I'm a relatively new jazz fan, and I'm always looking for more good stuff to listen to. So far, a selection of my favorites are Kind of Blue and The Great American Songbook by Miles Davis, Burnin' at the Backstreet by the Chet Baker Quartet, and Something Else by Cannonball Adderley.
So Jazz fans: What are your favorites?
Well this is a tough question. Background: I play upright bass and received my undergrad in Jazz Studies. Currently listening to Follow the Red Line by Chris Potter. He's the John Coltrane of today in terms of what he's doing for jazz.
I really like the bassist Avishai Cohen's album As Is...Live at the Blue Note.
The album Pig Inside the Gentleman by the Contemporary Noise Sextet is by far my favorite album of all time. I think I've had my time with jazz of the '50s. It was great, don't get me wrong, but (and I'm speaking to jazz professors here) let's move on. Let's study the music that's being produced today because damn is that stuff incredible. Like Snarky Puppy's album Sylva??? That'll be remembered for hundreds of years. Let me know if you want more suggestions because I have a lot of stuff that'll send you on may emotional journeys.
I agree with all of this post (although I don't know Contemporary Noise Sextet). Big fan of Chris Potter, Avishai Cohen (Continuou is my motherfucking jam), and SP blows my mind every time I listen. Favorite example: Cory Henry's solo on Lingus. I get bored with older jazz too. It's like some classic literature, or the Mona Lisa, or Straight Outta Compton (the album). It's valuable in that it was innovative in its time and advanced the genre, but that doesn't mean it's interesting to experience today (now that the then-revolutionary techniques it introduced have been normalized and moved past). Additionally, I highly recommend: Mark Guiliana - Family First, Robert Glasper - Black Radio (+ BR2), Jon Batiste & Stay Human - Social Music, Brad Mehldau - Art of the Trio, Roy Hargrove - Earfood. (Sorry for formatting, typing this on my phone in the Oneida Denny's.)
A vast percentage of their tunes makes me melt every time. I'll check out the albums you threw out.
I'm not too big a fan of Black Radio 2, but I imagine that's because as a Hispanic I can't relate to the Black experience.
Hargrove, also killing. Yeah man.
Here's the simplest way I can put it. I would listen to these albums (I probably had more than a hundred, maybe two, at one point), and think that there was some mystic quality, that I would figure out the secret someday, but I didn't quite get it yet. Then I got to a point where I kinda realized that there wasn't much to get. Most jazz just feels empty to me.
Ah Um is one of my all time favorite albums in general. It's just got such a great energy to it, and the bass is so nice. I just love how everything meshes together so well.
Less McCann & Eddie Harris "Swiss Movements" John Coltrane "Giant Steps" Don Cherry "Organic Music Society" Herbal Hancock "Headhunters" A large portion of the Miles Davis catalog. Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt "Sonny Side Up" "Duets" Duke Ellington "Ellington At Newport 1956" Wess Montgomery "Boss Guitar" Jaco Pastorius "Jaco Pastorius" I mostly dislike jazz but I also like certain bits of it a lot.
ULTRA MEGA SUPER POST INBOUND: Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz, The Shape of Jazz to Come Kurt Rosenwinkel - Our Secret Place, Star of Jupiter Miles Davis - 'Round About Midnight, Kind of Blue, Bitches Brew, Live-Evil, Sketches of Spain Moondog - S/T Thelonious Monk - Monk's Dream, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins Fire! Orchestra - Enter, Exit Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges Moon Hooch - This is Cave Music Jacques Coursil - Clameurs Zs - Xe Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch Hiromi - Alive John Coltrane - Ascension, A Love Supreme, Giant Steps (although Giant Steps is super entry level) Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (more blues-rock than jazz, but there are jazz elements) _______________________________________________________ If you can't decide where to start, start with one of the Miles Davis albums or Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz. Free Jazz is really cool because it's a double quartet with each quartet assigned to an audio channel (one quartet per ear). Essentially, it's like listening to two albums at the same time, except that the albums interact with each other. Plus, it's FREE JAZZ.
I'm going to bookmark this thread, I like jazz but have no idea where to dive in. I do like Miles Davis a lot, specifically Bitches Brew and Sketches of Spain.
Tigran Hamasyan is my hero/idol/god and I must plug him here. Contemporary jazz piano, more recently incorporating electronic wizardry. I'll go top-down with the most accessible stuff at the bottom. Most recent album: Other stuff of varying insanity, and some of the stuff that got him famous: More tame stuff: This album "A Fable" is a collection of Armenian folk songs, arranged and brought to fruition with some solo piano wonder: Here he is with oud baller Dhafer Yousseff:
Blues and Roots - Charles Mingus
Ptah el Daoud / A Monastic Trio - Alice Coltrane
Karma - Pharoah Sanders (it has a very uncommon sound)
Soultrane - John Coltrane (it was the album that initiated me to jazz, so I might be biased about this one) I'm also a pretty new jazz fan, been listening to it for 2-3 years only but I love that there's so much artists and subgenres. Lately I've been enjoying listening to some acid jazz, bossanova mixed with jazz,...