Need Jazz CD ideas for a gift
Hi, not an easy one this - my uncle is in to jazz but I'm not sure what niches of it he particularly likes. I've given him some Miles Davis and Jan Garabarek before and the MD was well received, not so sure about JG. He does play some jazz piano, so that's as good a place to start as any.
Given I've got limited info, I think what I'd like is something that's come out this year (either a new album or remastered old/obscure stuff) and is maybe a little obscure so he won't have bought it already. Something I can order from Amazon / similar before Christmas would be marvellous. Also, the moon on this stick here would be marvellous.
Alternatively, as he's got a hernia at the moment anything playing on hernia's would be most welcome. That's a challenge - music that mentions medical maladies. Malodorous music.
Comments
Thelonious Monk 'Monk's Music' with Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, etc. Great Be-bop album with fantastic piano from Monk, and a driving swing beat from Blakey, plus a lovely contrast between Coltrane's sweet sound, and Hawkins raunchy sound, both on sax. Also one of my all time favourite album covers.
Thelonious Monk 'Alone is San Francisco'
A live album of a solo piano performance. I didn't think it would work, but it really does. A lovely album for a pianist to listen to.
Cannonball Adderley 'Somethin' Else' Very, very similar to 'Kind of Blue', but with the swing of Blakey driving it a little bit more.
Charles Mingus 'Mingus Ah Um', just a great be-bop album, with some real fun playing.
Hope that helps.
I can confirm that Cannonball Adderley 'Somethin' Else' does make a good gift.
A jazzer friend gave me a vinyl copy as a present a few years ago. I enjoyed receiving it and listening to it.
Ben
Thanks for the 'Ah Um' recommendation. I ordered a copy and it's just arrived. Very nice. Good fun.
Ben
I discovered it quite recently through a programme on BBC4 TV that gets repeated a couple of times a year called '1959 The Year taht Changed Jazz', well worth seeing, it covered four albums from the that year, Miles Davis 'Kind of Blue', Mingus 'Ah Um', both of which I like a lot.
Ornette Coleman 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' which probably isn't for me (yet?), and Dave Brubeck 'Time Out', which I have but find too prissy, great album, for not for me, I like jazz to have a lot of balls, and Dave Brubeck isn't that.
Have you heard the Monk album?
Jamie
I saw Dave Brubeck in 1984, it was my first jazz gig, so it was good for that, but yes it did have a stilted classical air.
I
saw Art Blakey in Camden a couple of years later, in the brief period
when jazz became fashionable in the 80's, and the atmosphere was
fantastic. Cool young people dancing to classics like Moanin and Blues
March, as well as a mix of older fans, a lovely mix, and the band were
really feeding off the mood. Great gig.
In fact I got into 'proper' jazz' when I was resident DJ in a jazz club in Leicester. It was absolutely fantastic getting to see all these great musicians every week (Wednesday I think it was, at a bar near the old sorting office - now demolished). I didn't really have to dig around in the old record collection to find stuff that got the approval of the audience - they liked the more funky stuff too.
Not knowingly, no. I'll take a look...