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

To me a very interesting choice for number 1 in a jazz poll. IASW, is not only jazz at the heights of abstraction and verging on "ambient", it was if i understand correctly very much shaped after the fact in the studio by Teo Macero's tape manipulation, Splicing and looping the bands source material. Which of coarse leeds to all kinds of ideas about the ascendance of the studio as an instrument, sampling and electronic music in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

It is also just an incredible Beautiful album

ok? i dont see how that implies i said there was no case to be made for it being good, in a general sense

jesus christ do I need to diagram this sentence for you, aren't you paid to write wtf

kind of blue for example actually has a case for being the best Miles album, a love supreme isnt even close to being the best trane record

the way this is written, the first phrase implies that the subject of the second phrase does not meet the same criteria, ie does not have a case to be made

xp

aaaanyway

kinda weird top 5 here - all great records but placings seem off to me. I like IaSW fine but it doesn't stand out to me like some of his other electric work does. is it just because it was first/shock of the new? I dunno

I'm looking forward to seandalai's poll of spiritual hats from the top 250 poll!

To me a very interesting choice for number 1 in a jazz poll. IASW, is not only jazz at the heights of abstraction and verging on "ambient", it was if i understand correctly very much shaped after the fact in the studio by Teo Macero's tape manipulation, Splicing and looping the bands source material. Which of coarse leeds to all kinds of ideas about the ascendance of the studio as an instrument, sampling and electronic music in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Yep, supposedly there was only 16 minutes that Miles wanted to use, so Macero rearranged them into 30+ minutes. The box is utterly fascinating; you can hear the unedited performances, and whole major frequently-repeated themes are left on the cutting room floor (to Joe Zawinul's frustration).

btw shakey look at the # of points. It was really close. There was never really a huge jump in points between each album.

one more time for reading comprehension, this is what I originally took issue with:
kind of blue for example actually has a case for being the best Miles album, a love supreme isnt even close to being the best trane record

― I can feel it in my spiritual hat (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, September 2, 2011 5:13 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah i mean ... this is my opinion? i think im right? obv in a literal sense anyone can make a case for anything. imo, there isnt a case to be made for ALS being trane's best record, to me, because i dont think its quite as good as village vanguard, live at birdland, etc,

this is a separate argument from my contention that w/in jazz discourse there's a general sentiment (or had been, at any rate, w the bulk of the writing i had read) that 'a love supreme,' despite being his most popular record, wasn't really his finest accomplishment.

this doesnt mean that i said NO CRITICS HAVE EVER MADE THE CASE

Awesome poll, happy with the #1, the whole top 10 in fact, great work. In A Silent way is just so beautiful, much as I love the later electric Miles albums I really think there's something special and perfect about that one. Also so much stuff to investigate - especially keen to check out the many Blue Note albums here I don't already know. Definitely doing some CD shopping tomorrow!

I wish unperson would post his thoughts on In A Silent Way

"Which of coarse leeds" is some kind of creative use of english huh?

i do think this is a v interesting no. 1 -- not partic spiritual hat, but not trad either. def doesnt fight the miles dominance of the poll tho lol

when i saw the first miles record that placed i was like, whoa, this is gonna be miles-heavy, but didnt realize how much so

fwiw i def prefer KoB & think there's a particularly unique & invigorating period for jazz that still retained a uniquely jazz sensibility, that didnt need to incorporate the encroaching populism of rock / funk etc., and for that reason remains probably the high water mark of miles' career to me

Aaaaand... relax. Thanks, Kerr and seandalai.

I love Mingus but have somehow never managed to hear the #2 album, so I hereby give carte blanche to everyone to tell me that my hep level is weak.

I love Miles but really, he's over-represented here at the cost of excluding others

but whatever

i dont think thats partic unusual emil.y! i def got into mingus through other records, was surprised when i saw it cropping up on like pfork or whatever

I love Miles but really, he's over-represented here at the cost of excluding others

but whatever

― I can feel it in my spiritual hat (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, September 2, 2011 5:27 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah theres def a depth over breadth thing to the poll

im glad its miles, though

agree w/deej on KoB. If an alien asked me what jazz is, I'd play him KoB 1st. feel free to make a sun ra-alien joke here.

well, with Black Saint, it's almost like A Love Supreme -- maybe a rockist kinda thing? Not saying that in a negative way but maybe Black Saint is more of an "album" -- a cohesive whole, a concept-y record.

yah but so is the bulk of his catalog. im just wondering how this became ~the one~

it's got a very pretty cover with a quote on it

pretty sweet hat too

"Ascent" and "Early Minor" off of the complete IASW sessions are also beauties.

v earthy hat

yeah black saint is a statement whereas others may be easier to see as a collection of tunes

These artists had the following # of albums in the 250 (might be acts with 4 or 5 missing so its not definitive)

Sonny Rollins - 4
Alice Coltrane - 5
Grant Green - 5
Ornette Coleman -
Archie Shepp - 7
Pharoah Sanders -
Thelonious Monk - 8
Charles Mingus - 9
Sun Ra - 11
Herbie Hancock - 13
John Coltrane - 23
Miles Davis - 31

"Which of coarse leeds" is some kind of creative use of english huh?

Leeds can be pretty coarse on a Friday night

yeah black saint is a statement whereas others may be easier to see as a collection of tunes

rockism

Alice Coltrane had 5, I think.

miles davis vs the beatles would still get thrashed in an ILM poll, right?

rockism yes, someone already said that

man alice coltrane's star has def risen

Thanks to everyone for voting and discussing, I certainly learned a lot from the poll. I don't really want to get into the big metafight, but as a confirmed member of the spiritual hat club I do see where deej etc. are coming from - while I do love a wide spectrum of jazz, the dominant aesthetic through which I appreciate music is one that originally comes from listening to other genres rather than through a formal or informal "jazz education".

But as has been pointed out, it's an ILM poll. If we ran a classical music poll, nobody would be surprised when some posters dissent from the general consensus that Reich and Cage have more top-100 compositions than Mozart.

rockism yes, someone already said that

rockist to point this out imo

by which i mean i should have read the thread

thnx sd -- fwiw i felt like the discussion was worthwhile & i enjoyed hearing some ppl's perspectives on it for sure incl some of those who disagreed

rock is the best, though let's be real
rock vs. jazz poll coming soon.

haha oh god imagine a composers poll? (actually that would be a great poll and would be very enlightening ) but imagine the fighting

Year # of albums
1947 1
1950 1
1953 1
1954 3
1956 7
1957 17
1958 11
1959 10
1960 12
1961 14
1962 11
1963 18
1964 19
1965 18
1966 15
1967 13
1968 7
1969 17
1970 11
1971 8
1972 8
1973 7
1974 6
1975 6
1976 1
1977 1
1978 1
1980 1
1986 1
1990 1
1991 1
1994 1
2002 1

Bit of a blip in 1968 - what went wrong?

oh cool, thanks NickB! (fancy doing record labels? haha)

lack of charlie parker is understandable -- other than massey hall, right? but he's not an album dude. but the real great one is the 1945 Town Hall show. like the monk/coltrane discovery, this is one that delivers on the hype.

Meant to say to include labels when you started the run down :( xp

id say 'parker w/ strings' could have made my top 150 or so

I voted for The Charlie Parker Story, even though the false starts outnumber the complete takes.

gimme 10 mins then i'll post the whole 500 or whatever it was

Anyhow, after years of not really listening to any jazz at all, this has definitely reignited my interest. TBH I thought this was a v. crazy idea and was totally O_O when I saw you were doing a top 250, but there are some interesting looking things throughout the whole rundown, so thanks a lot for doing this Kerr!

think i'm most sad that Louis and Duke's "Great Summit" didn't make it :((((

That's a great one (thought I didn't vote for it). Far better than I expected it would be.

Like I said, nothing particularly insightful is going to come from me but despite everything I would not hesitate in sending this link to anyone who wanted to know "what are 250 jazz albums that I should listen to?" This isn't a Downbeat poll. It's a bunch of nerds on ILX so of course it's going to be a little skewed but I love it.

But to add to the list of racist oversights, no Gerry Mulligan? C'mon, now.

Smaller polls like top 50s/100s miss out on a lot of really great but 'niche' albums as 'canonical' albums dominate. Which means no-one really learns anything apart from newbies. But the fact a lot of the jazz d-bag thread regs said they learned lots of new albums validates it. Just because an album isn't in the top 50 doesn't mean it's not worthwhile, that goes for any genre.
Obviously I didn't decide on a top 250 til seandalai sent me the results and realised it could be done. So thanks to all of you who voted and made it possible. Especially those who did the full 100 ballots. That was awesome. The jazz fans might be a tiny niche on ILM but they sure are dedicated.