we may need to move this to the D&D...I've always thought "New Orleans Suite" deserved to be better known- I love the part in the opening "movement" when the leslies really start turning 'round and 'round... http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB112681957906742142,00.html -- Marsalis on Jazz His five favorite classic recordings September 17, 2005; Page P2 We caught up with Wynton Marsalis, the 43-year-old jazz trumpeter and composer, as he was preparing for the fall concert series at New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center, where he is artistic director. The new program salutes the great cities of jazz; tonight Mr. Marsalis and other artists will perform in a hurricane-relief benefit concert for New Orleans. Here, the Pulitzer-winning musician tells us why he thinks these five albums deserve consideration as the finest jazz recordings of all time. John Coltrane Quartet Crescent Impulse (1964) "It's like a suite of pieces that are all related, and Coltrane does a masterful thematic improvisation on 'Crescent.' He had an original take on all the influences in American music: blues, Afro-Hispanic and swing." Billie Holiday Lady in Satin Columbia (1958) "It's the time she sings in and her range -- not the range of her voice, but the range of emotion and the command she has over the nuances. Like when something makes you sad for a moment and you forget what it is. ... It's difficult to articulate, and it only happens in music." Thelonious Monk Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington Riverside/OJC (1955) On this recording, Monk, who was 18 years younger than Ellington, was "having a dialogue with the past while Ellington was still alive. ... You can see the similarities and differences between their styles. I love that arrangement of 'Caravan.' Everywhere you look on that record, it's great improvised music." Duke Ellington The New Orleans Suite Atlantic (1970) "Duke was 71, but you can just hear the liveliness in the pieces. He brings the organ in and really captures the mysteriousness of New Orleans. 'Second Line,' a movement of the suite, is one of the greatest big-band arrangements there is." Charlie Parker One Night in Birdland Columbia (1950) This rare album captures "a lot of masters all in one room": trumpeter Fats Navarro, pianist Bud Powell, bassist Curley Russell and Art Blakey on drums. "You see a lot of the greatest soloists challenging one another."
I own the Coltrane album but none of the others; I have never been a big fan of vocal jazz (I about fell asleep 20 times while listening to Norah Jones...yea, yea, I know she is no Billie Holiday but still..). My top 5 jazz albums ever would be: 1) Kind of Blue - Miles Davis 2) Blue Train - John Coltrane 3) Song for my Father - Horace Silver 4) Moanin' - Art Blakey 5) Maiden Voyage - Herbie Hancock
I'm no jazz expert, but Norah Jones is music for insomniacs. If you try singing along, you end up drooling on yourself by the end of the song. Now Billie Holiday... damn. That's a set of lungs.
i've got the first three, and a couple of other Art Blakey discs (Indestructable!), but for some reason never got into Herbie Hancock. I love horace silver, but not sure if it qualifies as one of the "greats" unless you also include an album like "Cool Struttin'" by Sonny Clark. and nora jones is not jazz- just because she's on what is ostensibly a jazz label.
Reluctantly agree. I feel that Horace is VASTLY underrated and that album ("Song for my Father") is such a great example of hard bop jazz ala the Blue Note way. Plus Steely Dan ripped off the title track which helped make the album even more well-known. "Cool Struttin" is a great album and one of my top 10 jazz albums ever. I need to listen to some jazz but I can't quit listening to Sigur Ros, The Can, and King Crimson for some reason.
Couple of my personal favs: Sonny Side Up - Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Saxophone Collossus, The Bridge - Sonny Rollins Boss Tenors - Sonny Stitt, Gene Ammons A Love Supreme - John Coltrane (also the Big Band CD by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra is excellent) Jazz at Massey Hall - Bird, Diz, Bud Powell, Mingus, Max Roach Clifford Brown & Max Roach Moanin', A Night at Bidland, A Night in Tunesia, Indestructible - Art Blakey Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers, Song for my Father - Silver Somethin' Else, Quintet Live in San Francisco, anything else on the Riverside label - Cannonball Adderley The Sidewinder, Cornbread - Lee Morgan Go, Ballads, Our Man in Paris, Homecoming - Dexter Gordon Back at the Chicken Shack, the Sermon - Jimmy Smith Kind of Blue, Milestones, Walkin', Birth of the Cool, Steamin', Relaxin', Cookin', Workin' - Miles Davis Any Charlie Parker On a side note, the Kemah Jazz Festival is supposed to be this weekend but with Hurricane Rita maybe not. Big names scheduled to appear are Bud Shank on Friday and Randy Brecker with Woody Witt on Saturday. Woody/Randy will also be playing at Cezanne's on Friday and then doing a NOLA benefit concert w/New Birth Brass band on 9/30. http://www.jazzhouston.com/events/about.jsp?key=2518 for more info
i always get a kick out of playing dee dee bridgewater's arangement of "song for my father" for people and watching their faces when it doesn't turn into "Rikki Don't Losw that Number." I'd add some stanley turentine to that blue note list. "Look Out" along with Cool Struttin' and Song for my Father were three of the first four jazz albums i owned (if you don't count john klemmer). the fourth was Bobby Watson and Horizon's "No Question About It."
