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The 100 best jazz albums?
Here is a list by David Remnick, via Jason Kottke. It is good, albeit a bit mainstream for my tastes. I'm glad to see he likes Ascension. I would add more late Miles Davis (Live at Fillmore and In a Silent Way, among others), Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, more Cecil Taylor, the Blakey/Monk album, Solo Monk (my favorite jazz album?), and some Stan Kenton as well. I'm due to cover a reader request for contemporary jazz soon, so I'll leave the moderns out of it for the time being.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 14, 2008 at 05:21 AM in Music | Permalink
Comments
Solo Monk is a fabulous jazz piano album, possible the best.
Posted by: Momo at May 14, 2008 5:52:44 AM
The list also leaves out Joe Pass (and Ella Fitzgerald's) Speak Love, which is a jewel.
Posted by: Rebecca at May 14, 2008 6:15:19 AM
Personally, I would have found room for Wayne Shorter's "Schizophrenia", Herbie Hancock's ... well, anything really, and Cannonball's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!".
Perhaps a longer list would have included some Maynard Ferguson and Joe Zawinul.
It is a good starter list, though. Fats Waller is often overlooked.
Posted by: Sundeep at May 14, 2008 6:54:03 AM
It's really just a tourist attraction, but Les Paul still performs two sets every monday night at Iridium Jazz Club.
His band carries him and he spends most of his time talking and telling jokes, but still worth it just to see the legend.
Posted by: aaron at May 14, 2008 7:20:55 AM
How's he not on there?
Posted by: aaron at May 14, 2008 7:29:18 AM
Les McCann and Eddie Harris --Swiss Movement -- is a must for this list.
Posted by: DPrychitko at May 14, 2008 8:20:35 AM
Stan Kenton is the first exposure I got to a jazz musician outside of the household names. I love his corny over-excitement.
Posted by: Jonathan Hohensee at May 14, 2008 9:28:42 AM
I am not a jazz expert and I collect casually (I probably have about 10 to 15 from the entire list. But where was Stan Getz?
Posted by: Ben at May 14, 2008 9:49:36 AM
It is good, albeit a bit mainstream for my tastes
Which jazz player was it who said, "The trouble with Jazz is that if more than nine people like you, you get called 'mainstream'"?
Posted by: Kieran at May 14, 2008 10:01:52 AM
Kieran,
Not sure, but nice yours was the ninth comment.
So now this post on jazz is mainstream.
Posted by: at May 14, 2008 10:24:56 AM
I agree, I am shocked that Stan Kenton is not on there.
Posted by: Charlie at May 14, 2008 11:14:56 AM
I am even more shocked that none of Miles Davis' mid sixties hard bop albums are listed (Miles Smiles, ESP, Sorcerer etc.). And no Wayne Shorter!??! This guy is coming from a very specific point of view and it is very obvious. This kind of jazz aficionado is why jazz has been dormant in the USA since the early 70's. He pines for Louis Armstrong and then defends his hipness by saying he owns an Ornette Coleman album. What a joke.
Posted by: Charlie at May 14, 2008 11:24:51 AM
mainstrim-schmainstrim… some names just slipped through the cracks over the years; some albums you had on vinyl, and didn’t bother/had time/forgot/neglected to reacquire on CD, some entries just… how on earth I failed to spot Charlap-07?!
... And God Bless subscription services!!! (Personally – Rhapsody)
Posted by: Ozornik at May 14, 2008 11:29:51 AM
Ben, saw him down in the 70s somewhere.
Posted by: aaron at May 14, 2008 11:47:03 AM
The more I listen to jazz, the more I realize that you could spend your whole life listening to nothing but Duke Ellington. The Blanton-Webster Years box set is inexhautible. I like his later stuff a lot: the Latin America suite especially.
Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" is one of my top albums. It's perhaps the warmest album I've ever heard. Silver's love really comes through in his playing.
I'm surprised and pleased to see Nina Simone on the list.
Might have liked to see some of Herbie Hancock on there.
Posted by: Thelonious_Nick at May 14, 2008 11:49:06 AM
What, no McCoy Tyner?
Posted by: Macneil at May 14, 2008 12:12:15 PM
No Hancock on the list is inexcusable, especially when he finds room for Wynton Marsalis.
Posted by: Dizzy at May 14, 2008 12:46:26 PM
Solo Monk is the best album!
Posted by: Brendan at May 14, 2008 1:29:09 PM
Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" sessions are on the list as part of the box set “Beauty Is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings”.
I am happy to see Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, “Steal Away” on the list. It is a very good underappreciated album.
Posted by: lemmy caution at May 14, 2008 1:48:55 PM
Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" sessions are on the list as part of the box set “Beauty Is a Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings”.
I am happy to see Charlie Haden and Hank Jones, “Steal Away” on the list. It is a very good underappreciated album.
Posted by: lemmy caution at May 14, 2008 1:49:29 PM
No NORKS? None of the Chicago boys or the New York studio players of the 30s or Teagarden (except insofar as they appear with Bix or BG)? No Goodman small groups?
There's a lot of Louis already: could any be suppressed to make room for his recordings of Waller tunes?
Posted by: dearieme at May 14, 2008 4:26:43 PM
What, no "Chet Baker Sings"?
Posted by: John Baker at May 14, 2008 5:53:17 PM
Herbie Hancock, Mwandishi
Herbie Hancock, Empyrean Isles
Herbie Hancock, Maiden Voyage
Herbie Hancock, My Point of View, Speak Like a Child, etc
Ron Carter, various
Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Inner Voyage
Chet Baker, Chet
Keith Jarrett, Standards, Changless, Whisper Not, The Melody at Night With You
Miles Davis ESP
Miles Davis, another dozen cds
Ben Webster?
Oscar Peterson?
Just ONE Bill Evans?
Stanley Turrentine?
A list is just a list...
Posted by: Tim Smith at May 14, 2008 7:37:03 PM
Gigi Gryce - "The Rat Race Blues"
Oliver Nelson - "The Blues and the Abstract Truth"
Kenny Burrell - "Midnight Blue"
Posted by: Carl Close at May 14, 2008 7:56:56 PM
I second Cannonball, seems that he always gets left out of these lists. Something Else is such a fun album. And in spite of what all the critics say, I think he did an amazing job on Kind of Blue, next best thing to Bird for my taste.
Posted by: bob at May 16, 2008 10:51:26 AM
