[dolifant]

I have always been a classical music lover, trained for many years as a cellist. I had 400 classical cds before I got my first jazz cd. I now have several hundred, many SACDs.

May I suggest the following:
Sonny Rollins: Saxopohone Collosus, Tenor Madness (with Coltrane!)
Miles Davis: Steamin' With the Miles Davis Quintet, Kind of Blue
Cannonball Adderly:Somethin' Else, Them Dirty Blues
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin'
Patricia Barber: Cafe Blue
Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington: The Great Summit
Count Basie & Oscar Peterson: The Timekeepers
Ray Brown (Bassist Supreme):The Best of the Concord Years, Soular Energy
John Coltrane:Coltrane Plays the Blues, A Love Supreme, Soultrane, (Hint: Just start buying Coltrane)
Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass (Guitar):Take Love Easy
Gene Harris:Listen Here

This is just a start of the very best I love. They are all must haves, IMO some of the very best of these great artists. You will likely buy many more cds by these greats once you hear these. Many of these are available on SACD or XRCD, if you are interested in high rez formats....you should be! The XRCDs are the best of regular redbook CD quality.

I also watched the Ken Burns Jazz DVDs and it cost me a fortune buying CDs afterward. But I discovered a whole new area to love. Another great website is:All About Jazz . Look under the forums. There are very knowledgeable people there who can intelligently discuss jazz. They have a reccommended artists and cd forum. Awesome! Start discovering , and don't forget to report back to spread the knowledge.

 

[Jahn]

Dolifant, for your edification, might I suggest you purchase "Giant Steps" by John Coltrane? I know everyone touts "A Love Supreme" as his best album, but in my mind "Giant Steps" is a great example of his first solo effort away from Miles Davis - and he's angry, and he wants to release all this energy that he wasn't able to in his solos - check out "'Round Midnight" with Miles Davis to see what I mean - you can tell 'Trane just wants to bust out, which he finally does on "Giant Steps" - and definitely get the deluxe edition, which has all of the great full length outtakes. But it's not all piss and vinegar - "Naima" is one of the best ballads ever - and it snagged me my first gal back in high school when I wooed her playing this on the soprano sax.

 

[lojay]

Most of you guys' reccomendations are in fact well documented in allmusic.com. Their list (huge) of jazz recommendations are essential read for newbs, but for oldbies, you know all the good stuff....

Just click on John Coltranes discography and see which are recommended. Though not as good as owning all his albums and listening through, I guess the recommendations are good enough to be called "essential jazz albums". Giant Steps, My Fav. Things, Blue Train, Love Supreme, Interstellar Space to name a few...

Please don't diss me saying that I'm an AMG whore, I'm just saying it's a great tool for newcomers.

 

[mikeg]

This is all great info, which I really appreciate. I printed out this entire thread, and will follow-up on many of your recommendations. Since becoming part of Head-Fi, music has become a much bigger part of my life, and it's displaced most of my other hobbies. Except for wife and kids, I never really enjoyed anything nearly as much.

 

[dolifant]

Jahn, you are probably right about Giant Steps. As I was going through my cd database, I had so many Coltranes, I just couldn't decide which to suggest. Notice I said "just start buying Coltrane", I mean it.

Lojay, I am going to go to allmusic.com and check out their list. I'm sure there are some major artists I'm not aware of. Again allaboutjazz.com has some great discussions.

 

[Genetic]

Hi mikeg,

I insist.... someone has to read before investing in this journey. Coltrane himself was lost on some occasions......

http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?...detail&sid=814

Amicalement

 

[viator122]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojoman Mikeg, if you want to explore Phish, go buy A Picture of Nectar. This cd encompasses a lot of different styles of music and showcases some excellent musicianship. If you get into their studio stuff then you have to try some of their many live recordings. You might also pick up any of the Dick's Picks Grateful Dead concert cds. There are a bunch of them. When you find yourself downloading boots of live concerts off the web then you know you're dyed in the wool jam band fan. I have a friend who has hundreds of hours of live Dead show but not a one of their studio releases.

Picture of Nectar is very good, but if it were to be an introduction to the band, I'd start with what they're best known for - live shows. I'd go with "A Live One". Allman Brothers Band "At Fillmore East" is an excellent suggestion too. Also check out "Live Art" by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones

 

[mojoman]

Yeah, A Live One is very good too! Nectar just happens to be my favorite.

At Fillmore East is schedule to appear at the end of August on SACD. A bud told me this morning that he read that all of the Allman Bro. back catalogue is going to be released on SACD within the coming year. A good live ABB I just picked up is One Way Out, recorded at the Beacon Theater in March of 2003 with the current band. Some excellent jams on this one too.

 

[Jahn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by genetic Hi mikeg, I insist.... someone has to read before investing in this journey. Coltrane himself was lost on some occasions...... http://www.downbeat.com/default.asp?...detail&sid=814 Amicalement

That's true but look how many he got right - only one did he totally get wrong, and to tell you the truth I don't know the cat even after being told who it is. 'Trane had good instincts.

 

[John Stimson]

If you're coming from a classical perspective, you might be interested in musicians who have experimented and done interesting things with time signatures and rhythms. The obvious example would be Dave Brubeck's Time Out, which includes the famous "Take Five" (some people think that's the title of the album

). McCoy Tyner has some great compositions that he has performed with a somewhat orchestral sounding big band. My picks would be Fly With The Wind and Song Of The New World.

For a smaller ensemble, I would recommend the Esbjorn Svensson Trio. Their music shows a contrast between calculated composition and frenzied improvisation. The trio is grand piano, drum set, and upright bass, with some subtle electronic effects (and non-electronic ones too).

In terms of "jam bands", my favorite Phish album is Rift. It's a "concept album" in which all the pieces fit together to form a fairly coherent whole. A Live One is also good, especially "Bouncing Round The Room" and "The Squirming Coil".

I don't think of Bela Fleck & The Flecktones as a "jam band", but they have become popular with the jam band fan base. They do a blend of bluegrass and jazz with elements from all sorts of other styles thrown in. If you want to graduate slowly to the Flecktones experience, you should start with Music For Two by Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer. Edgar is a bassist who used to play in the Emerson String Quartet. The album consists of duets played with banjo, bass, piano, and steel guitar, including classical and original pieces. If you want to jump in headfirst, I recommend Three Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Live Art has its moments, but it also has some really low points.

 

[tattoou2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg I've always been a classical music listner, with little or no familiarity with Jazz. My "discovery" of Jazz began about two weeks ago when, at our library, I found a 10 disc set of DVDs produced by PBS.

Welcome to a wonderful world of music and musicians. As a kid, I was fortunate enough to grow up in the shadows of the old (now gone) Showboat Jazz Theater in Philadelphia back in the late 50's to late 60's. I used to hang out by the backdoor after school listening to the banter, rehearsals, and plain jam sessions by some of the finest jazz musicians of that era. I can recall sneaking in sometimes and just sitting by the door watching and listening to guys like Wes Montgomery, Gabor Szabo, Cannonball Adderly, Art Blakey, and a host of others before I joined the Marines in '68.

It was because of that music and the genius of those guys, I began playing the sax at a relatively early age and later made somewhat of a living playing professionally.

Listen and be happy!

...Pete

 

[tyrion]

I picked up Coltrane - The Classic Quartet an 8 disc box set. I enjoy it from the first disc to the last. I am glad mikeg started this thread. I am pretty new to jazz myself and this thread has given me a bunch of new music to buy.

 

[viator122]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojoman Yeah, A Live One is very good too! Nectar just happens to be my favorite. At Fillmore East is schedule to appear at the end of August on SACD. A bud told me this morning that he read that all of the Allman Bro. back catalogue is going to be released on SACD within the coming year. A good live ABB I just picked up is One Way Out, recorded at the Beacon Theater in March of 2003 with the current band. Some excellent jams on this one too.

I've seen ABB twice. Once back in 1998 at Jones Beach when Dicky Betts was still with them - incredible show, great acoustic set, wouldn't have changed a thing. Then I saw them last summer, again at Jones Beach, but I wasn't impressed. I don't know but something about the lineup was off.

 

[mikeg]

Thanks for all of the great info and advice. Just finished the 10th DVD on Jazz. This is a great set of disks, that's given me a terrific overview of Jazz from the beginning of the 20 century, to the 1990s. BTW, I was real lucky to see a Louis Armstrong concert at Jones Beach in the 60's. This concert was terrific, but it was the only one the I ever saw. As a classical music listener, I'm sorry to confess that I was always indoctrinated into thinking that Jazz was a lesser art form than classical. But, I no longer think so. I now think that there is lots of great stuff in each type of music, so there is lots to learn and discover. Boy, I do love this headphone hobby, and what it's lead me into.

 

[Taurui]

I've been a casual Jazz listener for some years now. I mainly started off by Dixieland and later got into some of the classics, as Miles Davis, Coltrane and so on. But it wasn't until recently that I evolved from "I like Jazz" to "I love Jazz" by listening to one single album. After loving that one, I finally began to understood Davis, Coltrane and many others and was able to feel through that music and discover the passion hidden in those recordings.
Oh, that "key" disc was the Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out.
Everyone should have that!

just my 2 cents,

-Taurui