Looking For Some Decent Jazz To Listen To. Suggestions?

[DavidRees]

and no one has mentioned the great Martin Taylor

[fretmeister]

Tal Wilkenfield (sp?) - Transformation

[erictheweary]

John Jorgenson's various gypsy jazz outings are pretty easy to get into but still full of amazing guitar.

Bireli Lagrene comes out the gypsy jazz tradition but incorporates other styles. Just amazing.

[BucketheadRules]

I would recommend Facing West and Rain River from Pat Metheny's 1992 album Secret Story. Some wonderful jazz playing on there.

[Bingefeller]

I'd recommend the following:

Lee Ritenour - Six String Theory
Larry Carlton and Steve Lukather - No Substitutions Live
Bill Frisell - Nashville
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew, Live Evil, On The Corner, A Tribute To Jack Johnston, In A Silent Way
John Coltrane - My Favourite Things

Quite surprised no one has mentioned Kurt Rosenwinkel yet... Some of Kurt's albums which I like are:

The Enemies of Energy
Heartcore
Reflections
The Next Step
The Remedy Live At The Village Vanguard
Deep Song
East Coast Love Affair

[AlexHunter]

Tal Wilkenfield (sp?) - Transformation

Wilkenfeld, and it's not the same without a video to accompany it

[timmyo]

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.

despite nearly dying on the M4 'cos the fricken itunes/ipod combo can't keep a whole itunesu set of files in the right order necessitating intervention even I enjoyed a few of these (unfortunately in random order) this morning. ta.

[StageStruck]

For Jazz fusion, try Billy Cobham's Spectrum with Tommy Bolin on guitar.

[AndrewG]

Let's see now *rifles through CD collection*:

Kenny Burrell-Midnight Blue,
" Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane
" Laid Back
" Blues, the Common Ground
" Introducing Kenny Burrell
Grant Green-Street of Dreams
" Idle Moments
Wes Montgomery-Round Midnight
Barney Kessel-Kessel Plays Standards
John Scofield-Works for Me
" Quiet
Martin Taylor-Solo
"
Django Reinhardt-The Classic Early Recordings (5 CD set you can pick up for next to nothing. Every guitarist needs this!)

[frankus]

Are all these suggestions of artists useful? Without context? Jazz is a big field and there are loads of Jazz guitarists in very distinctive genres. I think all of us picked our own route and it's very personal - but the lists you'd be left with (taking every recommendation is a lifetimes work).

How about agreeing 3 CDs that are a good start and 3 different styles and 3 different artists and 3 different guitarists that we'd all agree are pivotal to jazz? We'll never agree but rather than a frankly overwhelming variety of recommendations we might have just a few we agree mostly on - which might be more enlightening.

In the hope that this catches on, I'll start - my recommendations would be:

CDs:
Kinda Blue,
Genius of the Electric Guitar
Giant Steps (with out-takes - to illustrate the mechanisms of improvisation)

Styles:
Manouche,
West Coast
Bebop

Artists:
Thelonious Monk (pick the right stuff and you get Coltrane and Davis for free :^),
Billie Holiday (the most fun way to learn standards),
Jaco Pastorius

Guitarists:
Lenny Breau
Pat Martino
Joe Pass