25 jazz records: A selection

[catesta]

Nice job, Agustín.

I couldn't imagine taking on a task like this. I find in next to impossible to narrow down favorites or top tens in a thread let alone trying to do it on the scale you and your friends did.

The inclusion of the "40 runners-ups" seems to make it more complete and digestible for me. Looking at the list from the standpoint of a place for a new listener to start, I don't know if you can go wrong. Although, in my own personal opinion I may have selected several different titles.

[Dan Gould]

Nice job, Agustin.

[couw]

What? No Roland Kirk?

You did a good job, but I think there should be at least one gritty greasy organ with horns album on the list. Probably Back at the Chicken Shack or what have you. Also lacking: Brubeck and Kenton. Not that I would necessarily put them on a personal favourites list, but they are/were big sellers and influential. And maybe there should have been a nice Sinatra album on there as well.

Still a good job!

[catesta]

What? No Roland Kirk? 

You did a good job, but I think there should be at least one gritty greasy organ with horns album on the list. Probably Back at the Chicken Shack or what have you. Also lacking: Brubeck and Kenton. Not that I would necessarily put them on a personal favourites list, but they are/were big sellers and influential. And maybe there should have been a nice Sinatra album on there as well.

Still a good job!

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Good eye.

I'm surprised the absense of greeeaaze was not caught earlier.

Good point on the Brubeck.

[kh1958]

1917-42: I would replace Billie Holiday and Bix Beiderbecke with something by Lester Young and Sidney Bechet.

1943-59: a bit troubling to have no Mingus here, but you do have Changes in the next era. As for your Lennie Tristano selection, I would have gone with Requiem.

1960-79: Any of Crescent, Live at Birdland, Africa Brass, Live at the Village Vanguard over A Love Supreme.

I don't think Headhunters belongs on the list. Substitute The Individualism of Gil Evans. Also, there's a dire need for Roland Kirk here, and Dexter Gordon.

1980-2000: I agree that David Murray should be there, but I'm not sure which one.

The Don Pullen-George Adams Quartet should be there.

I personally would delete Zorn (particularly), Marsalis, Coleman and Jarrett.

I would add Thomas Chapin, maybe Woody Shaw.

[Fer Urbina]

... the Basie material - and I think the same argument you (Fer Urbina) used with regard to the Satchmo best of could be applied to any Decca Basie 1CD compilation...

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Thanks for the comments, King.

RE: Basie, I think the single CD Decca does the job better than the single CD Satchmo (and I'm more a Basie than an Armstrong man). The thing about opinions, everybody has to have one

RE Kenton. Herman's First Herd goes first in my book. Most popular band in 1945-46 and the music. My problem was that the Legacy reissue (the 2-CD set with the red cover) which was carelessly done (mildly put).

RE Brubeck. A tough call and one of the last ones I dropped, together with Ben Webster's Verves.

It was fun (still is) but I went thru several times. Picture this: Kind Of Blue, Giant Steps, Mingus Ah Um, Time Out, Shape Of Jazz To Come, What Is There To Say?, (Geo Russell's) New York NY, Ben Webster With Oscar Peterson are from the same year. And I had 14 more to go.

Which, since I was the taskmaster, brings me back to the Spanish whining...

F

PS RE Sinatra. Nobody missed Ella? And Sassy?

PPS kh1958 Thanks. I didn't go for *Tristano* (is that it?) because I wanted Konitz, Marsh and Bauer up there.

[brownie]

No Cecil Taylor?

And the near absence of Lester Young (at least he is on Basie and Lady Day selections) and Bud Powell (nowhere in sight) sides is a major flaw!

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Cecil Taylor "Unit structures" and Bud Powell" Jazz Giant are on the 40 "Complementaries" list.

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Yes, but they are on the second list, somehow like second-class citizens while people like Marsalis, Steve Coleman, Jarrett ride first class.

Those - and a couple of others - are not high on my jazz totem pole. CT, Bud Powell and Prez are right at the top!

I just wish they had been given preference...

[montg]

Good list. 1980 to the present is a time period when probably any two lists would have empty intersection. There were so many things going on in so many completely different directions. So much depends on perception and taste

My thoughts too. This is a difficult period of jazz for me to get a good grasp on. And yet in some ways this is the most interesting period to me in lists like this because it speaks to the question of where the music might be heading.

Anyway, my interests tend toward the mainstream--I'd probably include people like Greg Osby, Jason Moran, and maybe Ben Allison and Dave Holland. ALso, I think Andrew Hill's influence on today's jazz musicians means he warrants an even higher place on the list instead of honorable mention.

Time will tell--lists like this made in the 40s or 50s probably would have included Harry James and Glenn Miller.

Great list--thanks for sharing it!

[brownie]

And Brownie, ze French may complaine, but dere's nofing like de Espanish booen it cams to booyning 

Strange, I feel like I am starting to understand some spanish

But let's not start a 'who complains more' competition now.

As I stated at the beginning of my post, I really think this is a very well done selection...

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I was going to send this privately, but what the hell -

I have much to disagree with on the 25 + 40 list, but I don't wish to spend my time discussing this kind of thing on a choice-by-choice basis. It comes down to opinion, not fact, and my version of a list isn't any more worthwhile than this one. The idea of rankings is particularly distasteful to me - Tristano is "more essential" than Dizzy, etc. and doesn't help either because these are so very different.

What is there on the list would make a decent collection - but what are the assumptions? Is someone supposed to purchase ALL of these, SOME of these, ONLY these - or can someone veer off and purchase something not on the list?

I've never met anyone who wanted to build a serious collection this way. In my experience, people start with a germ, *something* that catches their interest and then they follow paths that radiate out. They get more by that same artist, or they follow the paths by getting albums by the sidemen, or on the same label, or with pieces by the same composers, or by someone mentioned in the liner notes as an influence. Or else they find another germ. What I have seen is that this works from the radio, or from the experienced listener teaching the novice. Books work too, but I don't mean books like Penguin, Allmusic, Jazz For Imbeciles, etc. but rather biographies, histories.

I think the ground rules make things especially bad. To say right off the bat effectively that say, Miles or Ellington didn't have one of the very most important recordings in two divisions isn't allowing for the truth to be told. I also have problems with the time divisions and how the choices fit in there. Ornette Coleman is not the END of the era, he's the Shape of Jazz TO COME! I'm not disagreeing with the choice of Ornette or that particular album, but rather the place it's taking up based on the divisions. Chronological things like that always have problems because life and art don't work by the calendar. Just because January rolls around doesn't mean someone isn't still working on "last year's" concept. Or the opposite, in the case of Ornette.

I also think that making these as whole CDs is counterproductive. Head Hunters is one damn boring album. The concept is important - but giving up something else to get 40 minutes of sameness isn't a good thing. "Chameleon" would do the trick (I might even suggest the edited single version rather than the album track!).

Now that the world (not me personally, but the rest of the world, apparently) has entered the single-tune download marketplace, I would strongly argue that a TUNE-BY-TUNE essential list would be far more practical and could be done without so many sacrifices. This is the idea of the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz (which I'm told is going to be issued in a revised edition in the near future).

As I said, I'm not a single-tune person. But I'm not the target for a set like this. But if the purpose of this is to be a *start* not an *end* - then a tune or two or five could be enough inspiration for someone to go out and purchase the 3-CD set. You don't need to have an ENTIRE album to get the point (the point being "Hey, I like this and want more!"). You don't need to have 2 CDs of 1983 Jarrett Trio when you could have 3 or 4 well-chosen selections from across the band's 20+ years. If someone likes those, THEN perhaps he'll want to purchase EVERYTHING by that group. With the idea of keeping things as free of redundancy as possible (and without the constraints of label restrictions and previously established issue programming), I imagine that a set of 65 CDs *WORTH* of material (does an iPod hold this much?) could be programmed that would do things in a way that would not feel so much like being handcuffed while making the choices. If you've got that much, I imagine that you could get just about *every* choice that gets debated. And as I said, the track-by-track concept isn't just fantasy.

Mike

[Jim R]

I would strongly argue that a TUNE-BY-TUNE essential list would be far more practical and could be done without so many sacrifices.

I agree with Mike. I also agree with those that said you all did a pretty good job of making selections, but as Mike also said, there's no way to do this without the subjective nature of the whole thing creating problems. I generally dislike the idea of attempting these sorts of "essential" lists... but that's just one man's opinion. I also think that even a tune-by-tune list will also leave room for problems (for the same reasons). I've seen these sorts of lists also, and invariably there always seem to be some major flaws pointed out by any number of people. But for educating a newcomer to the music, a tune-by-tune list would seem to make more sense.

So... where's Wes Montgomery?

[Fer Urbina]

Hello Mike,

First of all (masochistic) thanks for the comments. Second, although everything you say is very reasonable (I agree with most of it, that's how I know) this list was prepared with the Spanish reader in mind. Let me explain: the literature on jazz we have available in Spanish is the Gioia, the Tirro, Ashley Kahn's books on Kind Of Blue and Love Supreme, the book on Jazz At Massey Hall, Russell's bio of Bird, Troupe's Miles Davis. And that is all (top off my head, but not more than this). Nothing else, which is sad, bearing in mind the books are coming out in English. In that scenario, honestly, even a Jazz for Imbeciles would be something. [Edit: not many people read English either]

If the list makes a good collection, that's what we aimed for, nothing else. And no assumptions, by the way (I'm afraid I don't have time to translate the long disclaimer..., I mean, introduction, in Spanish).

I accept that "essential" is probably not the best word, but it is just the title, and I couldn't think of a better one (Spanish is more wordy than English, so it's not so easy). I don't pretend to have selected the *best* jazz recordings, but I'm fairly confident that if someone buys any of the CDs listed, he or she is not buying a piece of crap. That's all. Also, I don't think you can rely on conventional radio in Spain for jazz and experienced listeners are few and far between (the Internet is solving that).

As I said earlier, I knew from the beginning that the chronological division could make things worse than they're going to be anyway, but, I didn't want to go for the *styles* division, and I'd actually rather show how simultaneously some things happened (see the 1959 LPs above). I may have aimed too high for such an article. E. g., the Shape Of Jazz To Come, yes, it is the beginning of something, and it says so in the review (date only gives the *when*, the review gives the context). But it is also true that it is contemporary to the LPs I mentioned earlier.

As for the track by track concept, the webmaster actually suggested it as a future option. Access to the Internet in Spain is not as widespread as in the US and the UK, but we're catching up. CD is still the main medium for music by far, so that's why we went for that option.

Going back to the target audience, I would have never tried something like it for the US or UK. But in Spain, yep, we have a long long long way to catch up and even this list won't do no harm. Promise.

F

PS Hi, Jim R. Wes too, I know...

Edited October 7, 2005 by Fer Urbina

[BruceH]

Personally, I would have included Mingus Ah Um in the "top 25 essentials" list. Probably Rollins's Way Out West album too. But I liked the earliest (1917-1942) list the most----way to go on that! I don't feel particularly qualified to discuss post-1965 jazz.

[AllenLowe]

no offense, but your list is a mess - and, honestly, I agree with Mike that the whole thing is misguided - I could start with Mingus/Changes, which was Mingus on his way down, IMHO, but than we might get bogged down - the list is especially bad post-1960. You can't do it in 25 choices; it's like those silly old Great Books lists, as though you could some up Western Civilization in that way - you cannot sum up jazz in this way, and the list is, if anything, desrructive and even offensive, as it re-enforces certain misconceptions about artistic cause and effect and historical order.

Edited October 7, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Fer Urbina]

no offense, but your list is a mess

No offence taken, Allen, and you may be right that you can't do it in 25 (or 65, there are 40 more records in each "period")

Have you read the whole thing in Spanish - introduction and reviews? I'm asking because I don't think it reinforces any misconceptions, and I hope you're not getting to any conclusions *only* from the list of 25 CDs.

Best,

F

[AllenLowe]

sorry, the only languages I can read are English and pig-Latin - amd pig Latin I learned from the Three Stooges, so there are some idiomatic issues -

[paul secor]

Just a couple of thoughts after a first glance:

I would have included Sidney Bechet in the 1917-42 listing, even if I had to omit Bix from the main listing. Bechet was truly a force of nature.

Also would have included Django in the followup listing for that era.

I wouldn't have included any of the recordings found in the main 1980-2000 list. I'll have to think about what my choices for that era would be.

[Chuck Nessa]

I will post a more detailed response later but want to compare this list to my collection, as it stands now:

1917-42 have everything on one disc or another

1943-59 ditto, but where is Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers - BN 1518?

1960-79 missing 3 of these

1980-2000 only have one of these

I have worked on a list like this with a small group and know how difficult it is.

Edit to say the above stats refer to the "expanded" list, not the 25.

Guess I'm behind the curve on post '59 recordings.

Edited October 9, 2005 by Chuck Nessa

[king ubu]

Interesting way to look at it, Chuck!

For me it's:

1917-42: 6 missing (I know I know...)

1943-59: 2 missing (Manne & Mulligan)

1960-79: 1 missing (Sun Ra)

1980-00: I have 2 of these (Jarrett Vol. 1 & Dave Holland)

Would be fun if others posted their haves and not-haves, too!

[cayetano]

For me:

1917-42: 9 missing (too much...)

1943-59: 1 missing (Russell)

1960-79: 1 missing (Sun Ra)

1980-00: 4 missing (Bowie, Masada, WSQ, Braxton)

[brownie]

I have the music from the first three lists but in other editions.

As for the fourth list, I do not have the Keith Jarrett Trio, the Steve Coleman, the Zorn, the WSQ, the Braxton, the Dave Holland Quintet, the Muhal Richard Abrams, the Tim Berne, the Steve Lacy, the Henry Threadgill, the Uri Caine.

I'll pass on these except the Muhal and the Zorn!

And if anybody is looking for the Headhunters vinyl? I'll live without it

[EKE BBB]

Yes, but they are on the second list, somehow like second-class citizens while people like Marsalis, Steve Coleman, Jarrett ride first class.

Those - and a couple of others - are not high on my jazz totem pole. CT, Bud Powell and Prez are right at the top!

I just wish they had been given preference...

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Marsalis and Jarrett... for brownie´s jazzical world, we´ve stepped into marshy ground!

(now seriously, I appreciate your comments, and specially your effort to analize disc by disc and musician by musician and bring alternatives)

[EKE BBB]

I was going to send this privately, but what the hell -

...

←

Mike:

Thanks for sharing your enlightening comments publicly.

I also agree with some of your statements, but you should take into account the goal of this list. It´s not a "best of" list, but a starting point for a novice. And I think that, as a starting point, a list of CDs is as good as any of your recommendations (a tune-by-tune list or a book of jazz history). In fact, I started with all this options at once. And, with a perspective of more than ten years, all of them were helpful to start building my jazz collection.

As for the rest of your comments, I think Fernando has already replied with some interesting points, much better than I could do.

Best wishes,

Agustín

[EKE BBB]

no offense, but your list is a mess - and, honestly, I agree with Mike that the whole thing is misguided - I could start with Mingus/Changes, which was Mingus on his way down, IMHO, but than we might get bogged down - the list is especially bad post-1960. You can't do it in 25 choices; it's like those silly old Great Books lists, as though you could some up Western Civilization in that way - you cannot sum up jazz in this way, and the list is, if anything, desrructive and even offensive, as it re-enforces certain misconceptions about artistic  cause and effect and historical order.

←

Hi, Allen!

I think the goal of our list (helping a Spanish novice to start building his jazz collection) is too humble to be "destructive and even offensive" and "to re-enforce certain misconceptions about artistic cause and effect and historical order". Seriously.

Anyway, thanks for chimin´ in. All comments are highly welcome.

Best wishes,

Agustín

PS: I´ve just started your book, "That devilin´ tune" (which, btw, looks like a very interesting reading), and after your introduction, now I understand your "destructive" comments on our list better.

[EKE BBB]

Just a couple of thoughts after a first glance:

I would have included Sidney Bechet in the 1917-42 listing, even if I had to omit Bix from the main listing. Bechet was truly a force of nature.

Also would have included Django in the followup listing for that era.

...

←

Thanks for your comments, Paul.

Bechet, as one of the first great improvisors in jazz (if not the first) was about to be included in the main list, but finally Bix was included, because we wanted to give a vision of early jazz as wide as possible, and Bix&Tram offered a very different approach, germ of what would become the "cool" style.

And Django IS included in the "runners-up" list.