Been on a jazz kick lately, got the ol Real Book out and am trying to actually start learning these songs rather than just listening to them. Autumn Leaves and Fly Me to the Moon have been especially fun to play, with their multiple ii V I s yoked by violence together. The thing I love about jazz is the canon. Every time you learn a song you have a million versions to jam along to. With Autumn Leaves for example you have the definitive Cannonball Adderley version with Miles Davis and Art Blakey
As for versions Iād say that My favorite things might be one of those jazz songs you love each time an artist pulls it off. It surprised me that you put a video of Leslie Odom Jr. because he has a very lovely cover of that song.
Standardsā¦ well, thatās what Iāve been doing lately and found several good things. I entered the jazz through John Zornās music and went exploring from there the most avantgarde circles, and there are pretty lovely hearings. Some recommendations for all tastes:
This is the John Zorn album that introduced me to jazz (with Dave Brubeck's Take Five, which is a standalone standard)
https://youtu.be/bbBMaWNLAqQ
And here's a recommendation outside the norm that I find hauntingly beautiful, which is Rabih Abou-Khalil. He's one of the two people that got me into more Arabic sounds (with also Marcel Khalife, although I'd say he's more into classical music):
https://youtu.be/MVIUQaW8Z9M
And also, an extra: kind of an obscure album that should be standard with also the less and less obscure Out of Lunch:
https://youtu.be/t6PkO4gWEf8
And one more album. This is not a recommendation but a trend that I love to see from time to time: recoveries of exclusive songs from jazz artists from a guy that so far seemed really great to me. He's Hassan Ibn Ali:
https://youtu.be/BwHEroS4_HE
this one is cheesy as hell but I love it. I love the dueling saxophones and the poor production quality of the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzCXZkxGVEs
I love me some Henry Mancini on occasion. I like "Charade" but dont have a favorite version so here's a random one. Makes me feel like a character in a spy movie.
Charade! I was messing around with the soundtrack a few years back trying to remix it into something but couldn't figure out if the ost is public domain or just the movie. Couldn't figure it out, and lost steam.
So Iāve been on a jazz kick lately despite being largely ignorant about its history and subgenres. Iāve especially been enjoying Miles Davis and Herbie Hancockās work with some Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman sprinkled in.
I think Iām going to have to watch Ken Burnsā Jazz to get a handle on putting names to things beyond āoh yeah, I like thatā - it seems like an unwieldy genre to get into if youāre a newbie, but I guess that's true for other broad genres like ārockā also.
Dumb otaku question: what kind of jazz would you recommend that sounds similar to the Cowboy Bebop opening? I-is that actually what bebop sounds like? I don't know! I never grew up with jazz or had any jazz-fan friends!
@āNemoideā#315 I think the theme song is a big band styling of bebop jazz - fast tempo and quick chord changes. I love that soundtrack, too ā Piano Black is one of my favorites.
I'm not a Jazz-history buff, but I think bebop came about around WW2. [Here's an early example that I like - George Shearing Quintet.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GVB3zu0kbs&list=PL0q2VleZJVEng3Sl_xQk_X7vQ3j7kMgD5&index=2)
Unrelated, but Ahmad Jamal's Live at the Pershing Lounge has always been a favorite album of mine. When I was home for a summer after my first year of college, one of my family's elderly neighbors passed away. Her daughter invited me over and gave me three of her old records (this, along with the Music Man and one other I don't remember). I spent a lot of evenings after work with this on in the background, laying on the floor and reading. I love how you can hear the ambience of the room, murmurs and dinnerware.
@āNemoideā#p65470 that Ken Burns Jazz doc starts great and then gets a bit weird. A lot of Wynton Marsalis complaining about Free Jazz and Fusion near the tail end and it kind of pretends that Jazz is more or less dead now and has been since the late 60s. Wynton Marsalis is definitely very very talented, and knows a shit ton about Jazz, but his tastes really shape how some of the genre developments get presented and it's worth supplementing the doc with some Sun Ra or Kamasi Washington or Mizell Brothers records, or some other doc or book that views Bitches Brew onwards in a bit more positive light.
If you have Apple Music (there is likely something similar on other services but appleās the one I use) there is a curated playlist usually updated every week called āJazz Currentsā which Iāve found is a good way to be exposed to some Jazz I like hearing but am not knowledgeable enough to discover on my own.
I don't often listen to jazz but this came up on my iPod the other day and I liked it: āBird Aloneā by Abbey Lincoln
Speaking of vocal jazz, there's a song I really like in part because of how I encountered it. I was having an incredibly stressful day where I had to round up some cats and get an apartment ready for the windows to be replaced, which also meant I had to vacate for many hours while the work was being done. When I got back, someone had left the stereo on tuned to some radio station and [this of all things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTv3TONfTTQ) was playing. I was like "yeah" and then chilled with those cats.
First off, hey forum! Big fan of the pod, Tim's work in general, and never played any Necrosoft stuff but Demon School is gonna be a day-one thing for me.
Anyway, cool to see other IC listeners like jazz. My guitar teacher shared this recording with me recently, and it blew me away. Art Blakey goes absolutely wild on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75QuUg0H-hQ
Went to a record store with a friend today and saw this. I'd have brought it home if he hadn't found it first. Always enjoy MM&W, I should read more about them
Last night I went to see Herbie Hancock in concert and WOW, it was absolutely phenomenal. Every musician on stage was overflowing with talent and the energy was great. I'm inspired to start seeing more live performances!
Iām very jazz-illiterate, but Iāve been listening to a lot of Toshiji Mikawa lately and in particular his ānoise-jazzā band Hijokaidan (éåøøéꮵ).
For example the second half of this:
Otomo Yoshihide is another big name who has done similar kinds of crazy post-jazz stuff that is very easy for me to enjoy. For example his band Ground Zero:
This is probably the ideal music for me.
I want to know more about the history of this sound. Can anyone point me to artists somewhere in between this and someone like, say, Miles Davis, who was also extremely experimental and wild though not to this degree I think? Basically, I want to understand the continuity between more traditional improvisational jazz and this kind of noise-jazz Iāve cited above. Itās not just a Japanese phenomenon, right?
Every once in awhile I try to āget into Jazzā, which always consists of listening to big names like Duke Ellington and not really being able to relate to it that much. Miles Davis has been exception to this, which I think is mostly because I found his weirder more experimental stuff early on. So in this ever-continuing quest to get into Jazz, this time Iād like to start from the Jazz-influenced stuff I like and work backwards, rather than starting with the traditional Jazz canon and working forwards like Iāve tried before.
