Jazz - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

If you want a fair shake at jazz, you also can't limit it to albums... just sayin.

Fischman
RockMonster, JazzMeister, Bluesboy,ClassicalMaster

Gender: Male
Location: Land of Enchantment

sethmadsen wrote:

If you want a fair shake at jazz, you also can't limit it to albums... juts sayin.

Kinda true.

Most of that pre album era recorded stuff has found it's way to compilation albums of one sort or another. Some are now considered some of the greatest jazz albums of all time, even though they weren't albums in the first place.

Pretty standard recommendation to tell folks just starting out to get some album collection of Louis Armstrongs Hot Fives and Sevens.

grogg

Gender: Male
Age: 41
Location: Portland, OR

For comparisons sake, here's the RYM jazz top 20:

1. Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis
2. A Love Supreme by John Coltrane
3. The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus
4. In A Silent Way by Miles Davis
5. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
6. Hot Rats by Frank Zappa
7. Giant Steps by John Coltrane
8. Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus
9. My Favorite Things by John Coltrane
10. Karma by Pharoah Sanders
11. Blue Train by John Coltrane
12. Soundtrack From Twin Peaks by Angelo Badalamenti
13. Out To Lunch! by Eric Dolphy
14. The Shape Of Jazz To Come by Ornette Coleman
15. Journey In Satchidananda by Alice Coltrane
16. Blues & Roots by Charles Mingus
17. Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock
18. Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers by A...Messengers
19. Jack Johnson by Miles Davis
20. Time Out by The Dave Brubeck Quartet

If you don't want to include Hot Rats & Twin Peaks, then 21 is Coltrane's Ascension and 22 is Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas.

Fischman
RockMonster, JazzMeister, Bluesboy,ClassicalMaster

Gender: Male
Location: Land of Enchantment

grogg wrote:

For comparisons sake, here's the RYM jazz top 20:

1. Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis
2. A Love Supreme by John Coltrane
3. The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady by Charles Mingus
4. In A Silent Way by Miles Davis
5. Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
6. Hot Rats by Frank Zappa
7. Giant Steps by John Coltrane
8. Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus
9. My Favorite Things by John Coltrane
10. Karma by Pharoah Sanders
11. Blue Train by John Coltrane
12. Soundtrack From Twin Peaks by Angelo Badalamenti
13. Out To Lunch! by Eric Dolphy
14. The Shape Of Jazz To Come by Ornette Coleman
15. Journey In Satchidananda by Alice Coltrane
16. Blues & Roots by Charles Mingus
17. Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock
18. Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers by A...Messengers
19. Jack Johnson by Miles Davis
20. Time Out by The Dave Brubeck Quartet

If you don't want to include Hot Rats & Twin Peaks, then 21 is Coltrane's Ascension and 22 is Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas.

Even though I generally think these lists too Miles-heavy, I do love seeing Jack Johnson on there.

Kool Keith Sweat

What's always baffled me about jazz discussions on digital forums like BEA, RYM, /mu/, etc. is that the users deeply mine obscure, more-difficult rock musics but then stick to bop for a lot of jazz picks with some afrospiritualism/afrofuturism in the Coltranes, Sanders, and Sun Ra. It's as if everyone is OK with the neoconservatism of Reagan Marsalis in denying any development since the '60s. Closely related is separating capital J Jazz from improvised music when its probably the only common thread through the music which is otherwise only characterized by its melting pot, its fusion, its synthesis. The only thing separating them is the historical baggage associated with the former, which for some reason people enthusiastically accept. This isn't a list of 20 recordings I would make, but it's a list of 20 good recordings. It's another round in a circle jerk of neoconservative commercialism that the supposed diversity and freedom of the internet has not yet seen through.

edubs

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

What's always baffled me about jazz discussions on digital forums like BEA, RYM, /mu/, etc. is that the users deeply mine obscure, more-difficult rock musics but then stick to bop for a lot of jazz picks with some afrospiritualism/afrofuturism in the Coltranes, Sanders, and Sun Ra. It's as if everyone is OK with the neoconservatism of Reagan Marsalis in denying any development since the '60s. Closely related is separating capital J Jazz from improvised music when its probably the only common thread through the music which is otherwise only characterized by its melting pot, its fusion, its synthesis. The only thing separating them is the historical baggage associated with the former, which for some reason people enthusiastically accept. This isn't a list of 20 recordings I would make, but it's a list of 20 good recordings. It's another round in a circle jerk of neoconservative commercialism that the supposed diversity and freedom of the internet has not yet seen through.

i think part of the issue is that it is hard to mine deeper jazz music from many years back because it pre-dates the album format and because a lot of stuff is simply "out of print now".

i am very interested in seeing what your list of 20 is - always looking for hidden gems and it sounds like you are holding out on us !! Very Happy

Hayden

Location: CDMX

edubs wrote:

i think part of the issue is that it is hard to mine deeper jazz music from many years back because it pre-dates the album format and because a lot of stuff is simply "out of print now".

I think what he's getting at is jazz since the (late 60's?) is ignored, not before.

edubs

Hayden wrote:

edubs wrote:

i think part of the issue is that it is hard to mine deeper jazz music from many years back because it pre-dates the album format and because a lot of stuff is simply "out of print now".

I think what he's getting at is jazz since the (late 60's?) is ignored, not before.

ok.

jazz is now "harder" to discover these days because it lacks the popularity of other genres. example: you don't see jazz albums nominated for grammy awards. there are publications out there that follow rock/pop/alt/music that constantly review/promote stuff and they have a much more widespread audience than the handful of similar jazz publications.

Kool Keith Sweat

edubs wrote:

things

Hence, the commercialism I mentioned.

Some threads I'm particularly drawn to recently include:
-the unhinged jubilation and ecstasy of Albert Ayler's Lorrach/Paris 1966
-the communication with silence and exploration of timbre without pretense on Polly Bradfield's Solo Violin Improvisations
-the intersection of silence and breath (some tools for music making) as well as microtonalities on things like Michel Doneda's Anatomie des clefs and Matthias Muller's solo trombone, and then the additional spiritual experience with something like Joe Maneri's Angles of Repose
-the foundations of three-dimensional world building with Anthony Braxton, particularly though his collage (e.g. Quartet (Willisau) 1991 & Quartet (Santa Cruz) 1993) and GTM (e.g. 9 Compositions (Iridium) 2006 & GTM (Syntax) 2017) musics
-the voice of the contrabass, particularly from Barry Guy (e.g. Symmetries), Brandon Lopez (e.g. quoniam facta sum vilis), Peter Jacquemyn (e.g. solo kontrabas), Joelle Leandre (e.g. Contrabassiste), and Peter Kowald (e.g. Was Da Ist) (and expecially bass duos
-the idiosyncratic polyrhythms of Cecil Taylor (e.g. Garden & Berlin '88)
-the synthesis of genres and experiences into a instantly recognizable, personal style via Leroy Jenkins (e.g. Space Minds, New Worlds, Survival of America)
-sound as a synthesizer/sine wave and the dimensionality of sound via John McCowen (e.g. Mundanas I-V)
-continuing with dimensionality, the trance-like, meditative multiphonics and laying bare the timbral spectrum of an instrument at once of Ned Rothenberg (e.g. Solo Works - The Lumina Recordings & World of Odd Harmonics) and Evan Parker (e.g. The Snake Decides)
-pipe organ music (e.g. French church improvisation, Aine O'Dwyer, Kara-Lis Coverdale)
-among others already mentioned (like Braxton's syntax) the intersection of language/voice and music, like Robin Hayward's Words of Paradise or Nate Wooley's Syllables

I think it's important to recognize that improvisation's foundation is performance, and recordings provide an even more unsatisfactory snapshot of a musicians conceptual world than performances. For example, a lot of musicians explore the interaction of sound and space, but this is not easily transcribed to a recording (see poor studio fac similes from For Trio, Skullsplitter, even Anatomie des clefs, for example). So sometimes it feels silly to put so much weight on recordings for a largely improvised, performance-based music.