Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Favorite Jazz Albums? (Read 5031 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Favorite Jazz Albums?

With all the talk about rock around here (which I happen to also like), I thought it might be interesting to start a dialouge about great jazz albums. What are your favorites, and why? Anything you find unlistenable?

My all-time favorite album: John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (1964). Anything of his following that recording (i.e., 1965 to his death in 1967) is much harder for me to listen to. Miles Davis is probably my overall favorite, though - I still have not grown sick of Kind of Blue, Bitches Brew, or Birth of The Cool after literally hundreds of listens.

I still can't quite get into free jazz - Alice Coltrane and Pharoh Sanders' collaborations are about as weird as I can currently handle. Any free-jazz people care to make some reccomendations?

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #1 –
Like the previous poster, I'm not that much into free jazz. I mainly listen to jazz from, say, the early 50s and onwards: be-bop, hard bop, west coast, post bop and to some extent 70s fusion. From the last four decades or so, I usually prefer artists with a mainstream-ish approach, which excludes most kinds of free jazz and a good deal of fusion as well. The largest part of my collection is from the 1955-1970 period.

Some favourites:

A couple of Miles Davis albums were mentioned in the previous post, but not
Miles Ahead (Columbia, 1957) - a beautiful collaboration with Gil Evans; IMO their most successful.
Nefertiti (Columbia, 1967) - Davis' "60s quintet" cut several excellent albums, allthough their most adventurous work is to be found at bootlegs of live shows from the 1966-67 period. This album is one often return to.


When I started to collect jazz more seriously, I went through a "Blue Note phase" - there are so many great recordings from the 50s and 60s on that label, many of them in a hard bop vein, but a few more progressive dates as well.

Herbie Hancock Maiden Voyage (Blue Note, 1965) - one of my all-time favourite albums. Sometimes described as "impressionistic", it features some beautiful playing from both Hancock, trupeter Freddie Hubbard and underrated tenor saxophonist George Coleman, and the rhythm section of the Miles Davis quintet of the day (Ron Carter and Tony Williams) is stellar.

Freddie Hubbard Ready for Freddie (Blue Note, 1961) - hard bop at its finest. Hubbard never played better IMO. Strong support from McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones.

Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil (Blue Note, 1964) - Shorter made several excellent albums for Blue Note during the 60s, and while it may be hard to recommend just one of them (Adam's Apple, a quartet album from 1966, is another good one), I'll go for this. Shorters compositions are consistently interesting - and beatiful at the same time! It takes a few listens to really dig into this album, but then you can enjoy it for hundreds of more. For anyone completely unfamiliar with Shorter's work, this is a very good place to start.


I could go on to list dozens of more, but for now I'll conclude with one of the greatest hard bop recordings of all time:

Clifford Brown / Max Roach Study in Brown (EmArcy, 1955) - Clifford Brown was the archetypal hard bop trumpeter, and influenced many of those to come. Sadly, he was killed in an auto accident the year after this recording. He had a perfect foil in Harold Land, in some ways a typical "west coast" sax player, but with a disctinctive sound of his own. This is as hard-swinging as it gets (also much thanks to Max Roach, one of the greatest drummers in jazz).

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #2 –
My all-time fave is Errol Garner's Concert by the Sea recorded around '54.  I am transported back in time every time I hear it.  It is at an early Monterey Jazz Festival and just great. 

Brubeck, Davis, Mulligan, Monk, Jamal, Fats Waller; the list goes on.  There is such a great palette of jazz artists in this country (US&A).  I have many on vinyl still.  I have every record I ever bought back to '54.  Freddy Gambrell with Chico Hamilton is a great and unavailable LP/CD.  I lent in in '67 and never saw it again.  His Lullaby of the Leaves was stellar.

Cheers 
Nov schmoz kapop.

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #3 –
my all time fav. is John Coltrane, and his Giant steps lp, 1 of my 1st jazz lp and it turned a lot on the player
i'm not a jazz master tough
OS#1 OpenSuse
OS#2 Windows Xp Sp2

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #4 –
Koop - Waltz for Koop is one of my new favorites.

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #5 –
I'm gonna have to be boring and admit it:

Dave Brubeck - Time Out

nothin' better 

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #6 –
Lot's of Miles Davis & John Coltrane

Kind of Blue
In A Silent Way
Bitches Brew
Get Up With It

John Coltrane

A Love Supreme
Ballads
John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman (SACD with the mono & stereo mixes)

Then, jazz fusion. I don't want to debate if that is really jazz. But:

Weather Report - Sweetnighter
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Visions of the Emerald Beyond

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #7 –
Nothing can beat Oscar Peterson. 

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #8 –
Lately, I've been listening to Norman Brown - Celebration. If you like nice, clean guitar work, he's the guy. If you heard him on the radio, you'ld think it was George Benson.

I also like Pat Metheny, Rippington's, Wes Montgomery, etc. Too many to list.

Artie

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #9 –
FWIW - 250+ views; 8 responses.  Jazz is not all that popular.  I like to think of jazz fans as a cut above, but this is so self-serving.  The 250+/8 ratio does give an idea of where we are.  IIRC, jazz is 3% of a label's revenue.  The same for classical.  Furhter proof that vox pop - vox dei is not true. 
Nov schmoz kapop.

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #10 –
Quote
FWIW - 250+ views; 8 responses.  Jazz is not all that popular.  I like to think of jazz fans as a cut above, but this is so self-serving.  The 250+/8 ratio does give an idea of where we are.  IIRC, jazz is 3% of a label's revenue.  The same for classical.  Furhter proof that vox pop - vox dei is not true.  
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=350454"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I think people simply aren't that interested in answering this type of poll, but more in helping.

In my case, my fave albums are Kind of blue, and anything by Oliver Jones, as well as some Oscar Peterson.

Favorite Jazz Albums?

Reply #11 –
hi from argentine (excuse my english)

these would be my top 5 classic jazz albums:

Keith Jarrett - Tokyo '96 (with DeJohnette & Peacock)
Lee Morgan - Search For The new land
Art Blakey & TJM - Moanin
Coltrane - My favourite things
Miles Davis - My funny Valentine

But I'm more into the "ECM" jazz, do you understand?

Egberto Gismonti - Sol do medio dia
Keith Jarrett - Survivor Suite
Jan Garbarek - Dis
Eberhard Weber - The following morning
Gismonti, Garbarek & Haden - Folk Songs

Anyway the list evolve but there is always a place for Jarrett or Gismonti