Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Favorite new record? Favorite old record? Got a band? Post it here.
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noisepunk
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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by noisepunk » Fri Jul 30, 2010 3:01 pm

John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is an excellent album.

I'd also check out Django Reinhardt, one of the greatest unconventional guitar players of all time; he's not Classic Jazz per-say, but he's one of the founders of Gypsy-Jazz, which I personally prefer.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by zenarcade » Mon Oct 25, 2010 10:04 am

noisepunk wrote:John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is an excellent album.

I'd also check out Django Reinhardt, one of the greatest unconventional guitar players of all time; he's not Classic Jazz per-say, but he's one of the founders of Gypsy-Jazz, which I personally prefer.
+1 on Django. Can you recommend any good album from him. There are so many albums/compilations to choose from. Sean Penns character in the movie Sweet and Lowdown is also based on him ;)


Guitar Virtuoso (4 Cd Set) by Joe Pass is really great if you like guitar jazz (who doesn't..)
I also really like Bitches Brew and Birth of Cool by Miles Davis.
Headhunters - Herbie Hancock
Speak no evil - Wayne Shorter
A Love Supreme - john Coltrane
Giant Steps - Coltrane
Blue Train - Coltrane
And anything from Wes Montgomery. He was also a huge influence on Hendrix.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by glimmertwin » Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:59 am

Genuflect wrote:Some stuff that's been in heavy rotation recently has been:

Woody Shaw - Blackstone Legacy
Don Cherry - Eternal Rhythm/Brown Rice/Orient
Cecil Taylor - Unit Structures
Andrew Hill - Black Fire
These are some good recommendations if your into more out there stuff. I really enjoyed Unit Structures when I first heard it....Andrew Hill also put out one of my favorites - Lift Every Voice which is unique in that he uses vocal sections in a way more consistent with a horn section. Seems like if your into this stuff you would also have a pretty healthy Sun Ra collection - I know I do.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by glimmertwin » Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:13 am

Beat me to it - those would be my recommendations for the most part. I especially think Speak No Evil and Black Saint at the Sinner Lady are outstanding. I even got a chance to see Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock from the front row back in college when they did their Verve collaboration album. Blew my textbook money on it. I failed out that semester, but I don't regret a thing....also saw Mingus Big Band that year.

...other great jazz albums to add to the short list(and keep in mind these are more accessible ones):
Modern Jazz Quartet - Django maybe a little on the mild mannered side, but Django is one of the greatest jazz standards ever written mostly because of the prominent classical/jazz influences
Chico Hamilton - Gongs East - Chico is one of the most underrated band leaders ever and he always had a great supporting cast. This album prominently features Eric Dolphy(also get Dolphy's Out to Lunch) but he has worked with other geniuses like Fred Katz, Buddy Collette, Sal Salvador, Gabor Szabo, and Jon Pisano.
Horace Silver - Blues for my Father - another classic blue note recording
Oliver Nelson - Blues and the Abstract Truth - probably one of the greatest sextets ever in Bill Evans, Roy Haynes, Dolphy, Paul Chambers, Freddie Hubbard, and of course Nelson.
Lee Morgan - Sidewinder

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by mcjt » Tue Oct 26, 2010 9:30 am

yeah!
Mingus, Django, Miles, Coltrane, Roach, that's all good!
Classics are great to break yourself in. But then you have to explore new worlds....

Yusef Lateef? Pharoah Sanders? Oscar Peterson? Sarah Vaughn? Nina Simone? Henry Threadgill? Coleman Hawkins? Sun Ra? i've been digging early Lonnie Liston Smith of late.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Oct 26, 2010 10:02 am

There's a LOT of great music.

We could go on for days and days about our favorite records, I'm sure.

But a lot of the enduring classics are enduring classics for a reason!

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by CZ101 » Tue Oct 26, 2010 2:43 pm

Not "jazz" proper, but Fats Waller is amazing (more blues/ragtime/cabaret). Check out "The Reefer Song"... ;D

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by CZ101 » Tue Oct 26, 2010 6:17 pm

Agreed...

I generally prefer not to think in terms of music theory or genre semantics, but since you pointed it out - that whatever "jazz" is certainly should include Fats W., I had to ask myself why he's not patently "jazz" to me..

Anyway, I tend to associate the term "jazz" with having a heavy major 7th / minor flat 7th contingency (like what distinguishes the "comping" of bebop from swing or boogie woogie - throwing in "inharmonic" suspensions, etc) and, of course - free flowing chromaticism - with a leaning away from the diatonic..

I guess Fats to me is less self-consciously "modern" (post-modern really ;) ) or arty, but I think of "jazz" as rooted in revolution and rule-breaking...

Either way, in my book, "smooth" is to "jazz" as "wine" is to "cooler" - just basically disgusting.. :P

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by Sauerkraut » Wed Oct 27, 2010 4:25 am

Sonny Sharrock - Ask the Ages is fantastic.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by Jaguar018 » Wed Oct 27, 2010 5:42 am

I have seen all the important Jazz titan albums listed and don't see any glaring omissions.

But I would like to mention that I like Gerry Mulligan. A bit 'pop,' but a baritone sax has such an interesting sound to me.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by Padraic » Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:42 pm

+10000000000 for anything by Coltrane, Miles, Mingus, Django, Roland Kirk.
Bonus points if you find any early recordings of John Coltrane and Miles Davis in a band together. Completely nuts.

Also, check out the records that Joe Pass and Ella Fitzgerald did together. Fan-fucking-nominal.
Add Stuff Smith to that list. Crazy jazz violinist, who also sang sometimes.
Just to add more saxamaphone: Coleman Hawkins. Especially "April in Paris."
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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by TheFool » Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:42 am

Jaco Pastorius!!!!!!!
How blue can you get?

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by guitarsammy » Fri Jul 21, 2017 4:37 am

shadowplay wrote:Not keen on the term "classic", it boxes in music in a way I am uncomfortable with.

Is Kenny Graham and his Satellites "classic"? Well it's 50's, it pre-dates most of of the post bebop groups African fascination but it's more like Kosmische than Jazz and I love it.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I've been reading through some jazz recommendations on here and have just checked this out online and will now have to buy it. Can't quite believe it's 60 years old.

Thanks, Shadowplay. Great stuff.

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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by Larry Mal » Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:33 am

This is an old thread!

But when I thought it was new, I was going to point out this Miles Davis set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjWXwD2pP6Q" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's got the hook of being a live album from my town which is how I come to know it, it was released as Miles in St. Louis (he grew up in East St. Louis). It's a great set of music, maybe slipped under the radar of some folks here who might enjoy it. I seem to remember really enjoying the "All Blues" on it.

I was also going to suggest to the original poster that if you want to know jazz, you could do worse than just start with some Miles Davis classics and then just dig through his catalog over the years. You'll hear the evolution of jazz spelled out very clearly there (he was a driving force in the genre's evolution) and he's very, uh, good and usually very accessible too.

Just let Miles show you jazz for a long time and then branch out from that point, rather than trying to absorb all of it at once.

Anyway, that would have been my advice. I keep meaning to put on In a Silent Way or Sketches of Spain for the kids.
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Re: Wanna give me some classic jazz recommendations?

Post by shadowplay » Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:01 am

guitarsammy wrote:
shadowplay wrote:Not keen on the term "classic", it boxes in music in a way I am uncomfortable with.

Is Kenny Graham and his Satellites "classic"? Well it's 50's, it pre-dates most of of the post bebop groups African fascination but it's more like Kosmische than Jazz and I love it.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I've been reading through some jazz recommendations on here and have just checked this out online and will now have to buy it. Can't quite believe it's 60 years old.

Thanks, Shadowplay. Great stuff.
It's a really good record, I'm glad you like it. For me it's like a really interesting halfway house between more generally lauded jazz styles and exotica stuff like Martin Denny, which is something I've always been fond of since if stumbled onto it in my tweens after the covers caught my eye.

D
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