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Please help me make my first collection


bordello

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If anyone has a few suggestions to what would make a good, ballanced base for a jazz collection or an early jazz listener.

So far I have:

Getz/Gilepsie

Kind of Blue

Birth of Cool

A Love Supreme

Sonny Side Up

'Round About Midnight

Sketches of Spain

Something Else

Thelonius Monk with John Coltrane

(And a several others I lost or lent out, apparently permanently.)

I love all of it, and if anyone may know what else they think a listener, namely me, would like based on this, please, be my guest. I am open to any suggestions. I only recently discovered jazz and am just building my collection and tastes.

Thanks.

Edited by bordello
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Aside from the above two recommendations.... :g I would purchase the AMG All Music Guide for Jazz. I would then look at the diagrams where they list...say tenor sax players. They've arranged them according to categories. Then I would pick a few names and look them up individually in the guide. If there is a lengthy discography, you pick out the sessions which were rated 5 stars.

I actually employed this method when I started out. I had no one to guide me and just explored things that way. Eventually, you begin to recognize sidemen and you find that many good jazz players played on other player's records. Things just open up.

Good luck!

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Early listens for me that got me hooked on jazz (25 years ago):

Wes Montgomery - So Much Guitar

Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue

Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack

McCoy Tyner - Sahara

Miroslav Vitous - Mountain in the Clouds (not an obvious choice, but a nice bridge from my rock-oriented tastes, plus it is a nice record)

I also had "101 Best Jazz Albums" by Len Lyons perpetually checked out from the local library. It was a great resource.

A few other early ones:

Art Pepper - Meets the Rhythm Section

Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage

Freddie Hubbard - Hubtones

Sonny Rollins - Work Time

Coltrane - My Favorite Things

Art Ensemble of Chicago - Nice Guys and AEC with Fontella Bass

David Murray - Murray's Steps

Woody Shaw - Little Red's Fantasy

Horace Silver - Doin' the Thing

My advice - don't get bogged down in sub-genres or styles. Do not assume that you won't like something because it is "difficult" or "not good for the uninitiated". Take chances - you can alway trade it back! I loved everything (and still do) on the list without really knowing that some of it was "soul jazz", "hard bop" "west coast" or "avant garde".

I was also fortunate enough to get to know the jazz studies professor at college, who I talked into creating a one credit hour course (I was one shy of gradulation) that involved mapping all the guys that came through the bands of Miles Davis and Art Blakey. Spend a lot of money on "books" to get that one done.

Have fun!!!

Edited by Eric
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Aside from several mentioned and ones you own, these were some of my early favorites:

Wayne Shorter - "Speak No Evil"

Charles Mingus - "Blues and Roots"

Sonny Rollins - "Saxophone Colossus"

Lee Morgan - "The Sidewinder"

Art Blakey - "Moanin' "

Welcome to the board, and enjoy this time in your life, as the early days of discovering jazz are among the best times you'll ever have!

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Aside from several mentioned and ones you own, these were some of my early favorites:

Wayne Shorter - "Speak No Evil"

Charles Mingus - "Blues and Roots"

Sonny Rollins - "Saxophone Colossus"

Lee Morgan - "The Sidewinder"

Art Blakey - "Moanin' "

Welcome to the board, and enjoy this time in your life, as the early days of discovering jazz are among the best times you'll ever have!

These are good recommendations.

Some other stuff you will probably like:

Miles Davis: Milestones, Miles Smiles, In a Silent Way

John Coltrane: My Favorite Things, Giant Steps, Crescent, Live at Birdland

Charles Mingus: Mingus Ah Um

Thelonious Monk: Monk's Music, Brilliant Corners

Herbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage

Grant Green: Idle Moments

There are plenty of others. One suggestion: look at which musicians play on a certain album. Then get other albums featuring those musicians. Look at the AMG to see which ones are highly rated.

Guy

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You gotta get some Mingus in your Soul ~ he was the single biggest influence really early on, and took me to some of my favorite places. Ah Um and Pithecanthropus Erectus being great place to start.

Bill

edit to add: "Mingus" on Candid, need to have some Dolphy in there.

BB

Edited by (BB)
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I think Mingus is the most gaping whole in your collection right now. Blues and Roots and/or Black Saint and the Sinner Lady would be good places to start.

Brilliant Corners, mentioned above, is one I came to way too late... if I had to build my collection all over again it would probably be one of the first ten I picked up.

I'm tempted to recommend Intersteller Space by Coltrane on the grounds that it just might be my favorite record that I've ever heard, but I can also see an argument for it not being a "starter" jazz album.

Watch out for the guys that post around here. When I first started hanging with them online, I had about 100 jazz cds (and a big chunk of that was the Coltrane's Impulse catalog)... now I probably have close to 2,000...

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Louis Armstrong - Hot Fives and Sevens!

You have at least three options to obtain some or all of this (wonderful) material:

1) the "JSP" box set, 5 CDs, relatively inexpensive (~$25), probably available in most bookstores with decent jazz selection:

d73855h7em0.jpg

2) The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings on Columbia/Legacy; not exactly the same material as the JSP set, but they have a lot in common. This Legacy set is more expensive, but comes with nicer packaging, photos, and documentation:

h44375d4337.jpg

3) The "Best of the Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings", a single CD, also on Columbia/Legacy. This is a compilation of tunes from the above box set.

458654.jpg

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Why do you want a balanced collection? Why not have an unbalanced collection of stuff you really like?

MG

It's not to build a ballanced collection for the sake of having a broad, eclectic library, but I want find out what else I like. I tend to realize too late that, after listening to one sub-genre too long, I missed out on a lot of great listening. I'm not keen on my own tastes yet, so I want to get a glimpse of everything first. Thanks for your suggestion, and otherwise, I completely agree.

Edited by bordello
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"now I probably have close to 2,000"

Jesus, man. I know what sprees are like, and I'm sure this will only end badly, but magnificently badly. Jazz explodes everywhere.

Anywho, I had a few Mingus CDs I forgot to mention. I still have "Mingus Ah Um", but unfortunately, I lost everything else.

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Why do you want a balanced collection? Why not have an unbalanced collection of stuff you really like?

MG

It's not to build a ballanced collection for the sake of having a broad, eclectic library, but I want find out what else I like. I tend to realize too late that, after listening to one sub-genre too long, I missed out on a lot of great listening. I'm not keen on my own tastes yet, so I want to get a glimpse of everything first. Thanks for your suggestion, and otherwise, I completely agree.

Right!

MG

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I've been where you are-- and I'm not far removed still :)

What seems to be working for me is judicious use of guidebooks and questions in forums like these. Listen intently, follow sidemen you like, use the guides to find similar artists (not so much for review of quality)...

I may get pilloried, but finding some groups that will help you get your hands on copies of OOP, vinyl, but most importantly LIVE jazz sets will go a long way as well-- more and more I'm convinced of the necessity of hearing the live sets where it's all happening immediately and without multiple takes. If you live in an area-- as I do-- without live jazz, what's the alternative?

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What you're probably going to get in the way of recommendations here is a list of geniuses. You should pay attention to this list. But you should also remember that it is NOT a representative sample. 90% of jazz - 90% of GOOD jazz - is not performed by geniuses. But there is enormous pleasure to be obtained from these more run-of-the-mill players.

MG

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Here are some that seduced me when I began to listen to jazz:

Miles Davis, "Cookin'" (Prestige)

Miles Daivs, "Relaxin'" (Prestige)

Sonny Clark, "Cool Struttin'" (Blue Note)

Dexter Gordon, "Go" (Blue Note)

Andrew Hill, "Point of Departure" (Blue Note)

Gerry Mulligan, "Complete Quartet with Chet Baker" (Pacific Jazz)

And I would urge you to get the Mosaic Mulligan CJB set before they disappear!!

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