shortly after a momentous reconciliation between Wynton & Ellis);
Marsalis < Dead Mule Cocks
Sorry, I just really hate Wynton and Branford.
Essentials:
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
One of the first albums that can be truly considered 'funk'. 4 historic tracks.
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach - Jazz At Masey Hall
GETGETGETGET!!!
Charles Mingus - Ah-Um
Seriously, everyone is right.
Miles Davis - Live Evil
I always have and always will consider this a much more pivitol and powerful fusion album than either Bitch's Brew or Get Up With It. Both of those are amazing too though.
Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, Neils Orsted-Scott Pederson - The Trio
Arguably the greatest hard-bop of all time. Fast, tight, raw, and totally without a drummer.
Lee Morgan - Cornbread
If Miles was the virtuoso, Lee is the fun-loving guy who dropped out of music school to play gigs in Brazil where he lit his trumpet on fire and shit.
Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz - Diz & Getz
Best version of "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" ever on this album!
John Coltrane - Giant Steps
"Syeeda's Song Flute" is just my favorite jazz song ever so I'm a little biased here.
Ornette Coleman - New York Is Now
Argueably the best sax player ever (if a little INSANE AS FUCK) and his weirdest release (in my eyes anyways).
Clifford Brown and Max Roach - something in japanese i cant read...*
20 years after Clifford Brown's death at 22, Miles Davis said "If what happened to Brownie had happened to another, the world would never have heard of Miles Davis". And it's true. If Miles was the virtuoso and Lee was the funtastic guy, Clifford was the crooner. And by gosh did he fucking croon his heart out in his short but prolific recording career.
Oliver Nelson - Blues And Abstract Truth
The best arranged jazz album of all time. Oliver Nelson also arranged the one below this.
Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery - The Dynamic Duo
My favorite jazz album of all ever.
There's always more.
* As far as I know, it's one of dozens of recordings simply called "Clifford Brown and Max Roach". This one's got "Delilah" as the first track and the most inspiring version of "Joy Spring" in ever.
-
If we're talking vocalists, locate and pick up at all costs the complete Ella Fitzgerald songbooks. Ella, in the twilight of her career, recorded the entire songbook of many of the great composers of the day: Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and Hart, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, and Duke Ellington.
-
i'm sooo glad i'm not the only person who says Charlie Parker. he is all you need for one reason:
salt peanuts.
-
* As far as I know, it's one of dozens of recordings simply called "Clifford Brown and Max Roach". This one's got "Delilah" as the first track and the most inspiring version of "Joy Spring" in ever.
There's actually a proper album by the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet called "Clifford Brown and Max Roach" - it's got a bright orange and blue cover and it's widely available through Verve Records. It does have awesome versions of both "Delilah" and "Joy Spring" on it, so it might well be the one your talking about - though why it should be a Japanese import, I have no idea. Anyway, the Brown-Roach Quintet was one of the greatest bands in jazz, and put out several amazing records, first with Harold Land on tenor sax (my favourite version of the band) and then with Sonny Rollins - apart from the aforementioned self-titled one, there are:
- Brown-Roach Inc.
- A Study in Brown (err . . . yeah, the less said about the title of this one the better!)
- At Basin Street
- Sonny Rollins + 4 (this one's actually listed under Sonny Rollins' name, but it's the Brown-Roach Quintet).
JLM speaks the truth about the Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks - I've already recommended the Gershwin set, but also highly recommended are the Cole Porter Songbook (one of the most famous vocal recordings in jazz) and the Harold Arlen Songbook (just listen to Ella sing "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe", and tell me it doesn't make you want to rush straight out and buy the album!). Both of these are 2-C.D. sets, but well priced. Although I wouldn't exactly call it the twilight of her career - she was at her absolute vocal peak during this period!
Also: Lester Young. Seriously. Lester god-damn Young. A lot of his early stuff was as a sideman in the Count Basie band, so one of the best places to get his stuff currently is the recent Columbia 3-C.D. Basie set "America's #1 Band". Also the Kansas City Sessions (as previously stated), Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio, the various Lester Young in Washington D.C. live albums, the Savoy recordings . . . So much. Don't listen to any idiot who tells you the old story about how Young's post-war recordings are terrible. That's just a lazy excuse for people who can't be bothered listening (although his late-50s stuff - from about '57 onwards (he died in '59) - is definitely of inferior quality).
Shit, this is gonna start me off on a wave of Count Basie recommendations . . .
-
EDIT: Oh, and as for Moiche's recommendation of the Massey Hall concert - there was a limited-edition print of it a few years ago, with some fancy jiggery-pokery done to the remastering, and the sound quality is a bajillion times better than on other versions. I think it was only limited to 10,000 copies or something, but if you can get your hands on it then do so.
Thank-you, Inlander, for all the excellent suggestions. This list is going to keep me busy for a while, but it's a good kind of busy. There were a few releases of the remastered Massey Hall concert and most of them were not limited. I believe that the one I have a copy of is this one.
Marsalis < Dead Mule Cocks
Second time I've seen you bash the shit out of the Marsalis family. I'm curious -- what motivates this hatred? And why is Ellis spared?
-
Yeah, I've heard about that one. There's been a shitload of small labels releasing famous recordings in recent years because of the expiration of copyright on a lot of stuff after 50 years - and the Massey Hall concert is one of them. The version I've got (which I was referring to) is an Original Jazz Classics (the "proper" label) re-release, and the sound quality is definitely superior to their original release of the same material. I haven't heard any others. The O.J.C. version, though, doesn't have any of the trio tracks on it.
Which reminds me of another must-have: The Amazing Bud Powell, volume 1. Available through Blue Note.
-
Some others:
The Cowboy Bebop Soundtracks have some great modern takes on classic jazz styles (although there are some terrible tracks mixed in there as well).
Cowboy Bebop = teh sex
That got me into jazz, and out of anime, since nothing measures up to it in any way. :P
Thanks guys, keep 'em coming!
-
I keep looking at this thread and thinking it says essential jizz, then being disappointed.
-
Essential Jizz:
Steve Vai's.
Mike Patton's.
Abraham Lincoln's.
Ken Keasey's.
Tori Amos'.
Tom Waits'.
Second time I've seen you bash the shit out of the Marsalis family. I'm curious -- what motivates this hatred? And why is Ellis spared?
I have had the good fortune never to be forced the horror that I expect to be Ellis Marsalis. I am not big on Wynton and Branford because (what I've heard from them) is incredibly straightforward, all-rules-followed, easy-to-swallow jazz (Joe Diorio called it 'bubble-gum jazz'). I've no problem with someone listening to them for the quality of their playing if they've not dug below the surface of jazz. But when you start understanfing jazz and you line them up next to other jazz legends, their ability to play really isn't that good at all. To me, they aren't the worst thing there is, but they don't deserve a place among the other jazz masters whose names are known by all (or most).
-
Another classic just popped into my head.
Ella and Louis Again
Now, this is an obvious choice in already crowded thread, but hear me out.
You got those two greats along with Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown going at it. It's classic.
-
Mustn't forget the incomparable Louis Jordan.
Or God himself, Art Tatum (http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archive/tatum.html).
-
Miles Davis, Bugge Wesseltoft, Pat Metheny, Stan Getz and Jaga Jazzist.
-
So, what's the ONE Jazz recording to try, for a guy (ie me) who hasn't heard much more than Norah Jones, but really digs, for example Ephel Duath and Carpathian Forest's 'Blackened Jazz' (ie Cold Comfort, House of the Whipcord, Cold Murderous Music).
-
Billy Cobham
-
Miles Davis, Bugge Wesseltoft, Pat Metheny, Stan Getz and Jaga Jazzist.
Bugge Wesseltoft is amazing. Moving Is one of my favorite albums. Have you heard his collaborations with Laurent Garnier, both at the Montreaux Jazz Festival and on Garnier's recent album The Cloud Making Machine? Good stuff.
Also Eivind Aarset, another nordic jazzman, is quite incredible. Pretty much anything on Jazzland records is worth the money.
So, what's the ONE Jazz recording to try, for a guy (ie me) who hasn't heard much more than Norah Jones, but really digs, for example Ephel Duath and Carpathian Forest's 'Blackened Jazz' (ie Cold Comfort, House of the Whipcord, Cold Murderous Music).
Really depends. Are you looking to broaden out or just stick with what's familiar to you in terms of sound?
-
I'm thinking less sort of dancable, swingy, old-fashioned kinda stuff, more sort of rip off my goddamn face and fling it into a field.
I don't like Django Reinhardt. If that helps.
-
So...you want to listen to some Jazz music that isn't Jazz? :P
Maybe some Avante-Garde stuff. Sonny Sharrock (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:3s320rjac48p~T1) (guy who did the music for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast) is someone you might be into.
-
Django Bates from the UK has some really impressive and great stuff as well. I haven't heard full albums, but I've seen him live and that was really awesome.
-
So...you want to listen to some Jazz music that isn't Jazz? :P
Stuff like this:
Ephel Duath - The Passage (http://s59.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3KKGLNDXF8I2Q043SCCRTM017P)
But maybe a bit more jazzy? I dunno. When I saw them live they jammed like crazy, and it was awesome.
-
Check out the cowboy bebop soundtracks, or any old bebop jazz for that matter. It sounds closest to this...without, you know, all the chugga chugga and screaminess.
-
So, what's the ONE Jazz recording to try, for a guy (ie me) who hasn't heard much more than Norah Jones, but really digs, for example Ephel Duath and Carpathian Forest's 'Blackened Jazz' (ie Cold Comfort, House of the Whipcord, Cold Murderous Music).
Billy Cobham
He's right Khar. Get Billy's "Spectrum". It features Tommy Bolin doing some of the earliest thrash recorded, and rocking it like the motherfuckin' master he was.
Also, after listening to that Ephel Duath track, I highly recommend downloading "Liver-Colored Dew" by Trevor Dunn's Trio Convulsant. If you like it, get the whole album.
Also, get "Live Evil" by Miles Davis. Really do. Or at least download "Sivad".
-
Khar: Live Evil, as said in Creamy boy's post, and Bitches Brew, Both by Miles Davis. Great Stuff.
Pat Metheny is good, but that's just because my dad always played that guy when I was like, 6.
Sun Ra is damned close to what you'd probably want too; Other Planes of There is a good album, although if you can find anything by him, I an be pretty sure you'll enjoy it.
-
In music at college the other day we listened to a bit of my mate's Kyle Eastwood CD. It was brilliant and quite upbeat and fun. He's Clint Eastwood's son and Clint himself whistles on one of the songs as well.
Tonight when I'm at home I'll probably come back to this thread again and read who people have recommended. Wouldn't mind hearing a bit more jazz myself.
:)
-
I think the jazz albums I can't imagine my life without would have to be:
Herbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage
Grant Green: Idle Moments
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
John Coltrane: Blue Train
and if you're a fan of jazz drumming then:
Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin'
Oooh, and finally, the one jazz album that has enriched my life more than any other:
Nina Simone: Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club
I'd heartily recommend getting it. It's not only one of the best album titles ever, it's just perfect music from start to finish.
-
Excellent taste ;). Also, please reduce avatar to about one tenth that size (most people stay within 100 by 100 pixels).