JAZZ IS LIKE HEROIN TO ME ! ! ! ~~~~ ILM POST-1945 JAZZ ALBUMS POLL - THE RESULTS COUNTDOWN (now counting top 25!)

68    Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes - Astral Traveling (1973) 1048 Points, 11 votes
http://losslessjazz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Lonnie-Liston-Smith-The-Cosmic-Echoes-Astral-Traveling-1973-FLAC.jpeg
http://open.spotify.com/album/4H9dvIFBlaTY8LbBmSTFjX

Oliver Nelson, same guy who wrote the theme to The Six Million Dollar Man.

Oliver Nelson was one of my top picks. I'm off to catch a plane, have fun!

yay for lonnie liston smith making it

Okay, that's one I am completely clueless about. The name sounds kind of familiar, but just pseudo-familiar since I have zero associations with it.

haw, more spiritual hats.
that one is good, pretty groovy vibe, spacey keys.

id be surprised if he doesnt make it again

I know Lonnie Smith from various soul/jazz sorta things, but this is a different dude iirc

yeah he played on thembi and karma

on the corner too

"Expansions" will make it i'd imagine

yeah thats what i was thinking. although once again i think of that as more a disco / pop album than a jazz one

67    Hank Mobley - Roll Call (1960)  1049 (Points) 10 votes, One #1
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kurtmkGQja1qaq8flo1_500.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/2wXfYEZKGQlfy2hKZbwtU7

hoped that would be much higher

really guys, check it out

66    John Coltrane - Meditations (1965) 1069 Points, 9 votes, One #1 
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IyDZgXq8QH0/SdBzSe3CMPI/AAAAAAAACkg/HNOUFFyAqVs/s400/John+Coltrane+-+Meditations.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/3suMuCIVtRVI6quioihY23

Seconding the 'The Blues and the Abstract Truth' love. Amazing title track. Really hoping Search for the New Land (Lee Morgan) makes this list.

really guys, check it out

never paid much attention to Mobley, listening to this now... pretty nice

Oliver Nelson, same guy who wrote the theme to The Six Million Dollar Man.
--Geirge Hongriot (NickB)

Is Sonny Sharrock the only post-1980 album on the list so far? (Not that I expect there'll be many to come. A post-'80 poll would be interesting, but I guess would get a lot fewer votes.)

Or guess I should say albums, forgot that was the second Sharrock on here.

Meditations was my #1. That record had a profound effect on me when I was in my teens, listening to that was such a great physical and emotional experience.

Think he got burned out working in Tinseltown, at least that's the story I heard

Yeah, he died shortly afterwards of a heart attack at the age of 43.

im not sure, but pretty funny if it is considering everyone said to do an all-time instead of 1950-75 poll as i had intended

xps

and now for the 3rd album in a row with a #1

65    Cecil Taylor - Conquistador (1966) 1071 Points, 10 votes, ON.E # 1 
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JI310rDTx90/S8S1-GMH-OI/AAAAAAAAAuA/lLht3FmSwe8/s320/booklet-outside-foldedkicsi.jpg
http://open.spotify.com/album/69OZHsomLpQigZdQuTWHqx

That's... not one of my Cecil Taylor favorites.

the cool thing about jazz is how it all connects on some (higher) plane, don't forget sun ra played w/fletcher henderson's big band

i envy anybody who hasn't heard blues & the abstract truth - you're in for a treat

haha yes

speaking of oliver nelson arrangements i wonder if sonny rollins' alfie will place?

Anyone noticed that there's only been 1 Sun Ra album today?

but guess what?

he's not up next

64 Ornette Coleman - Change of the Century (1960) 1083 points, 10 votes
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HmvaR5cGW80/TIqDVgCNUEI/AAAAAAAAAXM/om0QJ92U2Co/s1600/change.jpeg
http://open.spotify.com/album/0ME2xPIm65f5cJve3ALqdi

i definitely voted for this one

oh it seems i didn't.. dont know why

going over this thread and listening to nothing but jazz in the last couple days - I've realized I have very little understanding/conception of the jazz audience of the 60s. I kind of assume jazz reached its commercial/popular peak much earlier (I know Miles' best-selling albums were in the 60s, but the ubiquity of jazz as a dominant style seems undeniable for earlier eras like the 20s-40s than it does for the 60s, what with r'n'r in the picture), but as a genre the general consensus represented here is that the aesthetic/artistic peak was in the late 50s through the 60s. This is when a lot of the essential ingredients of jazz - swing, improvisation, acoustic ensemble playing - became really intensely refined. But exactly how popular was, say, a giant like John Coltrane...? I have no idea. And who bought these records? Middle-class black people, white "intellectuals"...? I can't really see Hank Mobley and Grant Green appealling much to teenagers, the whole Blue Note vibe is one of adult sophistication, for example.

i voted for 4 of his so i guess it got culled from 5

I wish we could all have just voted for the "Beauty is a Rare Thing" compilation. I didn't feel comfortable voting for any Ornette album on its own, haha. I feel that way about Cecil Taylor, too... nothing feels fully representative.

like I would guess the genre skewed older and richer...? Black kids were being sold r&b, motown, etc. and white kids were being peddled a combination of pop and rock, I kinda can't imagine jazz was even on the menu for most younger music consumers...

xp

(Though I did vote for Ornette & Cecil albums)

but then jazz was sold to rock fans after that shakey

xp yeah i sort of wonder about jazz audiences, too -- obviously people like miles and coltrane were big cultural figures, but a lot of the time they'd be playing these tiny clubs! there must've been a disconnect between people who bought records and people who went out to gigs for whatever reason.

I wish we could all have just voted for the "Beauty is a Rare Thing" compilation.

agree, all of those early ornette albums are great, but they sort of seem like one big album to me

Exactly.

I don't think Coltrane was ever that popular among the general populace... A Love Supreme was considered a hit album by 60s jazz standards, but it didn't sell quite as much as the big rock and pop albums of the era. I think even back then Coltrane was mainly listened by "serious", highbrow jazz fans; the big, popular jazz hits of the 60s were more melody and/or groove oriented, like "Watermelon Man", or "The 'In' Crowd", or "Mercy Mercy Mercy".

obviously people like miles and coltrane were big cultural figures, but a lot of the time they'd be playing these tiny clubs

exactly I find this perplexing, this ability to occupy a "serious" and well-preserved cultural space while... not really selling all that many records or being all that popular...? how does that work? seems like anything comparable would be totally impossible today. but maybe I'm underestimating how much Miles and Coltrane sold. certainly I can see how they would have something of an appeal to a casual, adult, well-educated middle class music listener, but uh how many of those were there in America really...

but then jazz was sold to rock fans after that shakey

after what...? Bitches Brew?

coltrane "crossed over" with my favorite things, but i think he just used that as leverage for the rest of his career to do what he wanted, as opposed to repeating the formula ad nauseam. though i suppose there are a few attempts at another "favorite things" in his catalog -- greensleeves, chim chim cheree, etc.

How it was explained to me in a 20th century music class: bebop's complexity and undanceability, while they were musical advances, were bad news for the form economically from the late 40s on. As jazz switched from a dance music to a chamber music, R&B and rock and roll claimed their audiences.

loads of xposts