Jazz albums I should own

[Jacques]

Some of the records I listen to most often:

- Miles' entire recorded output 1959-1970
-Coletrane's A Love Supreme, My Favorite Things, later Impulse! Coletrane releases
-Ornette's Shape of Jazz to Come, and This is Our Music
-Freddy Hubbard - Straight Life
-Dave Holland - Conference of the Birds
-Duke Ellington - Far East Suite
-Mingus Ah Um, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady,
-Monk - Straight, no Chaser

[joosttx]

"Weary Blues" from blue note records......

Lesser known but I would tell someone to buy this after they bought "Kind of Blue". IWO second most important Jazz album to own.

What it is, is Langston Hughes reading his poetry over Charlie Mingus et al.

[ChristopherG]

Mingus Ah Um

Was waiting for this one, it was instrumental in opening my ears to jazz when I was in high school.

[bocarider]

Some piano players for you to consider:

Keith Jarrett - Whisper Not
Bill Evans - Live at the Village Vangard (unless someone already said that)
Herbie Hancock - VSOP and the Soundtrack from 'Round Midnight (just a killer band, with Tony Williams, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter and a bunch of other amazing players)

I am not as much of a Chick Corea fan as I was in my 20's but his Three Quartets album, with Michael Brecker, Steve Gadd and Eddie Gomez is brilliant.

[echelon_john]

Surprised nobody's mentioned it yet, but Ben Webster's "Jazz 'Round Midnight" is pretty seminal IMO. Unbelievably smooth; good production but still raw enough you can hear his breath.

[Paul]

In addition to stuff already mentioned -

Trane - Crescent, Plays the Blues
Bill Evans - Portrait in Jazz, Explorations
Mingus - Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
Monk - Live at the It Club, Genius of Modern Music
Clifford Jordan - Glass Bead Games
Arthur Blythe - Lennox Avenue Breakdown
Bobby Hutcherson - Dialogue
Horace Tapscott - The Dark Tree
Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster
Joe Henderson - Mode For Joe
Horace Silver - Song For My Father
Gary Bartz - There Goes The Neighbourhood
Booker Ervin - That's It
Larry Young - Unity
Wayne Shorter - Schizophrenia, Adam's Apple
Billie Holiday - Songs For Distingue Lovers
Andrew Hill - Point of Departure, Shades
Keith Jarrett - Live At The Dear Head Inn
David Murray - Ming
James Carter - JC on the Set
Miles - ESP, Miles Smiles

Sorry, got a bit carried away there

[King Of Dirk]

Keith Jarrett - the Koln Concert
Bill Evans - Everybody Digs Bill Evans
Stanley Jordan - Flying Home
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Chet Baker - Embraceable You
Bill Evans - Person I Knew (contains the inimitable Twelve Tone Tune) (Bruce Hornsby does a great variation, too)
Billy Holiday - anything she did
Nina Simone - anything she did

[chasea]

Can I come clean here?

I grew up in Memphis. I was raised in rock and roll and Stax soul. I have a blues-based brain. Horns sound like the Memphis Horns or something from and Otis Redding record. Saxophone sounds like Bobby Keys. I spent at least a weekend a month in New Orleans as a teen, and second line jazz is my toe in the water here. I've seen many of the legends down there, often before I knew they were anybody, and loved it. But still, New Orleans jazz is still steeped in the basic idea that jazz is dance music.

Most jazz, "west coast jazz", Miles Davis et al, confounds me. Bitches Brew gives me a headache. Now, I know this is crazy, as I love rules being broken in rock and roll, and I love guitar noise as much as I do guitar notes and chords.

School me.

[King Of Dirk]

Put iTunes on shuffle to see what popped up. How did I forget:

Jaco Pastorius - Jaco Pastorius
Art Tatum - Piano Starts Here

[dhoff]

Check out Omar Sosa Omar Sosa :::&::: Otá Records, you will be pleased that you did.

Anthony Wilson Nonet-The Power of Nine

Tony might be the most respected living Jazz Guitarist, (by other musicians) and is a hell of a composer and arranger.

[HSTFixed]

Most jazz, "west coast jazz", Miles Davis et al, confounds me. Bitches Brew gives me a headache. Now, I know this is crazy, as I love rules being broken in rock and roll, and I love guitar noise as much as I do guitar notes and chords.

School me.

Miles Davis was born in the mid-west and then lived in New York. He's not west coast. If Bitches Brew gives you a headache listen to Miles Davis On the Corner. That will most likely be more up your alley and it was made a few years after Bitches Brew. Also Bitches is really long and some parts sound totally different than others, mabye give it another chance all the way through? If not, it's OK. Most jazz, even most Miles, doesn't sound like bitches brew.

[chasea]

Miles Davis was born in the mid-west and then lived in New York. He's not west coast. If Bitches Brew gives you a headache listen to Miles Davis On the Corner. That will most likely be more up your alley and it was made a few years after Bitches Brew. Also Bitches is really long and some parts sound totally different than others, mabye give it another chance all the way through? If not, it's OK. Most jazz, even most Miles, doesn't sound like bitches brew.

Tanner, Gerow, and Megill are largely dismissive of the term "West Coast jazz." As it often refers to Gerry Mulligan and his associates in California, "west coast" merely becomes synonymous with "cool jazz," although Lester Young, Claude Thornhill, and Miles Davis were based in New York.[6] At the same time, many musicians associated with West Coast jazz "were much more involved in a hotter approach to jazz. Communication being what it is, it is hardly likely that any style of jazz was fostered exclusively in one area."[6]

West Coast jazz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for Bitches Brew, I've been drumming for 20 years and still can't find the 1 on some of that record. I'll give some of his others a listen.

[Auk]

For the real Miles, the one before the experimental crap, go straight to his Riverside recordings. After those, the good stuff was much harder to listen to or make sense of.

Tanner, Gerow, and Megill are largely dismissive of the term "West Coast jazz." As it often refers to Gerry Mulligan and his associates in California, "west coast" merely becomes synonymous with "cool jazz," although Lester Young, Claude Thornhill, and Miles Davis were based in New York.[6] At the same time, many musicians associated with West Coast jazz "were much more involved in a hotter approach to jazz. Communication being what it is, it is hardly likely that any style of jazz was fostered exclusively in one area."[6]

West Coast jazz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for Bitches Brew, I've been drumming for 20 years and still can't find the 1 on some of that record. I'll give some of his others a listen.

[MIN]

Avant garde sounds should be taken in the context of their time period - drugged out artists exploring the limits of what can/should be categorized as music. Lots of dischord and lack of rhythmic structure - a musical stream of consciousness. They make sense as a point in the greater jazz continuum.

There are a lot of "far out" sounds from Coltrane, Miles and others that are typically known for their jazz standards (easy listening). As much as I appreciated the first time I heard the quintessential avant garde recording from these artists, I have a hard time listening to it again. It's certainly not background music and involves an engaged, active-listening process. Without the novelty of the time time hearing it, many avant garde recordings are banished to the dusty corner of a jazz lover's collection. (Guilty of this.)

[Paul]

Can I come clean here?

I grew up in Memphis. I was raised in rock and roll and Stax soul. I have a blues-based brain. Horns sound like the Memphis Horns or something from and Otis Redding record. Saxophone sounds like Bobby Keys. I spent at least a weekend a month in New Orleans as a teen, and second line jazz is my toe in the water here. I've seen many of the legends down there, often before I knew they were anybody, and loved it. But still, New Orleans jazz is still steeped in the basic idea that jazz is dance music.

Most jazz, "west coast jazz", Miles Davis et al, confounds me. Bitches Brew gives me a headache. Now, I know this is crazy, as I love rules being broken in rock and roll, and I love guitar noise as much as I do guitar notes and chords.

School me.

Miles is emphatically not of the west coast school - have a listen to the albums recorded for Prestige and the Columbia recordings between 1955 and the late 60's - the bands with Coltrane, Adderley, Evans, Shorter, Hancock etc.

From your post it seems you want to like jazz, so that is a start.
If the blues/soul is your thing you shouldn't have any problem at all getting jazz - it all comes from the same place.

A lot of folks seem to think listening to Jazz is some sort of intellectual exercise, but the truth couldn't be more different - it's soulful, it grooves, it communicates.

The problem for new listeners is they're used to hearing a singer and, obviously, most jazz is instrumental, so at first it doesn't appear there's any personality, it just sounds like a bunch of notes. This is where the listener has to make the effort, every single musician has their own sound and is easily identifiable - just not at first - you really have to listen.

I always relate it to learning a foreign language - listening to native speakers it's difficult to make out individual words and make sense of dialogue - you've got to make the effort. Exactly the same with jazz, persevere and eventually everything makes sense.

You're in NYC - so couldn't be in a better place - go to some club gigs, if that doesn't demystify jazz nothing will.

[Dyon Taylor]

1958 Miles - It's a Japanese import, so it's a bit expensive, but it has the most beautiful version of Stella by Starlight.

[Paul]

1958 Miles - It's a Japanese import, so it's a bit expensive, but it has the most beautiful version of Stella by Starlight.

............and a storming Cannonball Adderley solo on Love For Sale

[Bob Ross]

I spent at least a weekend a month in New Orleans as a teen, and second line jazz is my toe in the water here. I've seen many of the legends down there, often before I knew they were anybody, and loved it. But still, New Orleans jazz is still steeped in the basic idea that jazz is dance music.

Most jazz, "west coast jazz", Miles Davis et al, confounds me. Bitches Brew gives me a headache. Now, I know this is crazy, as I love rules being broken in rock and roll, and I love guitar noise as much as I do guitar notes and chords.

School me.

You've gotta dance to Bitches Brew. Seriously.

[Bob Ross]

Miles Davis...'Kind of Blue'

It's almost become a cliché to find a copy of that album as the lone jazz LP in some yuppie hipster's collection, but I'll still defend the contention that If You Only Have One Jazz Album, Kind Of Blue Is The One To Have. Because it works for so many people with varying backgrounds and varying attention spans and varying thresholds of what "jazz" is (and/or what music is). It's an iceberg: on the surface, "Ooh, lookee there!", but look deeper and it's "Whoa!"

So yeah, recommending Kind Of Blue is almost a cheap shot, shooting fish in a barrel...but it's also the perfect recommendation for anyone who asks "What jazz albums should I own?" You should own it. We all should own it.

[chasea]

You've gotta dance to Bitches Brew. Seriously.

Would love to, but where the hell is the 1?