best jazz albums of the 21st century

You know, get inside there, push the furniture over, chuck things out of the window and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Barely a month goes by without magazines, newspapers or TV programmes pushing yet another poll of the 100 greatest whatever. Rec. (KLG), John McLaughlin (g), John Surman (bs, ss), Brian Odges (b) and Tony Oxley (d). 1954, Vaughan was a by-word for vocal worship among her peers and musical associates by the late 1940s, but little she recorded before this album consistently showed her true worth to jazz. ) 2020 No wonder the album was called Emergency, with every member of the band having so much to say but so little time to say it. Rec. This is hardly to downgrade Evans’ own contributions, all of which retain their depth and freshness today. They all played for each other to such an extent that the group became one of the true 1960s greats. Not just another “greatest jazz albums” list of favourite recordings and biggest sellers but a fully annotated look at the albums that actually changed jazz, changed lives and brought the music kicking and screaming into the new millennium. 1964, Shepp was a member of Cecil Taylor’s 1960/1 unit that cut sides for Candid and Impulse!, but his first mature playing on disc is on the virtually unobtainable 1962 Archie Shepp – Bill Dixon Quartet album released on Savoy. This is a very powerful part of the album’s pull, as is the tautness of each selection’s form, and it must also account for the hold it has sustained magically over listeners who otherwise venture rarely into any form of jazz, including the progressive rock fans of the late 60s and onwards. Once more they’d broken the mould, for themselves and everyone else. Rec. Hailed by Melody Maker upon release as “highly provocative” it was conceived by Calcutta-born Mayer who based the pieces on the ascending and descending order of ragas with Harriott’s quintet improvising around the Indian musicians to spellbinding effect. It also points the way for those who follow. 1956, Ellington often acknowledged that the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival offered him a virtual rebirth in terms of his in-person and recording career but there is little doubt as to why. Within jazz itself, the album ensured that the music could no longer be considered a social or cultural also-ran, the spiritual and humanistic concerns that made up its inspiration demanding that it be treated in the same way as the master creations of the art-music of any culture. This set, first pulled together on vinyl in the 1960s and re-jigged many times on LP and CD since, preserves the best of a truly great big band and its leader. Imagine William Burroughs cutting up sheet music instead of text and having skilled players somehow make the fragments sound coherent. Morton’s miraculous flowering in this period has to be heard to be believed, with his arrangements of his own and others’ tunes so multi-faceted, so imaginative and full of incredible creative drive as to be a collective body of genius to place alongside that of Ellington and – much later – Mingus or Gil Evans. He also brought back to jazz that rough, keening wail and constant pitch variations of the most basic blues and folk music. It had always been there in his music, but now, marrying the élan and high spirits of Flora Purim and Airto with his own naturally ebullient and melodically uplifting inclinations, Corea suddenly not only stepped forward himself past the stentorian gloom and machismo of the other fusioneers of the day, but redefined exactly what latin jazz should be about. (KS), Jamal (p), Israel Crosby (b), Vernell Fournier (d). 1947, These early Monk sides almost sank without trace when first issued as 78rpm singles, and it was only because of a LP selection under this title in the mid-1950s that more than a handful of punters took any notice. So? Zorn, the arch post modernist, expropriated practices, fragments and signifiers of different, sometimes alien music and relocated them within his own brash expressionism. Additionally, Taylor’s supercharged playing on this date was the first glimpse on record of his ability to sustain such white heat over Coltrane-like stretches of playing time. However, her discography on vinyl is convoluted: her 1930s 78rpm output, where she was normally a featured singer rather than the star, had to wait until the 1960s to appear in any ordered way and the 1990s to appear substantially on CD. The Numeral Nine Music Blog opines on 20 perfect jazz albums. The 1959 disc didn’t arrive with a thunderous clap, yet four decades later, at the end of the millennium, there it was at the top of any and all “best of” lists, nudging aside so many rock, pop and hip-hop recordings. “If you like Kind of Blue, turn it over, look who plays on it,” says keyboardist Ben Sidran. Musical value and appreciation is far too subjective a thing to be ordered neatly on a linear scale. In their own way this Hammond B-3 organ trio of the sort that has been around in jazz for at least 50 years pushed at the boundaries of jazz with rollicking grooves and extended keyboard improvisations. Not as successfully integrated as their subsequent Indo-Jazz Fusions I and II, this however first put the fat in the pan for Gabor Szabo, Shakti, Trilok Gurtu, Mukta, Nitin Sawhney and the feast of Indo-Jazz that followed. (KS). 1965, Many maintain that Kirk never made the perfect album: if so, this one comes closer than any other, mostly because Elvin Jones is consistently lighting a fire under the quartet generally and Kirk in particular. This is a Japanese CD reissue which more than doubles the original vinyl playing time. Rec. (SN), Adderley (as), Miles Davis (t), Hank Jones (p), Sam Jones (b) and Art Blakey (d). I’ve been sailing the waters, listening and learning, ever since. Norman Granz decided to fix that: between 1953 and Tatum’s death in 1956 Granz recorded well over 200 selections and issued them on Clef and Verve. Miles got the altoist to shine through ballads and burnished blowing throughout, complementing in fine style while the rest of the crew kept a discreet distance. Sentiments of any persuasion are no proof of quality, but the compositions – from Haden, Bley and Ornette Coleman, among others – are uniformly strong and the supporting cast fiercely inspired. Pine’s music was powerful, intense and in the tradition of the great tenor saxophonists such as Coltrane and Rollins. Rec. Rec. Novice producer Teo Macero’s tight editing allowed for more tunes and more user-friendly presentation than on Blues And Roots. (KS), Holiday (v), Howard McGhee, Buck Clayton (t), Trummy Young (tb),Willie Smith (as), Illinois Jacquet, Wardell Gray, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young (ts), Milt Raskin, Ken Kersey, Tommy Tucker (p), Charles Mingus, Al McKibbon (b), J.C. Heard and Jackie Mills (d). Miles noticed too, quickly snatching Jarrett and DeJohnette for his own jazz-rock experiments that ushered in the dawn of a new era. (KS). Your Top 10 Jazz Albums of the 21st Century Welcome to Talk Classical - A community covering every aspect of classical music! (KS), Brubeck (p), Paul Desmond (as), Eugene Wright (b) and Joe Morello (d). An album of precisely focused moods, fragments of melody are crafted into masterful compositions shaped by the timeless elegance of Stanko’s trumpet and the copacetic playing of his young protégés. West coast jazz in its infancy and at its most joyously infectious. Rec. Yes, Coltrane plays like a man inspired by something more than the job immediately to hand, as do the other three musicians involved, and yes the themes are unremittingly sober. 1979, Listening to this album is a cathartic experience. Rec. The present album, however, was a studio venture with a specially constituted group familiar with Mingus’ working quintets. All that plus Joao’s wife Astrud as a last minute show stealer and you have a classic on your hands. (KS), Feature Ten of the best Louis Armstrong albums, Dolphy (f, as, b cl), Freddie Hubbard (t), Bobby Hutcherson (vb), Richard Davis (b) and Tony Williams (d). 1959, Brubeck rarely gets his due. 1963, Maybe you have to acquire a taste for Mingus before getting to this, but I’ve known people with significant non-Mingus backgrounds fall headlong for it at first hearing. Albums became an increasingly important way for musicians to communicate with the wider world beyond the smoke and limitations of the night club circuit. 1939-56, The trouble with Hawk is the same one faced by someone looking for an ideal single-set introduction to maverick genius Sidney Bechet – in such a long and protean career, how do you get all the best bits on one label? This is perhaps the coolest, most definitively etched marriage of melody and latin rhythm ever achieved, and it was achieved by the towering genius of Tom Jobim’s tunes and spare piano accompaniment, Gilberto’s uniquely intimate voice and guitar, a rhythm section that breathes life and colour, all of it topped by the supreme melodist, Stan Getz.