NationStates Jolt Archive

anybody here like jazz music? i never used to (have always respected the musicianship of course) but i saw a live jazz duet (sax and accoustic guitar) in one of my favourite pubs the other week, and i want to make a concerted effort - no pun intended - to get into the genre. anybody got any favourite bands/albums etc? anybody know of anything similar to the duet above - epecially saxaphone-heavy stuff?

thanks for any advice :)

I used to play in a jazz band. There are very many kinds. Browse a while to see what you really like and what you hate

I've got a couple of Jaco Pastorius CDs. He's ok, but I never really got into jazz.

Miles Davis 'Kind of Blue' is a classic, good place to start. Any of Art blakey's Birdland albums. and anything by charles mingis (Not sure of the spelling of ftop of my head). I'm not a Hardcore Jazz fan, but I do like it!!!

Cannonball Adderly is great intro material.

anybody here like jazz music? i never used to (have always respected the musicianship of course) but i saw a live jazz duet (sax and accoustic guitar) in one of my favourite pubs the other week, and i want to make a concerted effort - no pun intended - to get into the genre. anybody got any favourite bands/albums etc? anybody know of anything similar to the duet above - epecially saxaphone-heavy stuff?

thanks for any advice :)

John Coltrane and Paul Desmond. You can't go wrong with either of them.

Paul Desmond especially when he was with The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

And if you like funny Jazz: Richard Cheese

This is a duet but it is a bassist and a drummer.

The bassist for the second group is Victor Wooten, who may be the best bassist going today.

Click (http://oakkstudio.com/archive001.htm)

Another thing you can do:

The Verve record label has a very good compilation series called Compact Jazz. They're pretty cheap and you can't really go wrong with anything in the series. Pretty much every artist in compact is a great and the discs give a good sampling of their work.

Another thing you can do:

The Verve record label has a very good compilation series called Compact Jazz. They're pretty cheap and you can't really go wrong with anything in the series. Pretty much every artist in compact is a great and the discs give a good sampling of their work.

Or start picking and choosing from the Blue Note catalog.

cheers y'all... given me plenty to look up here

:cool: groovy baby
(couldn't resitst :D )

This is a duet but it is a bassist and a drummer.

The bassist for the second group is Victor Wooten, who may be the best bassist going today.

Click (http://oakkstudio.com/archive001.htm)
That fusion collaboration between Wooten, Howe, and somebody else that released a CD entitled "Extraction" was really good, in my opinion.

Thelonius Monk

What you probably heard relates most likely to things like Desmond (which someone mentioned) and maybe the Charlie Hunter's first-that's FIRST album.

The problem that you are going to run into is that jazz is about as insufficient a term as rock. There are many types of jazz and you are not likely to like all of them.

Jaco Pastorius plays fusion (though some are starting to call it funk jazz to seperate it from the likes of Kenny G, who technically also plays fusion but we'll call it contemporary. Modern acustic jazz always gets called progressive.)

Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan play cool jazz, which is denoted by slower tempos, odd band arrangements (like Chet Baker's pianoless quartet that featured Gerry Mulligan on bari sax) and often buggy time signatures (like Desmond's Take Five that was in 5/4 instead of common 4/4. That was recorded on Dave Bruebeck's Time Out album that contained all songs with non-traditional time signatures.)

Miles Davis, well it depends on when he recorded-could be Bop (with Charlie Parker), Cool (Birth of the Cool), Third Stream (Sketches of Spain), Fusion (Bitches Brew) etc. He is credited with inventing most of that, in case you where wondering why he's considered a genius.

Then there's things like swing (Count Basie and Duke Ellington), traditional (Louis Armstrong, King Oliver), free (Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman-not for the uninitiated. Can sound like a band being attacked by dogs. I love it, but it's not for everyone)

Usually the best way I've found to get people into jazz (and I've actually done it to a lot of people) is find out what they listen to now and use a similar jazz style as an in road. For you, taking only your name, I might start you out with Mahavishnu Orchestra, but you've already determined on your own that you liked the jazz you heard in the club and from your description Mahavishnu ain't even close (though if you like Carlos Santana, he and McLaughlin from Mahavishnu recorded Coltrane's A Love Supreme which you might like).

If what you listened to was mellow and melodic, I'd start out with some cool jazz-Birth of the Cool by Miles Davis, My Funny Valentine by Chet Baker, Time Out by The Dave Bruebeck Quartet-or, as someone suggested getting your self a sampler CD. There is no shame in using those as an introduction into a style of music, to give you a cross section of what jazz is and what the styles are to see what you like. If you can get one that purposefully tries to demonstrate the different styles thats a good bet.

Blue Note not too long ago had a series where each set was a sample of a different era, and while I'm not sure they do, they probably have a cd that samples from that series. Verve and Blue Note are the mega jazz labels, along with Colombia and some others.

Good luck. It's a rich music that you can find something in everytime you listen.