MY 12 FAVORITE JAZZ RECORDINGS
The recordings listed below are just favorites of mine. I thought I’d share them with you. Some are just one song, others whole albums. They’re in no particular order. Enjoy!
Charles Mingus - Live at the Jazz Workshop - “New Fables”. To me this cut is the most sustained jazz piece during which every single player feels like they’re in the “zone”, triggered of course, by Mingus’ maniacal genius.
Andrew Hill - Point of Departure - “Dedication”. This piece has always seemed to me the most honest jazz rendition of heartbreak I have ever heard - featuring the great, too-soon-gone Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet.
Charlie Parker and Miles Davis - “Bird of Paradise.” About 2/3rds of the way through, there is the greatest jazz duet of Parker and Davis. like the best of Dixieland but transposed into bebop ecstasy. - truly an excursion into musical paradise and the life of a flower.
John Coltrane - Love Supreme - the album. Again gone so young, but relentless in his search for love, transcendence and the divine in music. Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” is a great contribution to world culture and the role that love, soul and devotion can play in our lives.
“From Spirituals To Swing, Carnegie Hall Converts 1938-39).” Perhaps the greatest collection of jazz and gospel ever made. Here are the inks to both of these vibrant incredible concerts, Spirituals to Swing: 1938 - 1939. featuring The Golden Gate Quartet, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Meade Lux Lewis, Big Bill Broonzy and so many other exuberant and brilliant performers.
Billie Holliday - I Cover the Waterfront - what more can be said about the unique Lady Day? One of the first and the greatest vocalists to use the voice like a horn just pouring out the heart and soul of her lyrics and herself in song after song.
Nina Simone - Wild is the Wind. Here with an almost shocking level of passion, as in so much of her singing and playing. Nina Simone reveals raw need and desire with undeniable power.
Charlie Christian – Solo Flight - with the Benny Goodman orchestra, spliced together this is a series of Charlie Christian solos so aptly titled, as the guitar just soars through Christian’s unique melodic and rhythmic flights.
Eric Dolphy -You Don’t Know What Love Is - the tragic early death of Dolphy (also Coltrane) left us with records of freed imagination. Dolphy evoked the full range of the rhythmic and melodic gestures not only of human speech but also the languages of birds and other animals, resulting in an unparalleled exploration and celebration of all life on earth.
Ramsey Lewis - Barefoot Sunday Blues - This was one of my mother’s favorites and I too love the innocent, carefree journey Ramsey Lewis and his trio take us on. Here’s the whole album.
Black Orpheus – The Soundtrack - full album. Not only one of the greatest scores, but one of the greatest movies ever, Marcel Camus’ brilliant transposition of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice into a mythical Brazilian land. The music features two of that country’s top composers: Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa.
Miles Davis - Concierto de Aranjuez from the album “Sketches of Spain” - composed by Joaquin Rodrigo, originally for guitar (Julian Bream has a great recording of the original) . Sketches of Spain features Miles with the inspired orchestral arrangements of Gil Evans.
from Black Orpheus