I mostly listen to rock of the indie/alternative variety, but I’ve also decided to try delving into jazz. The problem is I don’t know where to start. Jazz doesn’t get much radio play, you often have to listen to songs for several minutes to know what you like, and artist discographies are so vast. What I have found interesting is:
–John Coltrane (especially 1959-64)
–Miles Davis’ 70s work
–the bits and snatches of Art Blakey I’ve heard
–I really liked the Lee Morgan album “The Sidewinder” since I heard a coworker play it
What artists and specific albums should I try first? And what’s the best way to hear them?
Check out The Bad Plus. Here’s their version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” which changes up the chords in some amazing push and pull ways.
Well, I like rock. Rock’s my fave.
But I also like jazz, and I heartily recommend Charles Mingus. Blues and Roots and Mingus Dynasty, which were recorded about 1960 but sound very, very fresh.
Herbie Hancock’s “Head hunters”?
Okay - so I assume you have Davis’ A Tribute to Jack Johnson? Then you should try Inner Mounting Flame by the Mahavishnu Orchestra, featuring the same guitarist, John MacLoughlin. A Coltrane-like approach to distorted guitar leads over aggressive fusion rhythms (the drummer is truly standout - Billy Cobham?). Back when fusion wasn’t a dirty word.
I love Sidewinder and can recommend **Tomcat **by **Lee Morgan **as well.
Have you checked out bop? ** Charlie Parker **is unbelievable - his precision and hyper-melodic sense really stand out - he was a huge Bach fan and so you have that mathematic precision peeking out from his delivery. There are plenty of solid best of’s. Find stuff with Max Roach on drums. Getting some Dizzy Gillespie - Parker’s bebop soulmate and the trumpeter with the weirdest cheeks in the business - his early tracks like **Oleo **and **Salt Peanuts **are pure jazz fun - very cool.
Thelonius Monk totally embraces the rock n’ roll spirit to me - his chords are dangerous but accessible. He always picks chords that are off - where the notes rub up against each other “wrong” but he makes the whole thing work, like an Eddie Van Halen solo. Stuff like **Brilliant Corners **and **Straight, No Chaser **are classics.
**Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus **- 'nuff said.
Oh, and you should sample keyboard player **Art Tatum **- kinda the prog rock or Mariah Carey of bop piano - in a really good way ;). Almost blind dude who would consume gallons of beer while he played - he overplayed *everything *- adding filligrees of detail and lightning-fast runs - his fingers could do whatever his mind contemplated, and his mind was all over the place all the time. But he plays standards, so you can follow along reasonably well and there is a really melodic heart to what he does, so it doesn’t come across as show-offy, more of a powerful musical mind at work…
All I have for now - let us know what you listen to and think…
These are some jazz albums I like:
Return To Forever - …where have i know you before…; Romantic Warrior; (or maybe) The Anthology (published this year instead)
Jean-Luc Ponty - Aurora; Upon The Wings Of Music; Enigmatic Ocean; Imaginarey Voyage
(Jazz) Crusaders - Those Southern Knights; Chain Reaction: Southern Comfort
Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express - Closer To It!; Second Wind
Ramsey Lewis - Sun Goddess
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue; In A Silent Way
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds Of Fire; Apocalypse; Visions of the Emerald Beyond
Dreams (Billy Cobhan and Brecker Brothers)
Paul Winter Winter Consort - Icarus
Andreas Vollenweider - Dancing With The Lion
Weather Report - Mysterious Traveler; Heavy Weather; Mr Gone
Lee Ritenour - First Course
Michael Hedges - Live on the Double Planet; (and others)
Shadowfax - Folksongs for a Nuclear Village
Al DiMeola - Elegant Gypsy; Land of the Midnight Sun
Stanley Clarke - Journey To Love; School Days
Larry Coryell - Spaces
Deodato - 2
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones - Greatest Hits of the 20th Century
Hubert Laws - Best of Hubert Laws (Contemporary Jazz Masters)
Billy Cobham - Spectrum
Alphonse Mouson - Mind Transplant
Shakti - Shakti with John McLaughlin (Columbia Jazz)
The best approach (for me) to find new music is just listen anywhere and everywhere. Read the credits at the end of movies. When I hear something I like, i look to see who played what and then look for something else they’ve done. Youtube, Pandora, Google, Allmusic.com, Amazon, etc are all places to hear (at least samples of) or read about different music. Read the magazines and learn which critics like what you do or write about their reasons for liking or disliking something. (Wordman is really good at this.) Learn how to tell which of them are compatible with your tastes. If you don’t like something right away, listen again on a different day or in a different frame of mind.
I’m running around today - I’ll try to get back with something more later on.
All of the above are great suggestions. Couple of things I’d like to add
Gateway, which was John Abercrombie, Jack de Johnette and Dave Holland. The first album, Gateway, was good, but second album, Homecoming, was outstanding.
The Tony Williams Lifetime - Believe it is a great jazz rock album.
Jazz FM in Toronto has live streaming so you can listen on line, if that’s of any use to you. It sounds like the late evening show might be more of what you’re after, but I also highly recommend Terry McElligot’s ‘Mid-day jazz’ show, on at 10AM - 2PM Eastern Time on weekdays.
Anything by Charlie Hunter. Herehe is playing a Monk tune. He plays 8 string guitar, so those bass lines you hear are him.
Bing Bing Bing is a good one.
Come as You Are.
Great list, another fan of Jazz Fusion I see. If I were to describe jazz that a rocker would like, fusion would be it.
Many of the artists collaborate with other artists of the genre so that it’s hard to keep them straight.
For example, I like Jean-Luc Ponty’s Cosmic Messenger, especially the title track. But Ponty performed with George Duke and Frank Zappa as well. I like Zappa’s Hot Rats. Zappa’s jazz fusion albums were quite different than his Mothers stuff.
So look at the players in the various groups listed above and seek out some of the work from the individuals as well.
In the time it took to read the thread to see if anyone mentioned Hot Rats, someone mentioned Hot Rats.
To the recommendations of Return To Forever, I’d add the “Musicmagic” album.
I always pop up in these jazz threads to recommend the Pat Metheny Group, and this is no exception. Try “Half Life Of Absolution” (Track 4 off The Road To You ) and "The Roots of Coincidence"from Imaginary Day.
See - that there is a slippery slope of a topic. I am a dyed-in-the-wool, card carrying rocker - I have a mid-life crisis rock band and everything! 
- and I am NOT a fusion guy. See my not-so-funny comment in my earlier post “…this was before fusion became a dirty word.”
Jeff Beck - oh, and installLSC, buy Blow By Blow immediately - is my all time favorite guitarist and I can’t listen to all of his fusion stuff. I just find fusion to be too, I dunno, but whatever it is, it is not for me. I don’t intend by any means to threadshit - and there is a TON of great fusion music to be listened to - I have come to enjoy stuff by the Mahavishnu Orchestra and others that I woudn’t have gone near in my earlier days.
…but I want to make a case for Jazzier Jazz - you know, Be Bop, Hard Bop (e.g., Coltrane), Miles Davis’ Cool Jazz, some West Coast stuff like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan. It isn’t rock, and it doesn’t have the rhythm section and guitar sounds that Fusion has that tie more directly to rock. But man, that music is so damn good - and boundary-pushing and dangerous in ways that the best rock is. It is dangerous in a different way than rock, but that passion and pushing is what appeals to me.
I guess my point is that a lot of Fusion sounds aggressive but is really kinda predictable - it isn’t pushing boundaries the way Coltrane did or Davis did with his 70’s band or Beck did on Blow by Blow. THAT Fusion I am totally interested in hearing more of. But the bebop, hard bop, Cool jazz, West Coast jazz, etc. that I am referring to is just as cool and “dangerous” in its way - so I would make the case to focus on that more than a big drum sound for its own sake…
My $.02 and I am sorry if I offended anyone - not my intent…
Try Medeski Martin and Wood. “Friday Afternoon in the Universe” and “It’s a Jungle in Here” are both very nice. Lots of fun.
No problem, I realize my post was way too broad, but it was time to go to lunch and I couldn’t really expound. I just wanted to give the OP a starting place to jump into.
Mahavishnu is a good example, to me they embody jazz fusion. Fusion isn’t all that I like, either, Paul Desmond being a good example. “Take Five” was written before I was born, but I love that song. Bill Evans (piano Bill Evans, much more than sax Bill Evans). John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley.
Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew is in my CD player at home right now.
McLaughlin played with Miles Davis on Bitches Brew, as did Chick Corea and Dave Holland. Chick Corea formed Return to Forever. Al Di Meola and Stanley Clarke played in RtF, Ponty played in Mahavishnu with McLaughlin.
The same names pop up with some regularity, like Six Degrees of Jazz, but usually only a degree apart.
Take Jaco Pastorius. Played with Pat Metheny and Herbie Hancock, also Joe Zawinul of Weather Report and the Brecker brothers. Zawinul played with Cannonball Adderly, Metheny played with Lyle Mays. Lyle Mays played with Jack DeJohnette, who had played with both Bill Evans and Miles Davis. Herbie Hancock was a Miles Davis alumni, as were Coltrane and Adderley.
Just tracking down a few tracks from those name or collaborations between the names will yield something that I feel a rocker might enjoy.
Before it went off the air, XM used to have a channel called Beyond Jazz. I discovered most of this music from listening to that and taking notes of the stuff that grabbed me. The hosts were Michelle Sammartino and Russ Davis. They have started an internet radio station that’s in the same vein, but it’s paid subscription.
Medeski, Martin, and Wood gets some play there, Larry Coryell, the Bad Plus, Return to Forever, SMV, it’s a Modern Jazz station, but they play some vintage stuff, too. Charlie Parker, for example. Basically everything on DfrntBreign’s list.
and jazz lover at the same time. Three of the most famous jazz fusion players still grooving on stuff like Led Zepplin and Sly Stone.
Electric
Lenny White, Victor Bailey and Larry Coryell
All good - sounds like we are coming from a similar-enough place. And yeah, Jaco was a monster player. I also enjoy the Bad Plus - I have their latest. But the stuff I love the most is their out-there modern stuff, like Fem (Etude No. 8) (link to Amazon page where you can hear a sample) which just totally rocks in a Bartok-ian sorta way…)
Paul Anka covered a bunch of famous rock tunes in a jazzy style in Rock Swings. One of my favorite albums.
Messed up the URL
Start with The Peter Gunn Theme.