Top 5 records

[jazzypaul]

Okay, just saw High Fidelity last night, and was amused by all of the "Top 5" lists...so lets come up with some of our own, eh?

Top 5 Jazz Records to listen to while driving...

5) Miles Davis -- Miles Smiles
4) John Coltrane -- Ballads
3) Duke ELlington -- Money Jungle
2) Blakey -- Meet Me at the Jazz Corner of the World
1) Tony Williams -- Emergency!

How bout everyone else on the board?

[clifton]

I want to be careful here. I don't drive any more (it's a disability thang) so I'll make it Top 5 to listen to while travelling, keeping in mind that "Miles Smiles" is so good it would distract me from the road. Anyway, Top 5 travellin' albums:

1)Duke Ellington "Such Sweet Thunder"
2)Charlie Parker "Jazz At Massey Hall" 3)Ornette Coleman "Change Of The Century"
4)John Coltrane "Crescent"
5)Miles Davis "Kind Of Blue"

[Pharaohrock]

i love organ jazz on the road...

[omar zamora]

Impossible, and I know I'll change it tomorrow

Bitches Brew and Live-Evil
Rahsaan - Volunteered Slavery
Mingus - Ah Um
Basie - Decca box set
Brotherhood of Breath - Self-titled

[lazy bird]

It is impossible indeed. But these 5 recordings are really supurb!

Charlie Parker / Savoy recordings
Miles Davis / Kind of blue
John Coltrane / A love supreme
Ornette Coleman / The shape of jazz to come
Billie Holiday & Lester Young / Complete recordings

[clifton]

Here's another one: Top Five Albums To Introduce Your Children To Jazz: 1)Dizzy Gillespie "Groovin' High" (classic Savoy, the vocals are sure-fire), 2)Duke Ellington "Three Suites" (has "Nutcracker" and "Peer Gynt"), 3)Ornette Coleman "At The Golden Circle Vol. I" (Ornette's tunes have hooks, your kid'll love 'em), 4)Thelonious Monk "Monk's Dream" (Monk's tunes have hooks, too), 5)Louis Armstrong "Plays W.C. Handy"(no explanation should be necessary). These albums worked for my kids. What are your thoughts?

[jherschmann]

A top 5 list is always hard and never static...

Well, here are some of my all time favourites taht I like to listen to, not necesserily while driving, though... :-)

Miles Davis/Kind of blue
Charles Mingus/Ah um
John Coltrane/Blue train
Wayne Shorter/Speak no evil
Cannonball Adderley/Live in San Francisco

But there are so many more...

[Coypu]

Allan Holdsworth - Road Games
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Inner mounting flame
Tribal Tech - Face First
Darkhall - demo
Cynic - Focus

[omar zamora]

Originally posted by clifton
Here's another one: Top Five Albums To Introduce Your Children To Jazz

Those are all nice choices, Clifton. I'd probably switch Pops Plays WC Handy with Pops Plays Fats.

I don't have kids, but I agree that Ornette is probably better appreciated by some kids than by many adults. His music is joyful, humorous, and with its own internal logic.

I'd probably make a comp from some of those tunes and others. Maybe Dizzy's "Salt Peanuts" and "Manteca",
a few things from Bird,
something from Bechet,
Monk's "Let's Cool One",
something from Ornette,
Dolphy's "Hat and Beard",
Horace Silver's "Cape Verdean Blues",
Rahsaan playing the nose flute,
and I'll think of more later.

[clifton]

Here's Top 5 Jazz Albums Inspired By Politics: Max Roach "We Insist! Freedom Now Suite"; Charles Mingus "Mingus Presents Mingus" (contains uncensored "Fables Of Faubus"); Sonny Rollins "Freedom Suite"; Charlie Haden "Liberation Music Orchestra"; Charles Mingus "At Monterey" (contains probably the best version of "Meditations On Integration"). I recognize that there are other great albums of politically inspired jazz by Mingus, Max, and Haden, as well as by Archie Shepp, Dave Douglas, Don Byron, and more subtly and subversively, Duke Ellington, but these are my choices, and I'm stickin' with them, at least for now.

[champjams]

Top 5 Jazz Records, Music For All Occassions:

1) Any Louis Armstrong album
2) Blue Mitchell : Blue's Moods
3) Count Basie: Atomic Basie
4) Art Blakey : Moanin
5) Bird : The Dial Sessions

[LeMo]

JOHN COLTRANE (& RASHIED ALI): Interstellar Space (Impulse!)
GEORGE LEWIS: Hommage to Charles Parker (Black Saint)
ANTHONY BRAXTON: Willisau (Quartet) 1991 (hat ART)
THELONIOUS MONK: Monk's Music (Riverside)
ORNETTE COLEMAN & CHARLIE HADEN: Soapsuds, Soapsuds (Verve)

+ Fifty more

[Pharaohrock]

There's a good article in the Building a Jazz Library section of AAJ about records to introduce Jazz to kids with.....

[Sidtar]

my first post, i feel this is a great place to start..

In no particular order
-miles smiles (i enjoy this album as well, although it's all I've heard from this quintet)
-John Coltrane - A love supreme (the power on this album is just amazing)
-Bill Evans - sunday night at the village vanguard
-Charlie Parker - the yardbird suite
-Chick corea - Acoustic Band

[clifton]

Top Five Ornette Coleman albums (this is very hard to do): 1)At The Golden Circle Vol. I (RVG edition), 2)Free Jazz, 3)At The Golden Circle, Vol. II (RVG Edition), 4)Change Of The Century, 5)Tone Dialing. If I cheat and count the Golden Circle albums as one CD, I can add Ornette On Tenor.

[omar zamora]

No "Science Fiction", Clifton?

[bombastic]

ware-corridors and parallels-ware-surrendered-coltrane-legacy-kirk-volunteered slavery-ware-freedom suite.

[clifton]

Omar Zamora: That's the trouble with a top 5 list. With a giant like Ornette, you can't confine it to just 5 without being arbitrary. The Complete Science Fiction Sessions is superb but Ornette On Tenor always reached me in very personal, impossible-to-describe way. Assuming you are also a huge Ornette fan, let's get even more contentious: Top 5 Ornette tunes, excluding ballads: 1)Dee Dee 2)Una Muy Bonita 3)Law Years 4)Congeniality 5)WRU. Top 5 Ornette ballads or dirges: 1)Dawn 2)Sadness 3)Lonely Woman 4)Morning Song 5)All My Life. Kathelin Gray is by Ornette and Pat Metheny, so I'll disqualify it on a technicality. Who else has Top 5 Ornette lists?

[jazzypaul]

I'll bite on an Ornette best of list. I gotta say though, Science Fiction, to me, felt like Ornette buying into his own hype. People said he was way out of left field, so instead of just playing absolute gutbucket blues from the gut, he went out of his way to be weird. It's the only thing in his catalog that just feels contrived. But...now for that top 5 list...top 5 Ornette tunes recorded before 1960...

1) Tears Inside

2) Bird Food

3) Congeniality

4) The Sphinx

5) Ramblin'

[omar zamora]

I'll pass on listing Ornette songs just because I'm not good at remembering titles. Definitely "Lonely Woman" and "Law Years", though.

Paul,
What's your opinion on "Skies of America" and that ESP-Disk with a string quartet?

[Nils]

Originally posted by Pharaohrock
There's a good article in the Building a Jazz Library section of AAJ about records to introduce Jazz to kids with.....

there are also a whole bunch of other excellent lists for people interested in an essential set of records based on a specific interest. the nice thing about that section is the discs come with descriptions and there's some background about what ties everything together.

[clifton]

Top 5 Jazz Tunes Based On The "I Got Rhythm" Chord Progression: 1)"Anthropology" (Parker-Gillespie), 2)"Moose The Mooch"(Parker),3)"Oleo"(Rollins),4)"Rhythm-A-Ning"(Monk),5)"Cottontail"(Ellington).

[riverrat]

Top 5 is tough if not impossible, but these kinds of threads are always great for inciting us to list sessions others have not mentioned.

some of my faves that I never seem to tire of:

1. Sonny Clark "Sonny's Crib"
2. Freddie Hubbard "Ready For Freddie"
3. Lee Morgan "Gigolo"
4. Art Blakey "Big Beat"
5. Wayne Shorter "Adam's Apple"

five more:

1. Donald Byrd "Fuego"
2. Horace Silver "Tokyo Blues"
3. Stanley Turrentine "Comin Your Way"
4. Horace Parlan "Spur of the Moment"
5. Jack Wilson "Easterly Winds"

[clifton]

Adam Lozo: Thanks for the kind words. Given the quantity of medication I'm required to ingest, I'm just happy I can remember anything. Some other great rhythm changes tunes: "52nd St. Theme" (Monk), "Shaw Nuff" (Parker-Gillespie), "Dexterity" (Parker), "Dexter Digs In" (Gordon), "Wail"(Bud Powell). "Wail" is really hard to play. I never mastered "Wail" or "Confirmation" so my band never played them.