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Thanks, Chuck. After some "destructive" comments, we NEEDED that!

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.

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.

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

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)

That devilin´ tune: A jazz history, 1900-1950 by our fellow member Allen Lowe.

But you can´t avoid considering the neo-bop/neoclassicism/whatever thing. It´s also an important part of the last 25 years. Be sure that Jorge LG, who was the person in charge of this period (though all of us has discussed and helped in every decade), is the guy with the most open-minded, wide, profound, clear and personal vission of the last 30 years in jazz that I´ve ever met. And this is not shameless promotion!

Be sure it took us a lot of work and discussion to compile this list. Much more than writing the introductions to each period, and the reviews to the 65 discs. And I appreciate your input. I hope your Spanish is being improved with this article...

We have avoided those kind of labels (Definitive et al). An as for the official Decca/GRP 3 CD set, we tried to include the least more-than-one-cd choices as possible. That´s why you have the complete Hot 5&7, but not the complete Basie on Decca. See my reply to Aggie87 for other criteria in the selection of the pre-LP-era discs.

Hey, Flurin! Have you checked the "Runners-up" list? The selection is 25 "Essentials" plus 40 "Complementaries". All of your choices (in bold letters) are in the second list. . Well, maybe you know that, but still want to include these three in the top-25.

Uptown's Bob Sunenblick and I (to a lesser degree) have been chasing this for many years. Lots of info, lots of dead ends and a bunch of stuff unconfirmed by circumstance. We are "on the case"! ← That would be another "Release of the Year" (release of the decade?) on your counter, Chuck!

Believe me, there was a lot of discussion on this subject for the first decades of the history of jazz. We balanced from using chronologically sequenced collections (like the Classics), complete collections recorded for a label from a period (like a "Complete XXX-Label 19xx-19xx recordings") or compilations with a maximum covered period of 10 years (Hawkins was in another league for the high average quality of his vast and chronologically extended recorded output). And we ended up using... all of them. In each case we analized multiple factors (from sound quality and remastering, to easy availability or representativity of a period of that artist). If there was a body of recordings such as Ellington´s RCA Blanton-Webster band or Satchmo´s Hot 5&7, so absolutely essential all in all, we picked a more than 1 CD collection. If there was a single chronological disc containing such ammount of master works from an artist to be representative enough, we took it (i.e. Lion´s Classics disc). As for compilations such as Hawkins´, Bessie´s, Django´s or Billie´s, we cared so much for the accuracy of the tracks selected. There´s a lot of work in a project like this... if it´s faced seriously. It´s easy to list 25+40 good jazz recordings (all of us can do it in fifteen minutes). But it´s not so easy if the compilation takes into account a lot of facts (balance between artists, styles and decades, sound quality, package and liner notes, availability). Just a clue on how we faced it: it took us three or four months of work and discussion and about 700 emails. Of course you could have chosen different discs. Jazz is diversity. Best wishes, Agustín Pérez

BTW, I hope that, in the main page of the article, you have clicked on each decade to see a brief introduction of it, a review of the six/seven "essential" recordings, and a brief review of the ten "additional" recordings. This makes 25+40=65 discs. Otherwise you´d question where on hell is Bud Powell or Dizzy Gillespie or Sonny Rollins...

Please, DO!

Please, feel free to bring your comments on the selection.

With many thanks to Pachi Tapiz, site administrator of Tomajazz, and thanks to the inexhaustible work of Fer Urbina, editor of this project, we have finally finished our selection of 25 of the most representative discs in the first century of jazz. Here´s the brief English introduction in the main page of this article, which perfectly sums up the goal of our project. I find interesting to point out that this is a compilation mainly recommended for newbies, specially for the first decades of 20th Century: a simple starting point to a jazz collection. A jazz collection as much wide, diverse and open-minded as possible. 25 DISCOS DE JAZZ: UNA GUÍA ESENCIAL

Thanks a lot, kh1958 !!!