Jazz for Jazz Fans

Cafe Society
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I’ve noticed than many (maybe most) musical topics on SDMB veer into the direction of current “pop” artists, bands, sub-genres, etc.

Now and then somebody will say something that indicates an understanding of, maybe even an appreciation of, jazz.

If you’re a jazz fan or have strong positive feelings for jazz music, can you help come up with a good topic to use that will keep the subject more or less on jazz, without offending those whose tastes lie elsewhere?

There’s a recent thread on “favorite instrumental” that has responses all over the musical map. If we stick to jazz instrumentals, what’s your favorite?

Who’s your favorite jazz trumpet player? Sax? Guitar? Piano? Violin? Other instrument(s)?

What period in jazz history is your favorite?

How do you perceive jazz programming on TV?

Is there a good jazz station on web radio? Is there a good jazz radio station near enough where you live to make it one you listen to?

Did you see the Ken Burns PBS series on Jazz? If so, what did you think of it?

If nothing else, if you like jazz, just reply to indicate that.

Thanks!

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I gotta e-mail Ukulele Ike and tell him to drop the kids and the cooking and the extra job and get in here . . .

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I had you pegged for one, Eve!! Thanks!

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Isn’t John Zorn considered a jazz musician? I’m a fan of his works.

I own two of his albums, Naked City and Torture Garden.

I’ve started listening to Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. It’s not really gelling for me yet but I’m patient. Still I have to say it has the coolest album cover artwork ever.

My favorite jazz instrumental is ‘My Favorite Things’ by John Coltrane. I know this is a pretty vanilla reply, but I’m a newbie when it comes to Jazz.

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Husker Dude,

Vanilla?! You’re into the zone (in history) where my tastes split off.

Miles went off into fusion with BB and “In A Silent Way” and Trane soon got into the “avant garde” area with folks like Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. For maybe 10 years, I was away from the jazz of the day. Later, with folks like Jean-Luc Ponty and even later with Pat Metheny, I could relate to it again.

But Miles’ “Kind of Blue” and “Sketches of Spain” are close to my favorites, as is the Trane album with MFT. Trane is on Kind of Blue, too.

Don’t know Zorn. What’s he play?

These days I mostly listen to a local jazz station that plays mostly “mainstream” stuff, with lots of oldies from the 50’s and 60’s. I don’t remember hearing Zorn to know it.

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I don’t know where Eric Dolphy sits in the grand scheme of things as far as jazz aficionados go, but his album Out to Lunch really hits me in the right spot.

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John Zorn

I own ‘Kind of Blue’ too, but I haven’t actually listened through it yet. I was told Bitches Brew was the better of the two.

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Thanks for the link, Hüsker Düde.

Judging from the description there, Zorn and Dolphy are both in the area where I have yet to develop my own tastes.

And if Bitches Brew is more to your liking, there are several other “early fusion” things like Weather Report that might suit you. Return To Forever is another band of that type.

“Kind Of Blue” was one of the first of the “modal jazz” efforts that have had influence on many people in other genres. I remember that Dickey Betts and Duane Allman credit Miles and Trane as being big influences on them. The Allman Brothers were among the first Southern Rock or Blues/Rock bands that I liked. Some of their guitar work is as close to what I call “jazz” as anything from that period.

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There shall not be a general jazz thread that does not mention Bill Evans. I try to see to that.

My favorite period overall, I think, is mid-60s, somewhat avant-garde but not too much so. I like most of the quintet work of Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Eric Dolphy, etc.

First Miles Quintet is fantastic. Four key albums – Workin’, Swingin’, Cookin’, and Relaxin’. Doesn’t get better than that. 2nd Miles Quintet, I can take or leave.

I wish I actually played jazz. I used to think I did, but now I’ve decided I’m a very old-fashioned stride player. I do steal chords that were invented in the 60s though!

Hated the Ken Burns series. Should have been titled “Everything I Didn’t Know About Jazz Until Wynton Told Me.” Hated it.

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Whoops. “Steamin’”, not “Swingin’”.

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masonite, that’s how I saw the Burns series. Way too much on Armstrong and Ellington. Way too little on anything in the past 20+ years. No Bossa Nova! Few white guys. (I get the feeling the only reason Brubeck got as much time as he did was that his band(s) were always integrated). About the only mention that Getz and Mulligan got was that they were dopers.

In spite of having over 20 of Miles’ things, I have yet to get those old Prestige albums. I just about quit buying CD’s. Radio does it for me nowadays.

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masonite, I forgot to ditto your Evans remarks, too. In fact, the best cut on Kind Of Blue (for me) is the tune that’s disputedly Evans’ “Blue In Green.” Depending on whose version you take of how that got to be credited to Miles, maybe it makes up for “Donna Lee” being credited to Parker.

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Husker, you inspired me to put on My Favorite Things. By the way, Coltrane’s arrangement is how I always play the tune.

mouthbreather, Out To Lunch is next.

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I don’t want to talk about the real authorship of tunes on Kind of Blue, I’ll say things I’ll regret later!

Tell me instead about Donna Lee and Charlie Parker. Who wrote the tune really? (Other than James F. Hanley, natch!)

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masonite, that’s (Donna Lee) probably in the same bag that Blue In Green is. According to one of the Fake Books I have, it was Miles’s. But it usually gets credited to Parker.

There’s at least two books (fairly recent) devoted to the Kind Of Blue album’s creation. No telling how many biographies on Miles.

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I listened to jazz a lot more when I was younger, but there’s still a lot I remember:

Modern Jazz Quartet: their Last Concert album is unbelievably good.
Art Pepper: he made a couple of albums after he got out of prison that were fantastic. Don’t remember the names off the top of my head, but I have 'em around here somewhere.
There’s a Duke Ellington album called Jazz Party or something along those lines, that is plain one of the most enjoyable albums ever made.
Dave Brubeck’s Take Five and another one, something with Asia in the name as I recall, are excellent.
Kevin Mahogany’s first album was good, second not so hot.
Sarah Vaughan never really excited me all that much. She seemed too in love with her voice.
Wynton Marsalis: I don’t know, he just leaves me cold. Technically he’s excellent, but the man just has no soul. Oh well.
Miles: just about anything before he went fusion. To look at the personnel on his old bands is to stand in awe. Seems like everybody who was anybody played with him at one time or another.
The Stan Getz album with The Girl From Ipanema is very good. Lots of his other stuff is good, too. Excellent player.
Charles Mingus used to make solid albums, one after another, for years. He was solid live, too.
Then there’s Dizzy. And Charlie Parker.
But the truly special place in my heart goes to Thelonious Monk. Like most people, I never got to see him play live. The closest I ever got to him was his funeral mass, at the church in the Citigroup Center, the highlight of which, as I recall, was Charles Roach doing a thing on drums that was, well, heavenly. But I have cassette tape after cassette tape with his stuff. Obviously, I have to update one of these days.
I remember that in the year he died, in the bios, it came out that he was on the cover of Time at some point in the early '60s. In the year end issue of Time for that year, he wasn’t even mentioned. I don’t think I’ve ever been more angry at an omission like that in my whole life.
There’s lots more where that came from. This has got to be the most underappreciated music in the Universe.

Over here in Jersey, there’s WBGO out of Newark, also available on the Web. Great station.

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pantom:

That’s my favorite album ever and the Bossa Nova period is the one I like best.

That’s one criticism that I have of Ken Burns’ Jazz. Did it even mention Tom Jobim?

Sax player – Stan Getz
Guitar – Almeida
piano – Lyle Mayes and Art Tatum
violin – I hate jazz violin!
trumpet – whoever is currently playing at Preservation Hall.

My favorite composer, arranger, conductor, musician combo is Henry Mancini. His music also contains about the only organ music I like (as in Mr. Lucky Did he do the organ music himself?

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I am very much into early jazz. My favorite instrumentalists are:

Trumpet: This is a hard decision. Armstrong was the greatest, and Bix was fantastic, but lately I’ve been enjoying Red Allen a lot.

Sax: Sidney Bechet, Frank Trumbauer.

Guitar: Eddie Lang

Violin: Joe Venuti

Clarinet: Barney Bigard, Albert Nicholas, Johnny Dodds

Piano: I love Earl Hines’ piano solos. Too bad he didn’t record more of them.

Bass: Pops Foster, Wellman Braud

Trombone: Jack Teagarden, J.C. Higginbotham

Comb: Red McKenzie

Oddball instruments (bass sax, goofus, hot fountain pen): Adrian Rollini

Accordion: Buster Moten :slight_smile:

I thought the Ken Burns documentary was pretty bad. Too much Winton Marsalis, who although he is a talented musician, is a blowhard. Way too much Stanley Crouch, who is nothing but a blowhard with a racial agenda. Many inaccuracies, misleading statements (and presentation). Not enough of the music - one thing a documentary on the history of jazz should do is play records all the way through without interruption (Burns did this with West End Blues and Body and Soul, but with little else).

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Thanks for the replies, pantom, Zoe and Jeff Lichtman.

It appears we have managed, with just a few responses already, to cover pretty much the whole span of jazz history (from “trad” to avant garde) in our various preferences. I believe I can say that my tastes are nearly broad enough to include the whole spectrum and to add in Blues (some of it) and some Rock and some Country along with it.

My own liking for jazz came as early as three or four years of age, and was based on hearing George Shearing on the radio (along with quite a bit of Big Band things, Sinatra, and even some of the Western Swing like Bob Wills). I was maybe 15 before I knew to call what I liked “jazz.” Once I knew that, I started collecting whatever was available in local record shops, and managed to build up a healthy LP collection over the years. As I said before, I’ve tapered off in buying music lately, preferring the stuff I can hear on the radio and the MIDI files I’ve managed to collect.

pantom, thus far I’d say you and I see pretty close to eye to eye on styles and players. Art Pepper is one you mentioned that I will second. Very underrated player. I have several of his things, including one of my favorite Chet Baker records on Pacific Jazz or World Pacific.

In that same bag, West Coast I guess, Shelly Manne’s group(s) on Contemporary is a favorite, along with Gerald Wilson’s orchestra.

I was ready for Bossa Nova when it hit, since the Afro-Cuban vein was already big by then. Shearing had several Latin <fill in the blank> things, as did Cal Tjader, Bud Shank, Dizzy, and I even had some Les Baxter albums (maybe more in the Lounge or Space Age Bachelor Pad section than jazz). One of the better BN things that I never did buy was one with Howard Roberts. Zoot Sims, Herbie Mann, Barney Kessel, Laurindo Almeida (I like him, too, Zoe), Clare Fischer (anybody else think of him when you watch “Six Feet Under”?), Toots Thielemans, and maybe a dozen more names, all had good Bossa Nova things that were (for me) at least as good as the blockbusters Getz and Charlie Byrd did.

Any of you familiar with Michel Petrucciani (sp?)? They play some of his stuff on the radio now and then and his piano work is spectacular.

Also, do any of you ever hear the Bob Parlocha radio show? It comes on here from 9 PM to 6 AM and has about as broad a scope as any jazz show I ever heard.

What are some good general topics in this area we could discuss? Maybe some more threads on specific areas would be good?

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The Lounge Lizards & John Lurie
Gil Scott-Heron (especially Reflections)
Sex Mob