Rabshakeh

Jimmy Dorsey And His Orchestra Featuring Maynard Ferguson – Diz Does Everything

No problem. It's a great resource. Very strange / sad to see such a collapse in terms of what people were buying, though. From the 1990s it is all Pop Star Does Sinatra stuff and Christmas records. Probably those are not 'jazz people' buying those records, and the effect is really that of a relatively enormous section of senile pop consumers drowning out the jazz charts. But, even then, it is not clear what happened to the 'smooth jazz people'. Funky lite fusion is a pretty plastic musical style that should have survived the G-pocalypse.

The "only covers up to 1986" is a reference to the blog on jazz charts up to 1986, rather than to the World Radio History archive, which as you mention goes right up to present, and which was exactly what I was looking for.

Lewis / Ewell Big 4 is the only New Age we need.

Amazon is really declining in usability. It's not the only giant of the tech world that is.

Thanks again. I've been through them. Interestingly, the Cashbox lists are far superior to Billboard's. Billboard splits out "Traditional Jazz" (i.e., the critically approved stuff in an historical mode) from Contemporary Jazz (fusion, pop pretending to be jazz, and smooth, i.e., the stuff that people actually bought). Cashbox dumps everything in together so there's nowhere to hide. Kenny G really does take over from the late-80s. It's weird to see it. Until then the charts are a fun mix of late fusion, smooth and a bit of young lion hard bop (the Harpers did better than i'd assumed). Then Kenny Bruce Gorelick's shadow is cast upon it and the whole thing shrivels. Once G disappears in the mid to late 90s, what's left is actually, if anything, bleaker. It is just pop does big band stuff and Christmas albums until the publishers mercifully gave up the whole charade.

Paul Winter – Callings Being a child of the digital age means that it is only today that I noticed that the cover of this record has Paul Winter lurking sinisterly behind the rainbow. I had naively assumed it was another sea lion, perhaps part of a mutually supportive three lion pride of sea lions.

Ahmed Abdul-Malik - Sounds of Africa

That's really funny. Sorry for the shelves.

Your answer was sarcastic and useless. Strangely enough, I had already tried your helpful suggestion of googling the answer. Unfortunately, as you would know if you had actually tried it for yourself, your suggestion did not give the results I was looking for. Next time it occurs to you to be a smart aleck please consider whether you are actually right, or just wasting everyone's time. It is a good blog. Reading it is what led me to ask the question. But it only covers up to 1986.

Thanks. That link to the Billboards is exactly what I was looking for.

Thank you for that helpful and useful answer. Correct the decade, give it a go and see whether it works. If anyone does know the answer to the original question and isn’t just trying to be clever, I’d appreciate the input.

Frisque Concordance - Spellings John Butcher and Georg Grawe at their absolute best.

Ronnie Laws - Every Generation

That was a really useful list from a time when this music was much more obscure than it is now. Shame about the hipster verbiage.

Does anyone know of a resource for the Billboard jazz charts (or equivalent) for years past? I'm particularly interested in the period after 1980.

This is good.

Levitation Orchestra – Inexpressible Infinity

Pinski Zoo – East Rail East

Mazzoll & Arhythmic Perfection – "a"

Julie Kjær 3 – Dobbeltgænger (Clean Feed, 2016) A nice record in the Clean Feed style, greatly helped by the excellent rhythm section. Kjaer on alto sounds a lot like another player, who I am trying to place. If anyone has any ideas let me know. Edit: It is John Butcher of whom she reminds me. It is quite noticable, save that Kjaer's compositional language is completely unrelated.

John Lewis – European Windows This is probably what I imagined when I first learned about Third Stream as a concept. It is much more 'classical' than most third stream. No way. I'd love to, as it is a lot of fun. I was streaming it via discogs.

Cozy Eggleston Quartet – Grand Slam

I've just randomly found this: http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/index.php a forum where users post lists of "Acclaimed Music". Bizarre idea. Something about it seems very early 00s.

Adalberto Alvarez Y Su Son – Jugando Con Candela Tiny Bradshaw – Breakin' Up The House