Essential Jazz.. What does it entail?
 

I've been straying from rock/pop (Chili Peppers aside) lately, and as a result have been listening to mostly classical music. I'd also like to get "into" jazz, but I know it will be hard without guidance. What I am requesting are suggestions regarding albums and artists that I should look into so that I can be properly exposed to jazz music.

I used to play violin and viola, so it was easy and enjoyable for me to get into classical music. Jazz is a totally different ball game, as I have had no exposure to it, and while I realize it is a superb genre that I am excited about getting into, I do realize it will be difficult initially, as it is "different" and will be an acquired taste (which is ultimately a very good thing).

Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Hi Jimellow. The best thing to do, after picking up a few initial recommendations, is to follow one person you like off of a recording. For example, after I got into "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis, I started to follow the recording careers of John Coltrane and Bill Evans, who are both sidemen on that album. With that, here's some concrete album recommendations:

Louis Armstrong - it's hard to recommend an album of his because, well, there were no such thing as albums when he was doing his important stuff. I like the Naxos Historical Series (volume 1 is my favourite). Basically anything with the Hot Fives or Sevens band.

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue - I won't get into the "modal" thing with this album, but it's an extremely significant album for Miles. Another example of him forging ahead. Great band and you'll get interested in all members here.
- Miles Ahead - My favourite of Miles' collaborations with Gil Evans in an orchestral setting.

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme - A great example of the Coltrane quartet. This is representative of the long forms they were getting into at the time and a rare example of devotional jazz which I think helps one to "get" Coltrane.

Charlie Parker - it's hard to do one album. If I had to do one, Bird and Diz would be a good bet, especially since Dizzy's on there too, but if you can find the "Dial Master Takes" or the "Savoy Master Takes" in an affordable package, get those. I have the above collections in double disc sets from a label called Definitive records.

Bill Evans - I'm getting more and more tired of his later stuff, but you just can't beat Sunday at the Village Vanguard for putting you in a certain mood. This is just piano, bass and drums and it'll get you in a place those other recordings can't reach.

That should be enough to start with. I've avoided vocalists because I expect you'll get enough of those recommendations.

I second all of those recommendations. In particular don't miss Kind of Blue. If you only pick up one jazz album, that's the one.

Also consider:

Oscar Peterson, Night Train. Beautiful blues-inflected jazz. At turns somber, playful, melancholy, and inspiring.

John Coltrane, Giant Steps. This is probably one for later, but BE SURE you come back to it. Trane tore jazz apart and put it back together different on this album. A lot of Miles Davis stuff is about pushing and stretching the envelope. Coltrane put the envelope through the shredder.

Chick Corea, Akoustic Band. This one might be for later too... All the other suggestions are '50s and '60s jazz. Chick is where Jazz went in the '70s and '80s and later. He's all about polyrhythmic exploration, and his signature tune "Spain" is seminal.

welcome to my world. Jazz is everything that I am as a musican. I'll list off some artists to check out

Louis Armstrong - hot 5 and hot 7s
Miles Davis - Huge discography. But 'essential' miles would be Birth of the COol, Kind of Blue, Milestones, Miles Smiles, Sketches of Spain, In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew
Charlie Parker - Yes the Dial sessions
John Coltrane - Bluetrane, Giant Steps, Love Supreme all his work with Monk
Thelonious Monk - anything here is gold
Joe Henderson - Page 1, Inner Urge, So Near So Far, Lush Life
Sonny Rollins - Tenor Madness, Saxophone Colossus

those are all really straight ahead Jazz. I am really into modern jazz, especially guitar. Here are some of my current favorite post '75 jazz albums and into today

Kenny Wheeler - music for large and small ensembles, Widow in the Window, Gnu High
Tom Harrel - Sail Away, Stories, Form
John Scofield - Roughouse, Meant to Be, Works for Me, Enroute
Pat Metheny - Bright Size Life, Rejoicing, Question and Answer, American Garage, so much more
Mark Turner - Dharma Days
Kurt Rosenwinkel - Deep Song, The Next Step
Johnathan Kreisberg - New for Now
John Abercrombie - Anything with him
Jim Hall - These Rooms, Magic Meeting

Other favorite artists

Dave Holland, Marc Johnson, Chris Potter, Wayne Krantz, Count Basie, Maria Schnieder, Ben Monder, Terance Blanchard, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Tony Williams, Bill Evans, John Taylor,

sorry I could go on forever.

Don't miss "Time Out" by Dave Brubeck - that's got some great tunes.

Miles' "Kind of Blue" regularly wins polls of "The Best Jazz Album Ever", and I like it a lot.

It's easy to overlook the early recordings by Count Baisie, but as with the Loius Armstrong - you should look them out. It's jazz before it got up it's own arse.

I love 'Trane, but it took a long time for me to understand what I was hearing, and to start with I thought it was all just noise - so tread with caution - same goes for the later Miles' recordings - there's some bloody odd stuff in there.

Good luck - it pays off.

o if only i had some time right now....
listen to a lot of ornette coleman, in addition.
george russell
andrew hill, especially the blue note stuff.

later colatrane just needs some repeated listenings. you'll find stuff that you like, i expect, right away, but give it time and your head will come around.

moving. more when this is over with.

If you're a beginner, you can always start with:

Bigband/swing: Duke ellington, Glen Miller, Count Basie

Then move up:

Be-bop: Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie

My personal favorite:

Cool jazz: John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Coleman Hawkins, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Thelonius Monk etc.....

One way to do it is go to your local library and borrow the Ken Burns Jazz CD set - It's a little heavy on Louis Armstrong (which I don't like) but it's a decent crash course or starter to get you acquainted with jazz.

Don't forget, jazz is also user friendly with a lot of vocalists as well.

I disagree that you should look at any one time period of jazz as "more for beginners." Don't wait to get through one era before moving onto the next. If you have an open mind and ear, you'll get just as much out of Ornette Coleman as you will out of Glenn Miller.

Given that we live in the year 2006, you'll probably get more out of Ornette Coleman.

I was a fool to forget to put a Monk recording on my initial list. Thelonious Monk, to me, best represents what jazz is. I recommend the album Brilliant Corners as a way into his oeuvre.

these are my personal favourites:

charles mingus, john coltrane, thelonius monk, herbie hancock, jaco pastorius, bill frissell, charlie parker, ted warren and nina simone.

i love swing music too, and as far as that goes... nothing beats count basie, benny goodman and glenn miller tunes!

I would like to second Dave Brubeck. Saw him in concert recently; friggin amazing, continues to entertain me through the years.

It also depends on what YOU dig most, theres plenty of different styles. Personally I'm in love with big band stuff like Duke Ellington.

For another few that ARENT on the list yet, I'm going to throw out Buddy Rich. Rosemary Clooney has a nice thick voice as well, if youre into jazz vocalists. Annnd Horace Silver has some great tunes too like Sister Sadie and Song For My Father. Gary Burton.

i don't really like a lot of the typical american jazz. i have tried to like it, but it's boring to me in comparison to other types of jazz (like latin).

anyway, here are some artists that i enjoy

django reinhardt
jean-claude pelletier
tito puente
gerald wilson
henri texier
janko nilovic
anything brazilian

I definitely agree with aberkok - expose yourself to as many different types of jazz as you can. You may like everything you hear; if you don't, you're more likely to find something that suits.

If you want some good jazz violin, check out Michael Urbaniak. I first heard some of his stuff on a compilation album and I was blown away. Manhattan Man or Friday Night at the Village are two good ones of his that happen to be available on Amazon. Stephane Grapelli also tops the list for amazing jazz violinists; his fast improv is absolutely incredible. If you want to hear some great work of his, check out the Quintette du Hot Club de France. It's the quintet he formed with Django Reinhardt. That's a whole lot of awesomeness in one combo, that is. Of his solo stuff, I like Afternoon In Paris especially. Very upbeat, swinging tunes.

Finally I don't think any list is complete without mention of the Marsalis family. Wynton gets a lot of flack for his *ahem* alternative views, but I dig his sound all the same. The parallel I'd draw would be like watching a Tom Cruise or John Travolta movie; you may think sceintology is a load of crap, but it doesn't have to prevent you from enjoying their work as actors. You might like Wynton if you're into classical as well; he's done his fair share of classical work. In Gabriel's Garden is definitely worth listening to if you want to hear some of that.

One of my favourite Marsalis albums is Joe Cool's Blues. It's a cd of Wynton and Ellis doing Peanuts tunes. Branford Marsalis is also an accomplished saxophonist who you might want to check out.

And I reckon that and the above is plenty to get you started.

Good call on the Marsalis family, Martian. The late Kenny Kirkland is my main main these days and he did a lot of piano for Wynton and Branford. My favourite Wynton album is Black Codes From The Underground, which I've probably recommended on TFP before. I just like it that much.

I feel that the Marsalis family embodies the ideals of self mastery and striving to learn as much as possible. To me that is an essential part of the jazz musician of the 80s to present. I'm not a fan of Wynton's revivalist/transcription projects at the Lincoln Centre and I don't really know why Branford did A Love Supreme, but their amazing achievements still stand.

Most of what I was going to suggest is already covered, but if you get into Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grapelli and gypsy jazz in general, you should look into a modern artist named Bireli Lagrene.

I don't think very many people are a fan of Wynton's whole revivalist deal. I still think the most pertinent (and entertaining) quote is Miles calling him "confused."

I'm actually a bit ashamed for not mentioning Black Codes From the Underground. It's definitely worth a listen. Or fifty.

Miles Davis -"Kind of Blue" and Dave Brubeck "Time Out" are great starts. They are easy to listen to, catchy, but so musically deep that you can listen to them over and over again and find something new.

Monk - "Straight, no chaser". As you listen to other jazz artists, you'll hear them do versions of the songs on that album. So why mess with the covers, go straight to the source.

There are bunch of songs you could listen to just to get a feel for the Jazz genre. "One O'Clock Jump" by Count Basie, "Take the A Train" by Duke Ellingtons Orchestra, "A Night in Tunisia" by Gillespie. "Caravan" - listen to several artists do this song. It's interesting to hear different takes on it.

I was waiting/looking for someone to mention him. Great musician. All the others mentioned, like Miles, I second those recommendations.

Agreed, but please, please, please...I urge anyone reading this thread to give equal attention to living artists. Jazz is a living music! Check out artists like Dave Douglas, Dave Holland, Jason Moran, Greg Osby, Kenny Garrett, Don Byron...there's so many around these days and so much music to choose from. Keep it alive. It's more relevant and vital than most people realize...all you have to do is seek it out and I'm happy to help.

Kenny Garrett did a Coltrane tribute album not too long ago that was pretty good. The rest of that list I'm not familiar with at all.

The living artists all seem to be leaning towards the "smooth jazz" genre. David Sanborn is still active. "Tintin'" is probably my favorite song of his. Stanley Clarke and George Duke are still touring together.

Matt Wilson went to my Alma Mater (Wichita State University), but his music isn't as accessible to new listeners IMO.

Oh, speaking of moving from Rock to Jazz, check out Jaqui Naylor. She is a pianist/vocalist who often combines pop lyrics with jazz melodies. She combined the talking heads song, "Once in a lifetime" with a Herbie Hancock song. Really interesting mesh.

maybe the folk who get air play on "quiet storm" format stations. i am nt sure that is jazz. but then again, i am not sure at this point what jazz is. i know what is was, but not what it is now.

here is a short list of folk still very much alive and doing stuff who you will not hear on quiet storm stations:

ornette coleman
anthony braxton
cecil taylor
bobby braford
fred anderson
ethnic heritage ensemble
ken vandermark
supersilent
anthony davis
roscoe mitchell/art ensemble of chicago
the sun ra arkestra
john zorn
....

there are many many more, but i am sleepy.

This is not true. To anyone considering seeking out jazz by living artists, know that there is plenty of music that is not "smooth jazz." Roachboy's list is pretty great and there are many younger artists who are creating original and exciting music all the time.

Oh yeah, and the moment you call something inaccessible it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are more people willing to try new and challenging things than most people (and especially musicians) thought. Now that the mega-labels are on the way out, I think we'll see a lot less pandering to the lowest common denominator and more savvy music lovers seeking out what they find interesting. The performers will become more connected to their audience.

I've recently experienced a lot of things which are showing me this perspective. One of the most recent and inspiring things I've been able to find is Robin Eubanks' podcast, available free through iTunes and his website: http://www.robineubanks.com/
Robin shows us quite the opposite of the starving artist/tortured genius stereo-type that the image of the jazz musician often conjures, and also conveys a sense that the music is not inaccessible. I hope some of you check it out 'cuz it's super cool.

Living jazz artists eh? Dave Weckl Band.

Thats my most recent stint. Amazing drummer.

(Technically Dave Brubeck IS a living jazz artist, so THERE.)

Brubeck fans (I'm not a huge fan of his stuff other than Time Out and Brubeck Plays Brubeck) should be aware that he has been doing a lot of classical writing and a lot of these pieces are available on the Naxos label. A quick search shows that he's done 2 recordings for them with one piece for an ensemble of 20 cellos.

Golly! A jazz thread.

Go hear some live jazz too. You can learn from watching how the musicians interact, etc.

With a little experience you may be able to hear why some players are great and most are not :-)

Good jazz is a wonderful art form.

There are a few free (no cost) jazz video sites you can visit too.
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKX3U...ch=jazz%20bass

Right now I'm listening to a modern Jazz group called simply "Medeski, Martin and Wood". I guess you classify them as more 'acid jazz' than anything else, but they make pretty good music.

yay. glad this thread is still going.

Jazz festival in town soon got my tickets for Jim Hall & Geoff Keezer and am totally pumped.

Big gigs for myself coming up that I'm looking forward to. Jazz is alive and well. it's just not a public mainstream music that everyone is fully aware of.

and when I get my album out next year you can all buy it MUAHAHAHA

For most better jazz artists, especially those whose majority of work was in the 1950s and 60s, it's really hard to pick up a completely bad album.

Also, be aware that many jazz artists, even within the same time period sound completely different, using different players and different instrument set ups even within one's own career.

Year is a partially good indicator of what type of jazz is being put forth by an artist, but knowledge of an artist helps too.

Guys like Miles Davis were all over the place, from 'cool jazz', not to be confused with smooth jazz, with I tend to classify as any cookie-cutter jazz that has no real heart, skill, or any real progression of the music itself. He did 'modal jazz', which I've felt is the most beautiful if executed correctly and with taste. He even did 'fusion', which, with a few exceptions, is probably the most commerical, slick, overly-produced, and most important, boring type of jazz there is. Please stay away from this unless you really do your homework on what is good in the genre, i.e. Weather Report... that's it. He also did many others, and so did most other jazz artists, with a few exceptions (Art Blakey). But this also doesn't mean that just because they didn't 'progress' with jazz that their later stuff was any less good or interesting.

Other significant artists:
John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Andrew Hill, Chick Corea (before he became all commerical), Bill Evans, Dave Holland (or anyone else from the ECM label, for that matter), Joe Henderson, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, McCoy Tyner, Pharaoh Sanders, Art Ensemble of Chicago (early stuff only), Donald Byrd, Herbie Hancock, Dave Brubeck, and many others.

Good resources:
MurraytheCat on Amazon.com, look for his profile, he has an incredible knowledge of jazz and has extremely good taste when it comes to his selections of good jazz.

www.allmusic.com, also a good site, that I've noticed, hardly gets it wrong when reviewing a jazz or classical album. (They're kinda iffy on rock/other stuff)

One last thing, be careful of most jazz albums released after about 1975, as for older artists they just start to re-hash older stuff without much of their old flair, or it tends to be overly electronic or slick, it loses much of what I feel made jazz great. Still, there are plenty of good albums, especially by resident artists of ECM.

Two things:

1. What's your motivation for wanting to get into jazz? Have you heard pieces you've liked in passing, on the radio, in movies, on teevee? Or is it something like how a midwesterner wants to try sushi, never having had the opportunity living in Iowa?

2. I'm going to assume for now that the former is your motivation, as jazz is sufficiently pervasive. In that case, you've probably heard enough jazz by now from movie soundtracks and elevator music to decide if you like the genre or not, right? Have you ever heard a piece from teevee or whatnot and said, 'wow, that's an amazing tune! i have to know who did that!' If you ask me, that's a great place to start. What have you heard that you like so far? Based on that, more refined recommendations can be made.

the best online resource for reviews, interviews and overall knowledge on Jazz is www.allaboutjazz.com. I post heavily on their forums. But if you want to just read up on the state of Jazz today, loads of help getting started picking 'essential' music

Great. This is just the sort of attitude I was hoping to quash in my contributions to this thread. Talking about jazz in the past tense might work if there is a very specific sound you expect, but imagine saying rock ended with the Beatles...

I can't stress enough that there is an abundance of jazz that is still being created now! It never went away. Paradise Lost has made sweeping generalizations about the genre. Older artists re-hashing old material? What do you say about Joe Henderson, Kenny Wheeler, Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter, just to name four off the top of my head?

yeah that's one thing about a lot of jazz listeners are that they often times pick an era of the music and stick to it and don't want much to do with anything outside of their own area of interest. Not to say taht's the case here. But yes, refering to Jazz as an artform that reached it's peek in the 60's is ignorant.

Even naming off those 4 names of guys who came to the scene in the 60's still playing (besides Joe Hen who died 10 years ago) there are artists out now who dominate their instruments and take the music to new places on a level as high as if not higher then those of the masters of the past. Because Jazz no longer is main stream these people are not high profile and often times Jazz listeners do not care for the more complex music they play now. The music is being pushed hard in new directions with new influences.

Modern Jazz artists like Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Adam Rogers, Terance Blanchard, Brad Meldhau, Areon Goldberg, Seamus Blake, Jeff Ballard, Larry Grenadier, Richard Bona, RObin Eubanks, Dave Holland, Bill Stewart the list goes on and on and on. Those are just HIGH profile modern Jazz players, not including the people who are coming now in the last 5 years who are completely out to lunch good.

If you really want to understand and deeply enjoy jazz, study/listen and enjoy it's history.

I'm no fan of "The Church of What's Happening Now".

I agree, but how far do you take this mentality? Bird was the precedent for Coltrane...Hawkins the precedent for Bird...Armstrong the precedent for Hawkins...ragtime...African music...Straus waltzes...Schubert...Beethoven...Mozart...Bach... Monteverdi, Palestrina....you can go on forever. How far back do you have to go to enjoy listening to music?

I know people who deeply enjoy music without studying its history. Personally, I get great fulfillment out of trying to discover an artist's influences and precedents, just by listening, but I don't consider myself at an advantage, necessarily. It might be expected knowledge for professionals and distinguish a professional, but the majority of listeners aren't players (though I fear that's not the case).

Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission

I'm not usually too much into jazz, but this album really grabbed me. It's a lot darker and doomier than most jazz, which is probably why it appeals to me so much.

From a long-time jazz player's perspective, I can't understand why anybody would want to simply listen to jazz. Unless you play it yourself, I don't see how you could possibly relate to what you're listening to.

I know that's probably not a very popular opinion, but it's mine.

just to offer another suggestion to someone who has no jazz background...i initially came to like jazz a lot from listening to a jazzish/funk/rock group called soulive - in the past i had not been exposed to a lot of the harmonic complexities of jazz music, only the simple harmony of rock and pop. but soulive introduced these sounds to me in a fun, rock-like context. soon i found myself digging through my parents' jazz records and a couple years later i consider jazz my favorite music. I respect, enjoy and study older jazz - particularly coltrane, miles...but i find that i am much more partial to players like kurt rosenwinkel, brad mehldau, john scofield, etc..i really like that more modern type of sound. so along with checking out the classics like parker and miles, definitely also check out some of those modern guys, because you may end up liking them more

i guess to add to that, i dont think you have to play to enjoy jazz (though i do)...you just have to train your ear to become familiar with its harmonic language...listen to a lot of jazz music, and whether you can say what different sounds are called, try and recognize harmonic and rhythmic ideas that you may have heard before. then you will come to appreciate the unique qualities of certain players.

The amount of recommendations here is very impressive. I've been referring to it constantly, and have started to acquire a small collection of Jazz myself through the many suggestions. If you have more suggestions, please continue to share them!

Initially I am trying to listen to those that performed earlier in the 20th century.. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and most recently Benny Goodman. I am not familiar with where they all "fit" chronologically, and right now am just enjoying listening to their music, while trying to be able to differentiate their styles from one another. It's a very enjoyable process overall.

I don't agree with this, but I'm curious as to why you feel this way?

I love reading, but I've never fully understood, or gone through, the process of publishing a book. Similarly, I really enjoy viewing art, but am by no means an artist, even on the most basic level. I seek out these things because they allow me to be more cultured, and I get great enjoyment out of exposing myself to them.

I would think that if one limited their interests strictly to things they were intimately familiar with they would have a very sheltered and limited experience of life and culture.

When I attempt to relate to your comment, I use violin/viola as comparison, as I played both through high school, was in various orchestras, and performed. I enjoy listening to classical music as well, but my exposure to it through playing only makes me appreciate the technical skill/ability required to perform the pieces at the level they are played, but does not directly add to my enjoyment of a particular classical piece.

Jazz is appealing to me because I find it to be truly unique and enjoyable music. On a technical level, I am truly impressed by the musicians' ability to do the things they do with their instruments, specifically the brass and wind instruments.

That being said, I am curious why you feel one must be intimately familiar with jazz in order to enjoy and appreciate it as music?

This is a highly confusing statement. I completely disagree. My fans disagree. My non-musician friends who enjoy listening disagree. 2-3% of the record buying public disagree. I'd love to hear an in-depth explanation.

That's great news. One thing I often like to think about the different times in jazz history is how even though we know the chronology, there are a zillion examples of earlier material sounding more "modern" than later examples. There is a factual timeline of artists, but with the vast amount of recordings out there, we can Time Travel through the history of the music. I was amazed, for example, to discover how much more advanced* Art Tatum's music was than Red Garland, who came many years later, but most of my interest in Art came after listening to Red Garland for a long time. Similarly, I am currently interested in the music of Roscoe Mitchell after a long period of listening to Dave Douglas. You go back and forth through time.

*I am aware of my suspect use of the term "advanced" in a musical context, and apologize, but it was the best way to get my point across at the time.

I love Medeski, Martin and Wood (specifically the "World Party" album). Another artist that might be easier to get into right away, since she's "pop/jazz" is Mindi Abair.

I knew this wouldn't go over very well when I said it, but that's the way I feel.

Many people speak of listening to jazz from other countries. If you are referring to authentic jazz music then you should know that all types of it originated in the United States, such as New Orleans and Chicago.
I didn't really take a deep interest in jazz music when I was doing my music degree, but I can safely say that a lot of "jazz" music today is not authentic. For example, Michael Buble is kind of a "rip off" jazz musician.

Check out Professor Longhair. "Rock 'n Roll Gumbo" is my favorite. Some consider him the missing link between classic American jazz and modern rock and roll. Elvis was heavily influenced by him.
http://www.professorlonghair.com/index.html

A local favorite of mine is Cuban jazz pianist Nachito Herrera
http://www.nachito.net/
Amazing stuff

For someone coming from a classical background, try Jean Luc Ponty, jazz violinist. My favroite disc of his is "Individual Choice".

I think the part that's not going over well is the fact that you're not explaining yourself. Why do you feel this way?

from a listener's viewpoint, jazz is as comprehensable as, say, hip hop is--if you focus on the turntablists and recognize the sides being cut up, you are in on both the joke of the piece and the intertext network the piece sets up. so you understand the piece differently because you are familiar with the tradition being refashioned.
same thing with jazz: the only real distinction is the depth of the tradition and its age. for example, if you are listening to bop, it is good to know something of cheesy 40s pop--which is not the easiest thing to accomplish is 2006, frankly, even given the saturation of historical material triggered by digital recording technologies. you also need to know the history of the music (jazz) up to bop. two major reference sources.

the distinction between these forms lay in the way in which referencing works. in bop, the references were done in two main ways: via harmonic structure and via allusion. both were fit into a fairly rigid system based on the harmonic substructure (the chord changes), which determined the scales (sequences of pitches) that were ruled in or out. so you would need to focus on allusions at the level of form, or on the level of compositional features---hip hop presents you with a wider range of sonic features in the allusions that it makes because it is the recordings that are being cut up--so you can recognize collage elements from the qualities of the recording and so dont have to rely on recognition of compositional elements alone. for example, when tribe called quest chops up roy ayers or the crusaders, you can be tipped to it by the particular qualities of ayers recordings AND by the compositional elements ayers used. (and had there been no roy ayers, there would be no tribe)

that's about it.
if you are playing bop or bop-influenced music (it's 2006--i dont personally see the point of playing charlie parker in 2006, but that's just me--charlie parker was better at beng charlie parker than anyone else has managed to be--well, except for sonny stitt.. maybe...) then you have to cultivate a different relation to these same features simply because you are making choices about phrases or pitches within the rules that govern bop as a form--which is different from recognizing them in the playing of someone else.

all that says is that playing the music and listening to it are not the same activity.
and that one is not better than the other.

it's pretty simple (i just cant say it that way)

"i dont personally see the point of playing charlie parker in 2006"

Then you are a member of "The Church Of What's Happening Now".

Please keep your thoughts about bop to yourself. Your not a fan.

I feel sick. I should not read this forum.

cheese louise, i've never been thrown out of jazz fandom before.
i dont know whether to take this seriously or just laugh.
i am laughing now, so i guess i made the choice.

imaybe you didnt understand the previous post, flat5--i spin charlie parker records happily and often--like i spin bud powell recordings, fats navarro recordings, sonny stitt recordings, thelonious monk recordings----like i spin mingus, george russell, dolphy, coltrane, coleman, braxton, the art ensemble of chicago, on and on---like i spin recording so bach and beethoven--like i spin recordings of lots of other kinds of music---i am often fascinated by the music and the recording of the music and learn from them.

but

(1) bird et al were simply better at being bird et al than i will ever be

(2) i see no point in linking affection for elements of the tradition directly to what you play--it is a choice that individual players make for themselves. you dont get to say which is and is not legit, flat5 because your choices are your choices and that's as far as they go.

(3) it seems absurd to me to pretend that the implications of bop are the same in 2006 as they were in 1946. that would mean that playing bop in 2006 (live, you know) is not the same act as playing it would have been in 1944-1947. in 1944-47, bop was seen as an aggressive nearly atonal music that offended as many as it pleased--it still had the ability to do both. now it doesnt. there is nothing to be done about that--it is simply a function of repetition.
gertrude stein said once that there is a sharp divide crossed very quickly between non acceptance of new forms and acceptance of new forms: acceptance emphasizes what is "beautiful" and in so doing strips away the ability of the work accepted to irritate, to provoke, to challenge what is around it as it is around it.
that has happened to bop: it has become a perfectly acceptable form of music and with that shift everything has changed about performing it.
it is foolish to pretend otherwise.
it simply is.

jesus, this is like talking to a bluegrass player.
personal aside: my brother is a bluegrass musician--and a very good one--i do nto particularly enjoy bluegrass, but i understand why he does, i think--banjo is an unforgiving instrument and so it makes sense that a banjo player would be inclined to transcriptions and to see music as the reproduction of transcriptions--and that is fine--what irks me about him--and about alot of other straighter players--is that while i make an effort to understand something about what they are doing and why they do it, there is nothing like reciprocity: no effort to understand other ways of doing things, no effort to think about sound, about organization as problems (rather than as given a priori) and to enter into unfamiliar territory with ears and mind open to check out what other players who do not find strict adherence to tradition to be compelling and see what they are doing. it is as if these folk internalize the most absurd claims that defenders of tradition for its own sake make about tradition--that they are positioned within a space of legitimacy that exempts them from having to move musically or intellectually.

this is certianly not a question of chops
it is not a question of who is and is not a serious musician.
it is more a question of how an imagined position within a tradition comes to limit what you do, what you take in and how you take it in.
on cyncial days, i think it is intellectual laziness.
on other days, i wonder about the sociological situation endured by music in the states.
either way, it comes to the same thing.

music can be an assault on the senses.
for me, music should be an assault. it is not pretty, it is not about entertaining people----it is not about providing members of a restaurants demographic with lively sonic wallpaper that they can fade into and out of as they eat brunch. it is not about scales, not about changes--it is about making time-scultpures. it is about that strange line between order and disorder, how order comes to take shape and how it breaks up.

but that is just my position and i do not expect it to hold for other people. you, flat5, apparently think that your position should hold for other players.
i dont see the basis for that.
there is no basis for that.
well, apart from your personal dispositions, which are all fine insofar as that is all they are.

The thread is/was about recommending music to listen to. To grow as a jazz listener. I missed the part where it was asked how to be "relevant now". Which is a joke.

I'm older than you - I don't see playing music as an assault. I DO look for the pretty notes. I'm very happy to find them.

We are in different worlds. I'm not a writer. This is my stop. Good Bye.

flat5: it's nice that you look for pretty notes.
i hope you find them.

i look for other combinations.
it really is not a pressing concern of mine whether you would find that legit or not. it might be if we were going to do some music together--but here, it means nothing.

but i would expect that you could--potentially--have a parallel level of respect for the positions of folk who do not agree with you, rather than try to shift to arbitrary nonsense like speculating about my age and then speaking to me as if from some more fully realized position.

and here i foolishly thought there could be a dialogue--because viewpoints from folk who interact with a tradition can be of great interest to folk who are just getting into it.

but whatever: there is one way to do things and you know what that one way is.
sounds like an industrial aesthetic applied to jazz to me: did you go to berklee?

essential jazz will be that everyone has to buy my album when it's released in the spring

muahahaha

I'm not die-hard by any means, and am definately not a jazz collector, but my ears perk up when I hear it.

Brad Mehldau (mostly because he covered Radiohead...) :)
Tory Cassis (Canadian, if you've not heard of him...)
Jazzanova (even if its not traditional jazz...i recognize elements in it...)
Koop (their "Waltz for Koop" album more than any other IMHO)
St.Germain (did i mention that i like electro? ;))

This unprovoked attack on roachboy's P.O.V. needs some elaboration. I am confused as to why you would snap like this.

There is a difference between listening to music and playing it. I listen to bop and love it but I hardly play it anymore. What do you make of that?

I take your post to mean that the canon of jazz can no longer be added to - relegated to the history books.

Well...rereading the quote now I see that he means "playing" (himself) not listening to Parker.

I thought he was saying listening to Parker in 2006 makes no sense.
For a jazz fan to say that turns my stomach.
So I apologize. I'm sorry. I did not understand his meaning.

If he does not want to play in that ballpark it's ok with me.

"Never Mind" - G. Radner

ah---now i understand.
my apologies for my response, flat5---i didn't account for that possible interpretation.

carry on.

Yay! We all love Bird :D

I've been listening to KJazz 88.1 FM's online stream, and it's fantastic!

They play both Jazz and Blues. The hosts often provide history and put the pieces played in context with the history of the time.

They have a large chunk of evening programming dedicated to Blues, and I am really digging them! In a sense, I may enjoy listening to Blues more than jazz. It's very pleasing music to me.

The station plays lots of music, very little advertising, and the program hosts are great; very informative. The station is based out of the California State University system.

This music (both jazz and blues) is great! I find it very pleasing and often smile just hearing it. I also find the voices of the female vocalists to be quite beautiful. And I love when the instruments are played in a way that it sounds like they are singing too! Fantastic stuff. :)

I almost feel kind of silly doing this, since I last posted here right before July started, but I just wanted to reiterate that I don't think Jazz can be any less good today than it was back in the day, but I feel that most artists who started their work before 1975 start to become stagnant after 1975. And no, I don't think rock died with the Beatles, I think it died with Disco. It's not that there still aren't great acts around anymore (I made the point to say that there are plenty of great recordings still coming out by ECM artists - which would include the Kenny Wheeler/Dave Holland statements put forward by another poster) it's just that I find that a lot of artists start to become boring, or move into directions totally lacking in substance (ie, Herbie Hancock after a while). There's a general sense of creativity/imagination/spirit/excitement that starts to become lost, and why move on to re-hashings of their old work when you can look back into their glory days and pick out oodles of great records? And I'd like to know how I was generalizing anyway? I went so far as to pick out individual artists and show that within a short period tended to go from one type of jazz to another type of jazz within the blink of an eye, lending support to the idea that you can't really generalize that time period at all. It kept moving, kept staying interesting, kept staying exciting. That's not to say it couldn't get boring... even Miles got boring after a while.

And it's not that I don't feel like I'm stuck in a certain time period because it's all I've ever listened too, far from it. Just like rock, I've delved into plenty of artists from plenty of time periods before and after, playing lord knows how many different styles. My dislike stems from the fact of how the music is created, not from the time period (and I certainly hope no one's dislike of music comes from the time period.) I find a lot of today's rock boring because it's just plain bad, boring, and shitty. The music doesn't have any of the qualities that once made it great except for a few rare exceptions. I find early 50s and 60s rock to be, with a few great exceptions, to be too watered down, filtered through to the general public without any regard to the masters who formed it. I find the same holds true for a lot of jazz, and not I didn't say all of jazz. That would be a broad generalization. Early period jazz tends to sound too much the same, with the lovely exception of most female jazz/blues singers, later jazz tends to sound too boring. I do concede that I'm not quite as knowledgeable on newer artists as I am on older artists, I make the recommendations I do because I feel that that time period made so many advancements and was so thoroughly creative that they stand head and shoulders above the rest. And this usually has nothing to do with technical achievements by players.

While I'm not sure if this helped my case at all, all I was originally trying to do was point out to the original poster my favorite recommendations, and trying to explain myself a bit without publishing a book. Which I could probably do at this point.

Certain forces in the improvised music scene right now (ain't gonna use the dirty "J"word), namely Dave Douglas and Ethan Iverson, have been making a small but growing effort to expose post 1970s jazz to a wider audience. They've started a list of essential recordings to have emerged post 1973 (an arbitrary year - Iverson explains on his site). I highly recommend it for those who have only a vague idea of what happens after Miles plugged in. Beware...it is a monster list, so here's the link:

http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothem...iversons_.html

I recommend anyone interested in jazz have a look. Look up the titles on iTunes and listen to the first few seconds (if they have them)...that way you can hear what you're getting into.

A lot of the suggestions in this thread are pretty off the deep end in terms of intoducing someone to jazz--John Zorn? Come on! He's great but...

For the OP RHCP fan I would recommend Herbie Hancock - Headhunters. And from there he could move back to the more esoteric Herbie Hancock - Sextant. But he hasn't replied once to this thread and is probably rocking out to Panic at the Disco or some similiar shit as I type this. Not really sure what the hell Paradise Lost is talking about Herbie Hancock becoming stagnant after 1975, the man was definitely still growing towards his creative peak at that point.

How is it though that no one has mentioned Rashaan Roland Kirk on this thread yet? Ah well...