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comment by goobster
goobster  ·  2129 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: June 20, 2018

    I don't think I'll ever enjoy straight up Jazz. It's just not for me.

There may be a type of jazz you don't like, but I guarantee there is more jazz you like than don't like.

Vince Guaraldi is fully jazz... and he wrote all the music for The Peanuts.

Ornette Coleman is a freeform jazz sax player who breaks all the rules and assembles them into new shapes. You won't like him.

Stan Getz is as cool as they come, and even if you hate melody, "Take Five" is a drum solo that you love, and can probably already mimic most of, because it is so woven into our culture.

Al DiMeola. The Modern Jazz Quartet. Medeski, Martin & Wood. Earl Klugh. Kenny G. Spyro Gyra.

And that's not even moving to the edges of Jazz, where people will argue with you whether it is even jazz or not... Dr. John, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, Frank Zappa, Nina Simone, etc, etc, etc.

Something - Side B, track 3 of that one LP you really like, but it's a weird song, but you like it and find yourself humming along to it - will break the shell on Jazz for ya... and it will seep in, and one day you will realize that you actually like a lot of tracks that kinda venture into that territory... and then you'll find your particular "flavor" of jazz.

But Ornette, and Parker, and Coltrane, and Miles, and ... they might always be off the plate.

Who knows? :-)





cgod  ·  2129 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was a jazz studies major for a bit in college, which I think give me licence to make the claim that I hate way more jazz than I like.

I own maybe two hundred jazz albums that I think are worthwhile.

When I get a crate of records off some old guy or gal I usually toss 95% if the jazz right in the dumpster. It's roundly derivative unispired wankery.

Every once in a while I'll find some Ellington or Ella but mostly it's more godamn Dave Brubeck or other white jazz bullshit, fit only for elevators or the timid elderly.

Off the top of my head list of jazz musicians that have some albums that are great.

Duke Ellington

John and Alice Coltrane

Sonny Stitt

Sonny Rollins

Less McCann

Charlie Parker

Dizzy Gillespie

Eddie Harris

Mose Allison

Don Cherry

Miles Davis

Sun Ra

Errol Garner

Billy Cobham

Branford Marsalis

Wes Montgomery

Charles Mingus

Jaco Pastorious

Ornette Colmon

Nina Simone

I'm running out off the top of my head pics but I like most if it.

I forgive anyone that hates the general, there way more chaff than wheat.

tacocat  ·  2127 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Chet Baker?

goobster  ·  2128 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Mose.

Such a damn legend.

cgod  ·  2128 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Almost everyone has a bad album, I've yet to find his.

Dala  ·  2129 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We went to the record shop today and most of the cds I bought were Béla Fleck. Two used and one new. I call Béla Fleck and the Flecktones 'banjo jazz' sometimes when people ask me to try to describe them. It is kind of weird how sd86 and I share quite a bit of the same tastes musically but I listen to a lot more jazz and jazz-adjacent stuff than he probably ever will. Most of the stuff I have gotten from bandcamp has been British jazz, lately.

goobster  ·  2128 days ago  ·  link  ·  

His recordings with Howard Levy were always my favorite.

And, of course, as a bass player, I love me some Victor Wooten.

user-inactivated  ·  2129 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think the two "jazziest" artists I probably like are The Real Tuesday Weld and The Faux Frenchmen. I don't know where they fall on the spectrum, but that's about as Jazz as I can get.

Dala  ·  2129 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Excuse me, but I recall that it was you that introduced me to Melody Gardot. Please amend your list. I am sure there is something else you like that I can't think of now, but that one is a definite.

user-inactivated  ·  2128 days ago  ·  link  ·  

She's okay, but I think she's definitely more for you than for me. :)

user-inactivated  ·  2129 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This is what I think of mostly when Jazz is mentioned. I saw her live a few times; she's fantastic.

goobster  ·  2128 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Madeline Peyroux is the one that I've been in love with since I first saw her perform live in 1996:

Such a voice.

user-inactivated  ·  2128 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If you're not aware of it, you might want to check out the genre Electro Swing. It's fun in small doses.