my favorite jazz:

John Coltrane: Sun Ship
the title track is the single greatest piece of "jazz" music in my own opinion...beyond beyond beyond amazing...pretty much any Coltrane late '64 on is absolutely essential...my favorite "jazz" musician (i don't mean to be pretentious with the quotes...it's just statements like that make me feel like i'd be saying "he's good for being that jazz stuff" or whatever...Coltrane hated calling his music jazz or anything else, himself...so...it's just great music...better than most things jazz or otherwise...)

Sun Ra: Space Is the Place
you pretty much can't go wrong with Sun Ra...there's a definite extensive "middle period" that's best to stick with...early 60s to late 70s i guess...it's all good, but the real early and later stuff is a bit more straightforward...i single out Space Is the Place but there are many MANY others that come close and are beyond amazing...

Herbie Hancock: Sextant
about the only album of his i think's worth anything...but it just so happens to be one of the most amazing records ever recorded (sticking out in his catalog not too unlike Psychocandy in The Jesus and Mary Chain's...) it's a continuation of Miles Davis' fusion (the GOOD kind...though sometimes it's hard to believe that fusion started out as a legitimate style of music from today's standpoint of crap...) though Herbie took it to its abstract extremes...he got some synthesizers and in parts it sounds more like Throbbing Gristle than anything "jazz" (Sun Ra can be good for that sort of thing too...) but then he realized that album wasn't what the people weren't listening to at parties so he took an immdiate turn to watered down crap and started sounding like your first impulse at hearing the word "fusion"...

Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz
he also had a lot of great great stuff...the Beauty Is a Rare Thing box set is great if you like him enough to get a box set...it has Free Jazz and a few other albums as well as the requisite rare stuff...

Miles Davis: On the Corner
another fusion masterpiece (not surprisingly Herbie Hancock played on this album...and it was from the year before Sextant) a bit more accessible than Sextant, but in a good way...like James Brown doing instrumentals extended for 20 minutes at a time...heavy percussion and bass, of course, horns and other jazz stuff too...

geiginni wrote:I'm surprised no one has mentioned Les Paul. Incredible fucking guitarist. He did some really hot jazz stuff before doing pop with Mary Ford later on. You can find some of his earliest jazz recordings on the Lazerlight label. Up there with best Django, it's that good.

i've never listened to his music (not to my knowledge...), though i hate his guitar...

justinc wrote:jazz and guitar DONT MIX!

NELS CLINE.......

If you can find it track down

The Nels Cline Trio - CHEST
Nels CLine & Greg Bendian - Intersellar Space Revisited
Destroy All Nels CLine
Nels CLine and Thurston Moore - Pillow Wand

Doesn't fall in line with the "Tomb" concept of Jazz, but as a big Jazz head, it definitely is Jazz. But out there, noisey crazy, punk inspired (esp. Television and Early Sonic Youth) But Nels is definitely a certified Jazz Guitarist.

i finally watched that django clip... amazing... what an incredible guitarist... playing with two fingers what i'll never be able to play with five. i do believe that's my favourite variety of jazz.

What cgarges wrote above I couldn't agree with more (as far as "Real" jazz).

For the Rock player just getting into the possibilites of jazz/rock fusion, you gotta check out:

Steely Dan - try their Decade of Greatest Hits thing for starters. Most of the soloists are jazz trained guys who also play rock/blues/rockabilly styles. This ripped my mind open when I first heard it. This style of playing is so hot it's insane.

Billy Cobham - "Spectrum" for the late, great Tommy Bolin. Twists your mind into multicolored strands of cotton candy. Love, Love, Love. Hot like really good sex.

Mahavishnu Orchestra - "Inner Mounting Flame" This is the album that made me commit to becoming a guitarist. Like a religious awakening. Cult Hard, Brothers.

Allan Holdsworth - "Metal Fatigue" A lot of shred dudes got turned to jazz via this album. Pops your mind open like the pop top on some cheap beer and uses it for it's own evil purposes. And you love it all the moreso because of it. Freak Out!

justinc wrote:jazz and guitar DONT MIX!

i want you to say this to John Scofield's face, and see how fast he decks you.

Local jazz players can be the most condescending mo-fos on earth. I used to jam with a jazz tenor player who got on my case regularly for owning more than two guitars - f__ him anyway. I used to play weddings with one of the top jazz drummers in my medium-sized town. Although the guy was the first-call to accompany traveling jazz stars, he played rock with utter contempt, and sounded like s__ doing so.

I love to listen to good jazz, but why are there so many tired-ass local players?

this has nothing to do with jazz... but DUDE! this is the last fucking place on the goddamn planet you need to fucking censor yourself, okay?! i, personally, pride myself in being offensive. i think manipulation of offensive language is one of the few true joys of being human. i invite you to partake.

in terms of jazz:

has anyone here ever heard an album called The Gifted Ones? it was a collaboration between Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, and it definitely kicked ass. i checked it out of my local library a year or so ago, and haven't been able to find it since. any suggestions?