# The Essential Music Library: Jazz **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 10, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565 "2005-10-10T15:00:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/1 "2005-10-10T15:00:52Z")
The Essential Music Library project is an attempt to get the many musical minds of the SDMB to sit down and discuss what works are absolutely necessary for a well-stocked musical library. There will be roughly 20 threads detailing a variety of genres so that we can get the depth that would be missing from a single-threaded discussion and the breadth necessary to cover what’s out there. This thread’s topic is jazz, from the earliest extant recordings to the newest members of the scene today. What’s the collection that best represents the past 90 or so years? Previous threads: [Project Planning](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=335665) | [Classical](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=336834) | [Rock](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=337956) ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/2 "2005-10-10T15:42:47Z")
I found [both](http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_jazz/best_jazzalbumslive.html) of [these](http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_jazz/best_jazzalbums.html) lists helpful in building my collection. [This one](http://www.avguide.com/film_music/music/top100jazz.jsp), too. And [this one](http://people.qualcomm.com/determan/Jazz.html). (I’m kind of a list junkie 😛 ) ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/3 "2005-10-10T15:53:45Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > I found [both](http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_jazz/best_jazzalbumslive.html) of [these](http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_jazz/best_jazzalbums.html) lists helpful in building my collection. (re the latter:) _“This list does not include ‘compilations’.”_ Which conveniently cuts off jazz history at the beginning of the album era. No need to bother with those corny, scratchy pre-bop travesties. Whew! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/4 "2005-10-10T16:19:13Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > (re the latter:) _“This list does not include ‘compilations’.”_ > > Which conveniently cuts off jazz history at the beginning of the album era. No need to bother with those corny, scratchy pre-bop travesties. Whew! > :rolleyes: Yeah, I’m glad he mentioned the “corny, scratchy pre-bog travesties” as his rationale. Oh wait, he didn’t. :rolleyes: Anyone’s allowed to set certain parameter on their lists (the OP is already engaged in that in his series), and the other lists do include compilations. Comp. albums are tougher to assess because of the varying quality and transfer methods, licensing and usage rights, and availability of material. Plus, albums are created as a whole, with song selections and sequences existing for a specific reason. Compilation albums aren’t typically assembled with that artist’s singular vision in mind. That doesn’t make them less worthy (despite your snarky effort to misread things that way); it just means there’s a perfectly reasonable justification for considering them differently. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/5 "2005-10-10T17:14:42Z")
I’m just goona lurk here and learn from my betters. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/6 "2005-10-10T21:29:09Z")
Am I really going to be the first person to post specific album picks? That seems somehow wrong. Some things that are fairly basic backbone albums for any Jazz collection: Miles Davis: Kind of Blue & the Complete Birth of the Cool Dave Brubeck: Time Out Charles Mingus: Ah Um John Coltrane: Giant Steps Lois Armstrong: The Complete Hot 5’s and 7’s Charlie Parker: Yardbird Suite Ornette Coleman: shape of jazz to come Billie Holliday: Billie’s Blues Horace Silver: Blowin the Blues Away Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings King Oliver: King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band: The Complete Set You also need some Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie but I will let others tell you just which big band albums are the essentials. “Jazz” is kind of a big catagory, I tried to give a sampeling from all the styles, but my list is obviously biased. Also this list doesn’t include some of my favorite artists (such as Max Roach) mostly because even though I love them, I wouldn’t call them “essential”. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/7 "2005-10-10T22:57:04Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > Am I really going to be the first person to post specific album picks? That seems somehow wrong. No, tell us! I’ve got Take Five and Giant Steps! I am not a complete loser! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/8 "2005-10-11T04:06:20Z")
A couple extra picks to see if we can get this thread going a little. Jaco Pastorius, s/t John Coltrane, A Love Supreme Weather Report, Heavy Weather Thelonious Monk, Undeground Squirrel Nut Zippers, Hot ---
**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/9 "2005-10-11T04:17:00Z")
Miles Davis - 7 Steps to Heaven, Kind of Blue and I’m sure there’re more but thats all I know. Art Blakey - Moanin’ Herbie Hancock - Emperyan Isles, Maiden Voyage Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd - Jazz Samba And that’s about all I know. Eager to find out more from this thread. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/10 "2005-10-11T04:27:24Z")
Few more: Thelonius Monk _Monk’s Dream_ Miles Davis _Sketches of Spain_ Herbie Hancock _Head Hunters_ Stan Getz/Joao Gilberto _Getz/Gilberto_ Oscar Peterson _Night Train_ John Coltrane _A Love Supreme_ You can buy Miles Davis’s _Bitches Brew_ but I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys that album. I know a lot of people who have bought it, though. I’m sure someone will immediately come in and tell me how enjoyable they find that album. I’ll add my favorite Miles Davis, not because it is his best but man I love it: The Miles Davis Quintet _Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet_ My collections of vocalists are nearly all compilations (Ella Fitzgerald’s _Best of the Song Books_, Billie Holiday’s _Lady in Autumn: The Verve Years_, Rosemary Clooney with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, _Ella and Louis_ is a very fun album but maybe not essential.). Essential to have some of these but I’m not sure these are the best and I’m not sure that these follow the letter of the OP law. I also have cheap-ass compilations for the big band guys, I’m not sure which one is the best but you need to span your Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and the like somehow. A few live shows: Coltrane _Live at Birdland_ Art Blakey _A Night at Birdland_ Keith Jarrett _The Koln Concert_ and eh, why not, just for fun Juan Garcia Esquivel _Space Age Bachelor Pad Music_ Carl Stalling _The Carl Stalling Project_ ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/11 "2005-10-11T04:32:12Z")
I forgot McCoy Tyner’s _The Real McCoy_, an absolutely brilliant album. ---
**Author:** ![Foaming\_Cleanser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Foaming\_Cleanser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foaming_Cleanser)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/12 "2005-10-25T04:20:28Z")
Essential, IMO, are those of the hot-jazz bands of the mid to late '20s and big bands (_excluding_ sweet) to the end of that era. Bix Beiderbecke, Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington from the Cotton Club era until his death, Louis Armstrong minus his vocals, compilations of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman. Glenn Miller’s orchestra should join the list because even it was allowed to break its shackles once in a while. It’s live-broadcast version of I Dreamt I Dwelt in Harlem (Yeah, Bill!) is astonishing, in a St. Louis Blues March (live version) kind of way. These 60- to 80-year-old recordings are all singles since they predate the modern meaning of the term album. Then it meant five or so 78s packaged in a true, hinged album or two and weighing a ton, impossible to find now if the records are jazz. So these recordings can only be compilations. (But it wouldn’t surprise me if I learned that Shaw had invented the Sergeant Pepper concept despite the limitations of 78s but was foiled during production.) If I was to be marooned on an island with only one album, it would have to be Benny Goodman’s 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, replete with everything that is wonderful and the prototype of every live-concert recording, jazz or otherwise, recorded since. However, it didn’t become an album until LP technology allowed it (and it isn’t a compilation). But if I, for one, welcomed my new insect masters about to maroon me, maybe they’d also allow me a laptop with a modem connected to redhotjazz. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/13 "2005-10-25T06:37:53Z")
Some great ones have been named here already. A few more: Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane: _Live at the Five Spot_ Miles Davis: _Someday My Prince Will Come_ Bill Evans: _Explorations_ Dexter Gordon: _Go!_ or _Dexter Calling_ or _Our Man in Paris_ Jazz Messengers: _Live at the Cafe Bohemia_ Sonny Rollins: _Saxophone Colossus_ Cecil Taylor: _Unit Structures_ Stan Getz & Kenny Barron: _People Time_ Duke Ellington: \*Live at Newport \*or \*Jazz Party \*or _Ellington Indigos_ or _The Blanton/Webster Band_ ---
**Author:** ![mamboman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecb155/32.png) [@mamboman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamboman)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/14 "2005-10-25T09:52:05Z")
> [@edwino](#): > > You can buy Miles Davis’s _Bitches Brew_ but I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys that album. I know a lot of people who have bought it, though. I’m sure someone will immediately come in and tell me how enjoyable they find that album. Yep, love it. It’s one of the clearest and most commanding statements of vision in Miles’ body of work. May I also add that IMO “_Porgy and Bess_” is an essential Miles Davis album as well as… the bastard stepchild and guilty pleasure “_On The Corner_”. And Lord alp me I have tried, I have laid down good money and endured migraine inducing sessions under the headphones, but I cannot find any edification or enjoyable purpose in enduring the music of Ornette Coleman. Why is his work so highly valued? mm ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/15 "2005-10-25T14:22:13Z")
> [@edwino](#): > > You can buy Miles Davis’s _Bitches Brew_ but I don’t know anyone who actually enjoys that album. I know a lot of people who have bought it, though. I’m sure someone will immediately come in and tell me how enjoyable they find that album. I like _Bitches Brew_ and acknowledge that it is a seminal album in jazz fusion history, but I honestly prefer _Big Fun_. Listening to that while driving west through Joshua Tree NP is an unforgettable experience. I’m getting a hell of a lot from this thread, including an urge to go jazz club hopping; it’s a pity that LA’s jazz scene is so thin, but there’s a few good spots. I’ll throw in a suggestion to check out the Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks; I think I picked it up at Ameoba Records (great place) for $50; 16 albums, 9 composers, and Ella’s heavenly voice. Now I’m going to go listen to her sing about murdering a string of husbands “To Keep My Love Alive” while I’m making breakfast. Bess as a serial killer just tickles me. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/16 "2005-10-25T14:46:42Z")
> [@E. Thorp](#): > > Stan Getz & Kenny Barron: _People Time_ Seconded, thirded, fourthed, and fifthed. It’s currently in heavy rotation chez twicks. Their version of “Night and Day” is heartbreaking – the whole album is heartbreaking, it was recorded live about three months before Getz’s death. It’s an amazing piece of wrok. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/17 "2005-11-18T01:53:50Z")
John Coltrane A Love Supreme ---
**Author:** ![DfrntBreign](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@DfrntBreign](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DfrntBreign)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/18 "2005-11-18T02:22:08Z")
I can’t believe I get to start this argument!! Stanley Clarke - _School Days_ Larry Coryell - _Spaces_ The (Jazz) Crusaders - _Southern Comfort_ Al DiMeola - _Elegant Gypsy_ Herbie Hancock - _Headhunters_ Mahavishnu Orchestra - _Apocalypse_ Jean-Luc Ponty - _Imaginary Voyage_ Return To Forever - _Romantic Warrior_ Andreas Vollenweilder - _Dancing With The Lion_ We’ll need some Michael Hedges but I haven’t heard enough to say exactly what. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/19 "2005-11-18T02:31:43Z")
In addition to _Take Five_ and _Time Out_, you really need some live Brubeck. Just about anything will do: _Jazz At Oberlin, The Last Set At Newport, At Carnegie Hall, Jazz Goes To College…_ ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2005, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565/20 "2005-11-18T06:02:40Z")
John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard Gato Barbieri Chapter One Latin America [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-essential-music-library-jazz/325565.md?page=2)