Why They Are What it Is

My friends occasionally asked me about my jazz training and background knowledge, so I vowed I'd list some of what I thought were classics -- gather up all the remnants of important jazz opinion snippets I have floating around like dustmites in my brain, and put them out here for all to see. Accordingly, there are singers, horn players, and whatnot, all mixed up in no chronology particularly here.

It's striking stuff, and a primer for learning the idiom. As my jazz cat friends used to say in their youth, "This is some SERIOUS SHIT, man! Wigs me out."

These were LPs I was listening to back then, and I must emphasize, there's no point listing single tunes. These are just pointer records to these individuals' vast and articulate works in the genre. Check them OUT. You MAHST! You MAHST! There's just no way to do a Whitman's sampler in jazz.
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Charlie Parker:
Charlie was the first to think outside the box of a melodic line and play "outside" or around the melody, virtually inventing bebop. Bird, as he was called, was the first, the forefather, the mind behind so much of jazz creation's foundation that it's hard to believe a club owner once pointed at him, ushering him out, saying "I know you, you're that guy that can't play the right notes!!". Soloing was never so intellectual. And the tunes bounced; they were bright and electric. Artists in France put down their paintbrushes and said, Merde! He has done what we wanted to do to describe ze modern age.

Miles Davis: Somethin' Else
Somethin' Else is a good way to break into jazz as a beginning listener, because it begins with blues, and/or familiar tunes. Miles became the musical Picasso of his day, with several distinct period-styles of his own - this is fairly early. Each time a transition came out on record, he won over a new set of fans and surprised the old ones. Ever the problematic genius, his end was a little frazzled, but he took us from tradition to fusion, commanding near-worship by horn players everywhere. He can romance you, dazzle you, or assault you, all with potent results.

John Coltrane: Ken Burns Jazz Collection: John Coltrane
Where do you begin to stretch jazz? With Coltrane, the Cezanne of jazz, who broke the patterns of rigid old formats out into the elemental, modern day. Now add to that not only the genius of solo creation but exquisite writing, from lightening fast and harmonically challenging "Giant Steps" to the pure, solemn ballad of "Naima". I think of him as the great scientist of music, but it's a lot more spiritual than that.

Erroll Garner: Concert By the Sea
Erroll Garner never read music. From one non-reader to another, I salute him. You'll never believe this kind of capability is untrained. This live concert is a natural ear-playing master having a roller coaster ride of a great time.

McCoy Tyner : Enlightenment
The McCoy Tyner piano cascades with elegant washes of sound, that turn into smashing, crashing waves of what became truly a "modern" jazz sound. Beats are progressive and sizzling, and McCoy's playing dissolves into chaos only to return with precision. He took us far away from where jazz began.

Billie Holiday: The Billie Holiday Songbook
Billie can be kitten-sexy and wonderful or dire down and out, and hard to take; or both. She's a study of calculated phraseology and timing. There are several great collections, this is one. Her range is small, but her intimation speaks volumes.

Dizzy Gillespie: Greatest Hits
The father of circular breathing, Dizz can hold a note indefinitely by breathing in air nasally while continuing to produce a note. He's taught it to many; but it's his sheer bravado playing style that everyone recalls. His physical production makes his wildly developed style easy -- for him.

Clifford Brown: The Beginning and the End
The fastest beebop trumpeter, with crazy accuracy. He had a beautiful sound and some wonderfully written tunes of his own. Gone, but not forgotten, my favorite.

Art Tatum -- all of it!
The traditional stride piano player that fleshed out the old style of early jazz, warmed it, charmed it, and decorated it with the most virtuostic turns and trills, even at breakneck soloing speed. He is mainstream jazz at its best, and the foundation for Marian McPartland, Chick Corea and a zillion others.

Ella Fitzgerald, (with Joe Pass) Take Love Easy ( or anything else!)
In my mind, Ella IS jazz, all of it, the Alpha and Omega of vocal scat, from the early hot music days well through the 1970s. Her sheer range and vocal richness as a younger woman were outrageous. Her scatted patterns showed the mind of a horn player rather than a simple tune singer. She was just unequalled. And she was first! There are no fewer than 522 albums of Ella listed on Amazon.com alone; I recommend picking one from her early years with big bands, perhaps Basie, and one from her later, sassier live concerts. But for sheer mellow beauty, take this one with Joe Pass.

Sarah Vaughan: How Long Has This Been Going On?
Sarah is many people's ideal; a velvety voice with a sliding stretching style that haunted. I liked her sense of humour best, which came out in tiny hints. I find I actually prefer her more developed style in her later years, rather than the more straightforward ballads of early career. If you want more, find the songs "My Funny Valentine" and "Polka Dots and Moonbeams", she just owns them both.

Betty Carter: Inside Betty Carter
I had a friend who asked if Betty Carter was so great, why isn't she more famous? Well, it was in part because she walked, and ended up starting her own record company. Now she has her much deserved acclaim, built on her unusual, almost rushing-and-halting phrasing, and warm, darkly covered sound. She makes even the most hackneyed song something entirely new and extraordinary. I played "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most" off this album for him, and he was instantly a convert.

Carmen MacRae: The Great American Songbook [LIVE]
A big blustering horn of a voice, Carmen has the lowest range of the women singers I'm acquainted with. She had a rich sizzle in her throaty style, and sang lyrics that spoke of all kinds of new ways of thinking back then. This album also shows what a consummate entertainer and fun person she was.

Nat King Cole, (not the typical crap)
Forget the chestnuts -- his man takes the cake for sheer beauty in a male black voice for me. His typical songs I ignore for his earlier, closer to true jazz tunes. Oh yes! He was an excellent pianist and bandleader, in a difficult era. He got his image out there to us all, and it helped immensely.

Louis Armstrong, any of his early work.
People all love Satchmo the ham, with his handkerchief and "Oh YEAH" at the end of his vocal tunes. And they like the smarmy duets with other vocalists. Please. Step backward a few years and you'll find the father of most everyone's trumpet playing. An icon.

Lambert Hendricks & Ross: The Hottest New Group in Jazz
Dave Lambert, John Hendricks, and Annie Ross set words to the most complex beebop jazz tunes of the day and turned them into brain candy. They could scat sing (particularly John Hendricks) not just with the instrumental timbre, but with the typical scale choices and ornamental trademarks of the instruments. Dave was generally the trombone, or higher; John was inevitably a tenor sax, and Annie a high clear trumpet. To top all their bravado, their lyrics were clever, often hilarious, and full of insider jazz lingo.

Freddie Hubbard: Red Clay
They've just remastered this recently. A short stint down the path of Miles Davis' cool-school 60s jazz, Freddie created new frontiers in style. More free, sometimes just plain danceable, with varied rhythms, some African, and gorgeous harmonic charting.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago -- Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, and Don Moye (when I saw them).
These were the catalysts of jazz from the 60s into the 70s and beyond. They took every foundation of jazz, tore it up and made elemental soundscapes, as well as seriously dancey funkadelics. They stretched limits, were consummate stage entertainers (as visually fun and funny as they were audibly great), and brought a healthy dose of wry humour into their solidly intellectual pursuits. A spoon full of sugar with difficult listening, and then suddenly.... you start moving and can't stop!

Sun Ra -- Anything, it's all equally Sun Ra.
If The Art Ensemble stirred up your head, Sun Ra would stitch it like a baseball and bat it clean out of the park. Under the band's motto "Space is the Place!", the Sun Ra Solar Arkestra was composed of African and jazz music wizards who created alchemic soundscapes that took you on a journey. They also had the award for Most Creative Costumes (with The Art Ensemble of Chicago coming in a close second).

Thelonius Monk --
To me, Thelonius was the Jackson Pollack of piano. He started out as a typical flowery pianist, rethought his approach and began to peck out amazingly odd and almost awkward (to the unacquainted ear) approaches to typical tunes, which would magically surround an original melody with a clever hopscotch dance. You'll always recognize Thelonius, his peculiar quipping quotes and stilted, almost mocking style is so endearing. Not to mention all the tremendous tunes he wrote, which EVERYone plays. Round Midnight is perhaps his most famous.

Charles Mingus --
The man, the bass player, and the political racial campaigner and art writer. A soloist like no one else. A thinker, a protester, a man of words and strings. You're going to have to find one yourself. They're all a bit different.

Jack DeJohnnette: Special Edition
There is no one on the planet that plays drums quite like this man. He can do things you have never heard, twice as fast or dramatically perfect as you have ever heard, and layer three more levels equally startling on top of it until you can't believe it's actually all happening. Incredible. And even more incredible is that he lets this hide beneath others' playing so subtly.

Mel Torme --
What Nat King Cole was to the black voice, Mel Torme was to the white voice. A sweet, glowing, warm sound known as The Velvet Fog, he performed everything with a polish and sumptuousness, when he wasn't being a bright, quick scat artist.

Django Reinhardt --
Before there was beebop, there was "hot music", from the late 20s and 30s. Django, a gypsy player with a physical handicap (his left hand was injured in a fire) created a mercurial, ornamental, stunningly flashy jazz style that came to signify his era. He set the bar for early guitar work.

Antonio Carlos Jobim --
The Brazillian guitarist and singer/songwriter who stole the hearts of musicians everywhere with Bossa Nova, or new beat, style in the early 1960s. A lovely voice, and a purveyor of cool, even-tempered sambas and latin flavor. The Girl From Ipanema became his best known song, but many others equal it, and The Waters of March bests it poetically.

Count Basie -
Where do you begin to describe this great big-band leader, with his elegant tux outfits, his tinkling three-chord signature at the end of every piece, his marvelously simple spicey playing, his classically backed, great compositions, or just his wonderful smile? There's way too much to say about his music. Posh, lush arrangements that had reverence or swung like hell. And Fun.

Duke Ellington --
He was a bandleader who had the best players in the world at his disposal, and worked them into the most unusually orchestral creations of his day. This is big-band playing at its most creative, a racial-barrier-breaking group of players who challenged the way big-band music had always been and made something wild and free with it, all while keeping that beat. These charts are still the best test of a player.

Herbie Hancock --
I just don't know what to say about Herbie, but you HAVE to listen to him, and if you pick only one piece try picking the duets with Chick Corea. Both great players had a tremendous time vamping off each others' work.

Keith Jarrett --
an improv genius of the ECM record label days, he had a firm, developed jazz background and gospel roots and who knows what all else (classical for SURE was a major constant influence). The Koln Concerts are his most famous work, or equally famous, any groupwork he did with saxophonist Jan Garbarek. A tempermental diva to the max, he had an unusual habit of scolding the audience for coughing, and would stop playing when there was too much audience noise. Sometimes he'd just... walk off. His tolerance of audiences grew less and less, and he began playing classical works rather than improvisational compositions eventually.

And although jazz has gone on and on and on and everyone now knows it as jazz, a.k.a., the Marsallis family, I rest my highlights here. I could think of dozens more, but not tonight. Oughta keep ya busy.