I searched for it and it seems like it got pruned. I got Miles's
On the Corner for Christmas and I like it a lot, but I can't claim to understand it at all. I really like John McLaughlin though, here and on
Bitches Brew (which now seems comparatively conservative). I've been meaning to track down some Mahavishnu Orchestra for a while now. I will say that I can't see why the album gets credit for the development of hip hop.
I didn't understand non-Miles fusion at all until I heard Dave Weckl's band live a few weeks ago and it completely blew my mind. It was so amazing, probably the best live music performance I've ever seen. The bassist, Tom Kennedy, was
ridiculous. He could play significantly faster than a lot of professional guitarists I've seen.
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Wired has Jan Hammer from Mahavishnu Orchestra
My favorite Jazz albums include
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
Clifford Brown: Clifford Brown and Max Roach
Study in Brown
John Coltrane: Blue Trane
Giant Steps
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
A Love Supreme
Oliver Nelson: Blues and the Abstract Truth (The greatest jazz album ever made)
Art Blakey: Moanin'
A Night at the Birdland
Joe Pass: Virtuoso
Freddie Hubbard: Night of the Cookers
The Alex Skolnick Trio albums are hilarious. Rock/metal songs done up as bebop songs...if you want to hear No On Like You played jazz, look no further.
I spent a solid two to three years trying to be Joe Pass
What would you recommend I check out next?
Alex Skolnick has an open taping policy, you can check out some recordings here.
The cover of Electric Eye is awesome.
I don't even listen to jazz; any suggestions on Sun Ra albums or just some good jazz in general?
I've been listening to a whole lot of Miles and Bird lately, and I think they're both pretty incredible.
Poldy/anybody, what do you think of free jazz? I have Change of the Century by Ornette Coleman and I think it's really good.
I actually got into Jazz first with the Django and Grappelli gypsee stuff than moved into swing which then got me into the harder shit. Jazz is like heroin except for the AIDS from a dirty needle thing- actually hmm. Also I always hated Bitches Brew till I saw the style live. Try Ornette Coleman.
Also, anyone heard the MOnk/Coltrane album at carnegie that released about a year back?
For Django is quite possible the best guitar playing I've ever heard. Definitely pick that one up.
I'm also very partial to his album with Andre Previn and Ray Brown, After Hours IIRC. The version of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is absolutely stellar.
@YSam: It depends how far you take "free jazz." If you include a lot of post-Bop like Eric Dolphy and Trane's later stuff, than i absolutely love it. Early Coleman is very interesting. True Free Jazz, however, can be truly amazing, but there's just too much boring wanking off to have to drudge through.
The Shape of Jazz to Come by Coleman, along with Free Jazz are seminal. They heralded the arrival of the free jazz idiom; definitely worth a listen if you are even vaguely interested in that strain of jazz.
For my part, I'm a huge third stream and cool fan. So I listen to Sketches of Spain, and basically anything by Dave Brubeck or Gerry Mulligan. Both are truly amazing.
Charles Mingus.
Medeski Martin And Wood. (This Video makes me pee my pants)
Maybe, John Zorn's Electric Masada.
Christian McBride live at tonic, only that kinda wears me down a bit.
John Scofield Band Releases, Up All Night, Uberjam.
Jaco Pastorius' album Jaco Pastorius. And Last But Not Least(tm)
Chick Corea - Light As A Feather and Return To Forever (The Album)
He has also done stuff with a band called "Return to Forever" but that stuff is very weather reporty. He has also done stuff with The Chick Corea Electric band, but that stuff sounds like, as my friend puts it, "Music From Transport Tycoon"
Who ever said "We Want Miles" was bang goddamn right on the money, fantastic stuff that.
Great free jazz? Get Coltrane's "One Down One Up" live at the half note, if you can't quite hear what is going on that album makes you just apreciate the power of what is going on, amazing stuff.
For quieter Free Jazz stuff, if you can hunt down the ECM releases Universal Syncopations (Has some beautiful playing and compositions) by Miroslav Vitous, and I Have The Room Above Her by Paul Motion, do so.
Great Jazz to get started with? Kind Of Blue, it's like Time Out, but brilliant. A classic that stands up to it's reputation.
I personally "got" jazz with Miles Davis live at the blackhawk (or something) which got me into the swinging thing.
For great current jazz, i'd go with Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dave Holland (Get Not For Nothing, thank me later), Chris Potter (Lift! Live at the village vanguard) Bill Frisell (East, West) John Scofield (Trio Saudedes) ahhh, and Charles Lloyd (Any of the Higgins albums - Hyperion With Higgins, Water Is Wide, Voices In The Night)
Phew. I'm spent.[/b]
edit: now with links, so i'm not making thins up!
Myself, I recently got Spheres by Keith Jarrett and have been giving it plenty of airtime. Amazing album, but not very accessible. I also got a Bill Evans album for Christmas, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, which I have yet to sit down and seriously listen to but have enjoyed when I played it as backround music while cleaning the other day.
That and some of the compositions now just sound so downright cheesy.
The only thing I like about Weather Report is Birdland, and Wayne Shorter's godliness on the soprano sax. Everything else is blah.
You, my friend, have obtained one of the greatest live jazz albums ever recorded. I actually prefer alot of the alternate takes they did, especially for Alice in Wonderland.
Has anyone here listened to any of Zawinul's latest stuff, though? He's now got a group called The Zawinul Syndicate which is, as close as I can tell, another fusion group very similar to WP but with vocals and not as good. From the two albums I have, Lost Tribes and Black Water, I've deduced Zawinul has retreated from creating original sounds and instead uses exclusively the standard MIDI trumpet found on a DX-7. He also indulges in tacky narrarative tracks describing a barber/saxophonist who disses Monk and some pretty lame pop tunes. I am not very fond of these albums, but I'm still considering picking up their latest album, The Immigrants, in hopes of it being better. Has anyone here heard that record and can attest to it being decent/good?
Edit: Funny you should mention that Birdland is your favourite tune-it's actually one of my least favourite WRP tunes. It's not that it's not a very well written song, but rather because it's so overplayed. My favourite Weather Report tracks would have to be A Remark You Made off of Heavy Weather and pretty much the entirety of Night Passage and The Mysterious Traveller albums. They're just so yummy.
I'm not sure where do go from here, though. I'd like to pick up a few more CDs... more Miles Davis, maybe? I'd also like to try something a bit more piano-oriented.
You also might like Lennie Tristano, he's strongly influenced by classical.
Weather Report just sounds really cheesy to me, plus a lot dumber than everything at least 20 years before it in jazz. Tower of Power too.
As for piano music, try Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, or McCoy Tyner,
Alternatively: what is hip? Not you, Tower of Power.
I love Monk. His improvisations are amazing.
And I fell in love with jazz when we transcribed Miles Davis' solo in So What. It's probably overplayed but I still find it magnificent. I love whistling it :P .
Haven't gotten to the Bill Evans album yet.
Sunday at the Village Vanguard is absolutely amazing. Alice in Wonderland is like christmas all year round.
Portrait in Jazz is great straight up piano trio.
Waltz for Debby has some really great moments.
Far East Suite and Such Sweet Thunder are my favourite Ellington albums. They're just pure gold.
"Jazz At The Plaza" it's only 40min, but it's the Kind Of Blue band live, fantastic stuff. I'd rate it slightly higher than Newport 1958 which is the only other Kind Of Blue Band recording (Aside from that selection of tracks they did in the studio, can't remember what it's released on (if anything)).
They only Ellington I own is Money Jungle. That album is singlehandedly 30 years ahead of it's time.
I think you're referring to Cookin',Steamin',Workin', and Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. That's the group of four albums Prestige (I think it was Prestige) released over one year from a couple of recording sessions with the First Great Quintet. None of them are groundbreaking - mostly just Davis playing straight-ahead standards or whatever. The most interesting part is hearing Coltrane before his sheets-of-sound phase.
I always thought Adderley was post-Kind of Blue.
Well I'll be damned. He was on Kind of Blue.