Looking For Some Decent Jazz To Listen To. Suggestions?

[DannySavage]

Heya. Over the next few months I'm going to start a quite deep analysis of Jazz guitar playing for my personal practice time. As a novice to the Jazz domain, I'm quite ignorant to the variety of artists/bands that exist within this genres fraternity, so I'm basically looking for suggestions of what I should be listening to, to expand and improve my jazz appreciation.

I don't mind whether the music you suggest is perhaps for guitar study or for general listening, so please fire away. If you need some preferences I tend to enjoy, especially within this genre, music that has a type of structure and direction, like Gypsy Jazz, rather then spontaneous improvising and constant change of rhythm and key.

Please be gentle with your suggestions and break me in gently

Cheers!

[Col.Decker]

Must haves fo Jazz (imo), maybe not too guitarry but defo worth checking out for groove and feel:

Miles Davies - A kind of blue, Birth of Cool, and any compilation you can find
John Coltrane - A love supreme (takes bit of getting into but it's worth it)

[Snaggletooth]

Get the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. probably one of the top jazz albums of all time.

Wes Montgomery is a fantastic Jazz guitarist so look up anything he's on. I can also suggest some Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Jerry Mulligan.
Mostly what you'd call Bebop but really good stuff.

[AlexHunter]

Kenny Burrell

[uncle_psychosis]

Don't just restrict yourself to guitarists.

Anyone studying jazz NEEDS a copy of Kind of Blue. Hugely influential and hugely listenable. Absolutely brilliant.

I also second the recommendation of A Love Supreme.

As for guitarists, I really like Grant Green. "Idle Moments" is a good album.

[jalapeno]

As for guitarists, I really like Grant Green. "Idle Moments" is a good album.

Superb stuff, very accessible - make sure a GG CD isn't one of his Gospel excursions though.

Miles Davis. Kenny Burrell as mentioned - this is where I started listening, then Wes Montgomery

I'd recommend getting the Getz/Gilberto collaborations.

I am particularly partial to:
Horace Silver
Grant Green
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, esp. Llive at Cafe Bohemia vols 1 & 2
Jim Hall
Jim Hall & Bill Evans
Brad Meldhau trio albums and collaborations with Pat Metheny are good
Mike Stern
Jimmy Bruno
Barney Kessel
Jesse van Ruller

[Fretwired]

Miles Davis - Kind of blue
John Coltrane - Kind of blue
Wes Montgomery - Smokin' at the half note
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time out
Enrico Pieranunzi Quartet - Alone together
Grant Green - Idle moments and Standards
Jeff Golub - Soul sessions
Bruce McKenzie - After dark
John Scofield - Up all night
Kenny Burrell - Midnight blue
Al Di Meola - Orange and blue
Philip Catherine - Guitar groove and Blue prince
Ronny Jordan - The antidote
Andy Summers - Green chimneys (the music of Monk)
John McLaughlin - The heart of things
Lee Ritenour - Wes bound
Rodney Jones - Right now
Steve Howe trio - The haunted melody
Rene Thomas - Guitar groove
Ulf Wakenius - Forever you
Paul Brown - Up front
Pat Methany - Bighter size life
Pat Martino - El hombre
Mike Stern - Standards

Anything early by George Benson and anything by Joe Pass.

[sfocata]

Heya. Over the next few months I'm going to start a quite deep analysis of Jazz guitar playing for my personal practice time.

The next few MONTHS? Clear your diary for the next couple of years... there's quite a bit of history there

I won't suggest any artists, as any personal selection from such a huge musical area is going to be ultimately meaningless. You need to start off by getting an idea of how everything fits together... the earliest work of Eddie Lang, who then led to Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt (similar time, but on opposite sides of the Atlantic). You've then got Barney Kessel and Wes Montgomery, who picked up on what CC was doing and took it further. Then you've got Kenny Burrell and Grant Green for the bluesier stuff, Joe Pass, Jim Hall... by the end of the 60s John McLaughlin and Larry Coryell were going into more of a fusion direction, followed by Allan Holdsworth, Al di Meola, Pat Martino, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Mike Stern, the whole ECM era, Pat Metheny...

My recommendation would be to get on iTunes and subscribe to Dr Gordon Vernick's jazz history podcasts from Georgia State University (they're free... part of the iTunes University series). He's done nearly 100 so far, and although only a handful focus on jazz guitar, they're great for getting an overview of what different periods of jazz sound like.

[english_bob]

If you need some preferences I tend to enjoy, especially within this genre, music that has a type of structure and direction, like Gypsy Jazz, rather then spontaneous improvising and constant change of rhythm and key.

Spontaneous improvisation is pretty much the whole point of jazz

The only place you're likely to find jazz that doesn't have structure and direction is free jazz, pioneered by Ornette Coleman. Everything else is structured and directed, whether that's immediately obvious or not.

I've never been a huge fan of jazz guitar, but I'd argue that jazz, for all its emphasis on soloists, is ensemble music, so the best thing to do is to listen to the best jazz music and draw what you can from it for your guitar playing and general musicianship.

As others have said, Kind Of Blue is absolutely essential, and I don't think many jazz fans would disagree with a recommendation that you listen to some of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings. Charlie Parker is a must, as is John Coltrane.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Miles Davis' so-called "electric period"- "Bitches Brew" is probably the most well-known and influential album of the period, but "In A Silent Way" and "On The Corner" are well worth a listen too. During the late 60s, Miles was heavily influenced by funk, black pop music and Jimi Hendrix, so there's a lot of guitar on those albums (John McLaughlin mostly, who you really can't avoid if you're going to study jazz guitar), and lots of percussion. It's normally considered jazz-rock or fusion, and it's difficult music to understand (although not to appreciate) but an overview of the history of jazz is incomplete without listening to it.

[jalapeno]

My recommendation would be to get on iTunes and subscribe to Dr Gordon Vernick's jazz history podcasts from Georgia State University (they're free... part of the iTunes University series). He's done nearly 100 so far, and although only a handful focus on jazz guitar, they're great for getting an overview of what different periods of jazz sound like.

Radio 3 Jazz Library PodCast is also good.