I’ve always thought of jazz as being a dance-adjacent genre, so vibey and rhythmic, you can hear it’s footprints in house and disco especially. It can also be intimidating and alienating, but all it takes is finding that one special track as your point of entry.
So post your favorite jazz… spiritual, fusion, bop, ECM, experimental, old, new, whatever. I’ll get us started.
Smooth but not too smooth.
Now we’re talking. Three of my faves:
Spot the sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqoTPzWNqGA
Glass Bead Games:
Had to include this (from 7:38 onwards, pure gold):
I love this for a Saturday morning.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv2GgV34qIg
Listen to this album from a couple of years ago quite often.
And an obvious but great one
My favorite jazz is basically endless, it’s the one genre that grows up with you IMO- you find new things and new things to love about the things you’ve loved forever. Almost every morning with coffee and every night when my kids are down I listen to at least one side of a jazz record since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Brown Celray MD Covid Era Jazz Top Ten-
Amazing list. Absolutely love that Mal Waldron cut. Did you know he played with Embryo in the early 70s? This record is a gem:
The OG version of warm canto is heard in this house almost daily. I’m buying this on general principle.
The Waldron/Lacy 80s-90s Hat Art and similar stuff is some of the most masterful assured but still daring jazz I own. Two totally comfortable iconoclasts fully in synch.
In two weeks when I get vaccinated I’m going to attempt to have one AirPod in so I can bump this while they jab me (totally serious also planning on walking out of the building listening to bad brains “attitude”). What can I say I’m weird and it’s been a weird year:
Hit me with some recommendations for that “80s-90s Hat Art and similar stuff” you mentioned!
https://www.discogs.com/Steve-Lacy-Mal-Waldron-Lets-Call-This/release/3608229
https://www.discogs.com/Steve-Lacy-Mal-Waldron-Herbe-De-Loubli-Snake-Out/release/1672984
I run these in to the ground.
what he said.
like no other genre, jazz has opened my ears and mind throughout my life and continues to do so.
a few “cornerstones”
Stan Tracey - Under Milk Wood
Stanley Cowell Trio - Illusion Suite
Pharoah Sanders - Tauhid
Alice Coltrane - Ptah The El Daoud
for this alone…
Bill Evans - Symbiosis
Cal Tjader - Breeze from the East
Eddie Gale - Eddie Gale’s Ghetto Music
I made so many bad beats out of that Tjader album.
Big fan of this one–heard it on a Telephones mix years ago and tracked it down. It has that lovely “In a Silent Way” kind of vibe going on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohvq4E7fiyc&feature=emb_logo
Art Tatum’s piano on this classic is just something else:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU8wHj6jKzM&list=PLx_OwX8qVcovUkGiLPgxbW-t0D2gTZF_0
Love the “Blue Maqams” album from Anouar Brahem–great East/West fusion that comes off:
Really anything Michel Petrucciani
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UggKC0U9b0
Cassandra Wilson - Tupelo Honey–just an amazing cover (dig the violin solo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJuKHy64inE
Do you own God Is In The House?
Yeah I have this one–amazing!
Gonna go upthread and check some of these. Meantime:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqwdRBWvPs0
and this is just fucking magical
Pharoah Sanders can be mindblowing. Sound stage. Or something.
This is a trip:
Wow I know literally none of this stuff. So much to dig into.
I’ve been buying a few Coltrane albums every month and have thoroughly enjoyed going through his back catalogue. I really like the hard bop and his odes to god plus the live recordings at The Village Vanguard. I have found recently his ‘Ballads’ album to be just so wonderful.
This is him at his most easy in some respects but it’s all the better for it, he was really badly affected by peoples annoyance on this album and it’s simplicity. I think it’s beautiful. McCoy Tyner plays so well on this and the album is almost his in some respects. They’re a match made in heaven.
Incredible selections. Clearly I’m not as versed in Jazz as I thought I was.
Enjoying all of these.