Question for Jeff, subtomic, MadMax, And Other Jazzheads

I can comment on b****es Brew; it is very alternative jazz. Many sounds not much Rhythm. I wasn't feelin' it much myself, but many people think it great. If you like weird sounds, then this cd is for you. If you need a constant rhythm, then I'd pass on the cd.

 

All of the albums you listed are simply great but I don't know that I would recommend a couple of them to someone new to jazz. Kind of Blue is of course probably the best known jazz album and it very appropriate to a newcomer to jazz. b****es Brew is my favorite Miles Davis album (I got the 4 CD b****es Brew set for Xmas last year, yeah!) but I would not recommend it for you right now. It is not very intuituve and will probably sound pretty noisy and muddy to you.

The same situation exists for the two Coltrane albums you list: The Ultimate Blue Train, along with probably My Favorite Things, is the easiest Coltrane album to get into (partly because Lee Morgan is the trumpet for most of Blue Train and he is fantastic). A Love Supreme, however, was recorded on the Impulse! label which Coltrane reserved for his more experimental albums. If you want to get into that phase I would recommend Crescent, my favorite single Coltrane album. It is on the Impulse! label and is probably the most accesible of his Impulse! labels for new-comers to jazz.

My favorite jazz artist is Charles Mingus and I highly recommend you give him a listen. Like the others he has some very accessible albums and some that a new-comer to jazz would probably not enjoy as much. A highly recommend both Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Dynasty (both on the Columbia label) to newcomers to jazz. He plays bass and is a simply fantastic band leader with a lot of swing. My favorite jazz album ever is The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady which takes some attention to listen to. Throughout that album there are several different melodies with different rythyms that go in and out of phase before finally resolving and it's just beautiful.

Those three artists are my personal favorites and will give you direction to explore further as you find what you like and don't like. So If I were to give a list of 3 CD's for a beginner to jazz it would be:

Kind of Blue - Davis
My Favorite Things (or Blue Trane) - Coltrane
Mingus Ah Um - Charles Mingus

Since you're getting 5 I would throw these 2 in to round it out becuase they also give exposure to great groups:
Dedicated to Connie - Modern Jazz Quartet
Brilliant Corners - Thelonious Monk

 

Tough, TOUGH question, but here goes.

Of the five you listed, here are my thoughts:

Kind of Blue: Great, GREAT record. Definitely a must have.

b****es Brew: This is a really interesting record but I'm not sure this is a great record to start with. Brew was the very first fusion record and was hated by many jazz purists. Even among jazz musicians, fusion is considered self-indulgent, which is saying a lot. I love a lot of fusion records, but it might be a tough way to begin your trek into jazz music.

The Ultimate Blue Train & A Love Supreme: Nothing to say about these except be prepared for Coltrane. Those extended solos which stretch WAY out into some interesting areas are tough for some newcomers to jazz. Another Coltrane great is My Favorite Things.

Anything Vince Guaraldi does is terrific, but Charlie Brown Christmas was the best, IMO.

I'd add:

Birth of Cool - Miles Davis - Literally, the birth of West Coast jazz music, a much smoother, slicker version of jazz (see Dave Brubeck). As usual, Miles was an innovator.

Sketches of Spain - Miles Davis - This, in places, is almost new age music but it has some of the coolest textures ever recorded.

Birdland - Charlie Parker - Hard to pass this one up. Bird was the father of be-bop and a true innovator. He is probably easier on the ear than Coltrane, but he was just as amazing.

Take 5 - Dave Brubeck - This is what really hip, white folks listen to while sipping martinis. Just kidding. This is very serious jazz and is particularly fascinating because of all the odd time signatures used on the record. Still one of my favorites.

Thelonius Monk - Round Midnight - You absolutely cannot leave this incredible bop pianist off your list. This record is brilliant.

Duke Ellington Orchestra - At Bridland 1952 - You can pick pretty much anything from the man considered the father of jazz. He spawned the careers of tons of amazing players like Coltrane and Miles.

Art Blakey & Jazz Messengers - Caravan - Blakey, like Ellington, spawned the careers of people like the Marsalis brothers. He was a renowned educator and brilliant drummer. Caravan is an all time classic record.

Dizzy Gillespie - Bird & Diz - This is a classic pairing of Diz and Charlie Parker. There are many exceptional Diz recordings. This is one of the best.

Frank Sinatra - Songs for Swingin' Lovers - If God did a big band record, Nelson Riddle would do the arrangements. Pop standards never sounded as good as this.

These are some of the more traditional one's I can think of. For vocal standards, you can check Sinatra, Mel Torme and even Peggy Lee or Vic Damone. If you want vocal straight jazz, try Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. For big band and swing, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and Ellington are hard to beat.

Other great jazz players include Winton Marsalis, Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter, Oscar Peterson, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and many, many more. If you are in Houston, you have to visit All Records on West Gray. The owner (Fred) knows just about everything there is to know about jazz. He is a great guy. He can also help hook you up with newer players like Terrence Blanchard, Marcus Roberts, Jane Monheit, Cassandra Wilson, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, Mark Whitfield and others.

Oh, and don't overlook Latin jazz like Arturo Sandoval and many of the great Cuban musicians. Whew, that's alot to think about. I told you it wasn't easy!

 

if any of you have heard the soundtrack to Finding Forrester. . .

what album/time period is the miles davis stuff on that soundtrack from?

and as for your question, manny. . . I'm not a deep, deep jazzthusiast, but I would recommend that you figure out which type of jazz you're looking to investigate.

bop? swing? fusion?

if you just want to put something on that will make you look cool in front of a girl, I might recommend some chet baker.

if you want some really "out" sounding stuff, I'd recommend ornette coleman.

but if you really want to learn about jazz, I'd recommend starting at the beginning and working forward.

as for "who" is the beginning, my guess would be either louis armstrong or duke ellington, but there may be some earlier pioneers to get into before those cats.

or, you might also try to find a particular instrument/instrumentalist to focus on. trumpet, piano, saxophone, guitar, etc.

you like how I used the term "cats"? very jazz.

 

That stuff is the late 60's through early 70's stuff like Electric - This Is Jazz No. 38 and On the Corner. That is all sandwiched around b****es Brew and is more in Miles' fusion/semi avante garde period.

 

That's b****es brew

You know, I only have one Ornette Coleman record and that's The Shape of Jazz to Come. While I can see where he got the "far out there" repuation considering when the album was made, I find it very accessible. I should have put that on my list, so I would put that in place of the MJQ album I listed.

 

for ornette, "out" may not have been the exact right term. maybe "frenetic" works better. I don't know. . . like I said, my jazz exposure is pretty limited. but he's out and frenetic compared to the other jazz stuff I've heard.

 

Manny,

Pretty much everyone on here has given more than adequate comments on the albums you listed. So I feel there's very little to add except this:

Kind of Blue is loved by just about everybody. However, there are people (and you might be one of them) who feels its a little too laid back. And they're right - the album is never "energetic." That doesn't take anything away from it, but if you're someone who thinks (to use a rock reference) Pink Floyd is music to sleep to, then you might not like Kind of Blue. Personally, I love it.

I've seen alot of great recommendations for Coltrane, but I think if you really want to hear the definitive Coltrane before he went somewhat avant-garde, you have to get Giant Steps. More than any other album, this shows his "sheets of sounds" approach (trust me, you'll understand this description as soon as you hear the album) to jazz.

For Charlie Parker, all I can say is "Good luck." While Parker is undeniably brilliant, the catalog of his recordings is still in such an utter mess that its hard to figure out which records are good and which are junk (by junk, I mean badly recorded).

Besides understanding the basic jazz styles (swing, be-bop, hard bop, cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, etc . . . . ), you probably also need to learn what combinations (i.e. what instruments and how many) you prefer. For example, I like listening to horn players in quartets and quintets, but I'm not really into guitar or piano (although I think Bill Evans is brilliant beyond compare) trios.

Here are 5 albums that I would start with:

Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
Giant Steps - John Coltrane
Time Out - Dave Brubeck (this is the actual title of the album that Jeff calls Take Five; Take Five is its most famous track)
Mingus Ah Um - Charles Mingus (excellent choice Dylan)
Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1 - Thelonious Monk

 

I can't believe I forgot this one. This would make an excellent "jazz for beginners" CD.

 

Don't laugh, but if you want a pretty decent primer on Jazz, try the soundtrack of a movie called "Round Midnight".

The movie was made in the mid to late '80s, so you might have to do a little searching. But its very comprehensive and provides a nice little sample of various artists like Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, and Dexter Gordon (who starred in the movie, as well), just to name a few.

 

Pick up Ken Burns' CD Box set "Jazz"

or buy the DVD!

 

Jeff- It's Wynton, not Winton. (it's a trumpet thing).

Wynton's "Midnight Blues" is an excellent album. The Marsalis Trio is worth checking out.

Anyhow, Kind of Blue is a classic, and an absolute must for any and all music buff.

I'd also recommend Clifford Brown for some of the "older jazz", before Dizzy's bop craze... it's sad, he died before he was 25 in car accident. He had some incredible recordings in that time, usually worked with Max Roach (drummer).

An addition to some of the newer guys, Nicholas Payton's "Dear Louis" is a very nice recording of a newer player going back in time, and playing with the old style.

Jazz spans a lot of time...you'll probably want to check out some of the old New Orleans style (see Louis Armstrong, or Bix Beiderbeicke and the Wolverines), then the big bands like Duke Ellington, then combos like Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, etc., then maybe head towards bop with Dizzy Gillespie, then Miles Davis, then some of the newer stuff, with guys like Coltrane mixed in somewhere. Lots of different styles mixed in over time, always being added, things changed. Heck, with one player, you can usually hear a difference in sound and/or style

 

All of those Miles Davis albums are great, but I would recommend "In a Silent Way".

In Fact, "The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions" was just rereleased.


Also, pick up some Cannonball Adderley. he played alto saxophone on "Kind of Blue" with Miles, but his carreer spanned into the mid 70's when he died. Julian "Cannonball" Adderley was leader of "The Cannonball Adderley Quintet", along with his brother Nat Adderley, who played the coronet(trumpet).

A great album they did together was "Them Dirty BLues."

Nat died in 2000, but Nat Adderley Jr. plays keys and is the bandleader for Luther Vandross.



as for new jazz, my picks are
Brad Mehldau(played on Wille Nelson's "Teatro")
Jason Moran
Joshua Redman
Greg Osby

 

Any Professor Longhair.
Charlie Parker, Bird 47 from Vogue Records.
Mingus, Town Hall 1962.
Dizzy Live at Salle Pleyel in Paris, 1953.
Miles, Black Beauty: Live at the Filmore West, 1970. (sketches of spain, my favorite, has already been mentioned but its awesome).
Thelonius Monk & John Coltrane, Live at the Five Spot, 1957.
Chet Baker, Cool Spring (live in Italy). 1959.
Wayne Shorter, Speak No Evil. Blue Note Records, 1964.
Mel Torme, Swings Shubert Alley, Verve Records.
Nina Simone...I only have a couple of different greatest hits, but she rocks on classics like 'Mississippi *******.'
Coleman Hawkins, Bean & the Boys.
Jimmy Smith, Crazy! Baby, Blue Note Records.

 

I very much disagree with this suggestion (no offense mark!).

"Ken Burns" Jazz was really Wynton Marselis's Jazz since Burns admitted that he knew basically nothing about jazz and let Wynton tell him what to show. Now that's not inherently bad but the result was (imo) too much focusing on the birth of jazz and almost nothing on jazz from 1950 - present. Obviously Ellington, Armstrong, etc were important but they all got several shows each while Davis, Coltrane, Monk, et al were all squeezed into one show and virtually nothing was said of modern jazz. I think the series either needed to be longer or its priorities changed a bit. I hate to generalize from just my experience but when I grew up, before I knew anything about jazz, I equated jazz with Davis and Coltrane more than Armstron and Ellington...

 

I disagree. If you're starting out, a compilation is a good way to go. While Burns' Jazz is heavy on the roots through the 50s, its a good way to hear the way Jazz changed and evolved, not to mention it gives you exposure to older jazz musicians you might not otherwise explore. There is plenty of access and there are plenty of recommendations for more recent Jazz musicians (just look at this thread) to cover what you're talking about. There is also a "This is Jazz" series from Columbia or Capitol I think that is pretty good. Each CD is one artist but they've picked their well known and well reviewed pieces. I don't have the whole series but when I was starting out it made it easier to figure out which areas of Jazz I wanted to explore and in what priority (for instance I found I wanted to get more Mingus before more Count Basie - not that there is anything wrong with Basie)...

 

Let me add my two cents on the Ken Burns Jazz option:

The entire series was dictated by Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch, two of the most conservative and pompous jazz scholars in existence. They have made continued efforts to discredit all musical developments that occurred in jazz after approximately 1964, all in the name of "tradition." Of course, they fail to realize that from the very beginning, jazz was a music that reflected and assimilated other musical trends. Now, however, because far too many persons with marginal or zero knowledge of jazz give their opinions creedence, Marsalis and Crouch have turned jazz into a nostalgia act with prescribed forms and rhythms (swing used to mean loose interpretation of a beat - now it means an implied triplet feel). Marsalis is undoubtably a gifted trumpeter, but Pulitzer Prizes aside, he's done nothing to help jazz grow as an art (other than give it the whole "classical music of African-Americans" spiel, which still doesn't make the music any better than it was before the hype).

Please avoid this set. Listen to the artists' albums, not the critics' compilations (yes, I am fully aware of the irony of this statement).

 

dylan, HayesStreet, subtomic

All very good and valid points about the collection.

But Manny asked for a beginning.

I've been falling in love with jazz for 15 years now and I learned a lot about the background of Jazz by watching this series.

But like jazz, the series enhanced my background.

dylan I agree with the flavor of the series that you described and I know a lot of musians that feel the same way you do sub, but for a beginner, wouldn't you want to learn as much as possible about the roots?

But if ya wanna listen to the music I’ll add…

Dexter Gordon – GO
Miles and Quincy – Live at Montreux
Chet Baker – The Italian Sessions
Billie Holiday – The Complete Decca Recordings