The 10 Essential Jazz Albums Rarely Found in Any 10 Essential Jazz Album List
If you are a fan of jazz, at one time or another you have encountered a list of someone’s “Essential Jazz Recordings” that should be found in every serious jazz fans record/cd collection. The list usually includes, Coltrane- Love Supreme, Miles Davis – Kind of Blue, Ellington’s 1940-41 band with Blanton and Webster, and other well known classics.
But in addition to these well publicized “gotta have ‘em” albums, there are many somewhat more obscure, but just as rewarding albums, that oftentimes get overlooked in all but the largest, most complete jazz collections.
So here is one jazz collectors list of the “The 10 Essential Jazz Albums Rarely Found in Any 10 Essential Jazz Album List.”
1. Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk - Blakey’s group with Monk in the piano chair. Positively sublime interpretations of 5 Monk pieces.
2. Regeneration - Steve Lacey and Roswell Rudd. A tribute album to the great, underrated pianist, Herbie Nichols. (See Rudd, one of the most eclectic jazz musicians of all time, at Hallwells, 8pm, September 16).
3. Walk on Water - Gerry Mulligan Big Band – A rather obscure album in the Mulligan canon, but well worth tracking down if only for the performance of “Song for Strayhorn,” Mulligan’s tribute to Ellington’s writing partner Billy Strayhorn.
4. Virtuoso – Joe Pass (solo guitar) If you are looking for a perfect combination of repertoire, performance and recording quality, this is it.
5. Winter Moon – Art Pepper - Any fan of Charlie Parker with Strings or Clifford Brown with Strings, mustn’t overlook what may be the best of all the “with Strings” albums.
6. New Orleans Suite – Duke Ellington - Recorded in 1970, this may be Ellington’s best “late period” album. Rarely has an album been so evocative of its topic. As you listen to this, you ARE on Bourbon Street.
7. Voodoo – Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet - The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet is actually a pick-up band of “Downtown” NYC avant-garde musicians, led by John Zorn and Wayne Horvath, with Buffalo native, Bobby Previte on drums. Here they honor the great Blue Note record’s “House Pianist,” Sonny Clark, by playing some of his most quirky compositions.
8. For Olim – Cecil Taylor (solo piano) - The controversial pianist pounds his way through the title piece and 8 other shorter pieces, utilizing his fingers, fists, elbows – every body part except his dreadlocks.
9. Concierto – Jim Hall (w/Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Ron Carter) All-star gatherings rarely live up to their promise, and oftentimes merely become “jam sessions.” But this one works under the astute direction of Creed Taylor. The record includes a fascinating version of the adagio movement of classical composer Rodrigo’s, Concerto de Aranjuez (see Miles Davis – “Sketches of Spain” for another version of this piece).
10. Live in Stockholm 1960 – Miles Davis Quintet. A little known recording made by the classic Miles group while on its final tour in Europe, weeks before Coltrane left to form his quartet. It was also the time between Davis’ modal, “Kind of Blue” period, and the new, freer form that he was to explore in the coming years. Here they play the older pieces, with hints of changes in the wind.
Readers are welcome to add their own selections to this list.
Editor's Note: We called New World Record and they told us that they have some of these titles in stock. What they don't have can be be ordered. Stop in at 765 Elmwood Avenue or give them a call (716) 883-3472
You can also download three of these CDs from eMusic. I put them on a list for ease:
http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=16745063&p=1
This is the Art Pepper, Joe Pass, and Gerry Mulligan. All of the other artists also have discs on eMusic, but not the specific ones mentioned on this list. I've used eMusic for about 4-5 years now and am very satisfied with it. Lots of classic jazz, for less than 25¢ a track (I pay 16¢; cost depends on how you subscribe.) Read everything carefully before you sign up so you know what you're getting into though. If you don't use your monthly allotment of tracks, you lose them (like some cell phone companies).
You get a bunch of free tracks before you decide if you want to subscribe, 25 or 50 I think.
As any jazz fan knows, top 10 lists are frustrating exercises because of the immense breadth of the canon. That said, this is a fine survey and gives people a nice sampling across some delicate stylistic lines. I'd toss in Dizzy Gillespie's "Stitt/Rollins Sessions" for sheer blowing power, the rare "Basie at Birdland" record from the early 1960s for swing so potent it may be illegal, "Everybody Digs Bill Evans" because they should, and Bobby Previte's very early "Pushing the Envelope" for a great taste of wondrously creative things to come. Now, if we could only discuss a few hundred more records...
Hey Daddy-o, I would put Arthur Blythe - Lenox Avenue Breakdown on the list.
PK, do you mean
http://www.emusic.com/album/10601/10601709.html
Count Bassie: Live in 1953! At Birdland?
Cats 'R Us. dig?
'Kind of Blue'...Miles Davis.
Hey Daddy-O, great album, but usually is ranked #1 on any list .This is a list of albums RARELY found on any top 10 list.
JAZZ HANDS
Paul -
just saw your reply post... that's not the Basie record I meant - the one I'm thinking of is way shorter, way more swinging and about a decade later...