Rolling 2011 thread where I buy and listen to jazz albums for the first time ever

tbh i say wait on sun ra. hes got a massive discography & a lot of it makes more sense in the context of having heard more jazz

Will probably wait on the Sun Ra singles set because it's $18.99 and I can buy 4-5 other discs for that price. But good to know as a heads up. To someone who's familiar with the track listing, are those mostly early Sun Ra recordings/singles, then?

it gives a good overview of his career & suggests diff directions for u to follow. hes the rare exception to the albums >>> comps rules in jazz, imo, as an introduction goes

thats an xp to my own post

OTM. great record, unique in his catalog (though disco 3000 is comparable, i guess

oh I dunno I think it's of a piece with several others - On Jupiter, Strange Celestial Road, Sleeping Beauty. Lanquidity is probably the out and out funkiest though.

ilxor that singles set is almost entirely early stuff - I haven't heard it yet as I said but I doubt it's representative. Kinda hard to imagine anything that's really representative of the scope of his ouevre - even moreso than Miles, he really went all over the place

other good intro sun ra, fwiw:

space is the place (album w the blue cover, not the film soundtrack, which is iffy)
sound of joy

both excellent and very accessible, the former more psychedelic and expansive, the latter indicative of his early traditionalism

best song on lanquidity imo is 'thats how i feel'. other songs are good but that song is impeccable & beautiful

Miles Smiles is easy to recommend for "Footprints" alone.

Hours of great recommendations on this thread already, but can I just say --

Sonny Sharrock - Guitar
Duke Ellington - The Blanton-Webster Band
...and dig around a little in Louis Armstrong's early discography, Complete Hot Fives and Hot Sevens or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I think it's of a piece with several others... Lanquidity is probably the out and out funkiest though.

yeah, i meant unique in terms of the funk/groove elements. also present to some degree on disco 3000, which isn't half as successful, overall.

sun ra's 'on jupiter' is actually way more danceable & straight-up (drunk) disco-y than disco 3000 ime

Fifteen Sun Ra recommendations to date... all over the place, just like his albums.

Sun Ra Angels and Demons at Play
Sun Ra Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
Sun Ra Disco 3000
Sun Ra Greatest Hits: Easy Listening for Intergalactic Travel
Sun Ra Jazz in Silhouette
Sun Ra Lanquidity
Sun Ra On Jupiter
Sun Ra Outer Space Employment Agency
Sun Ra The Singles
Sun Ra Sleeping Beauty
Sun Ra The Solar-Myth Approach
Sun Ra Sound of Joy
Sun Ra Space Is the Place
Sun Ra Spaceship Lullaby
Sun Ra Strange Celestial Road

Sun Ra Greatest Hits: Easy Listening for Intergalactic Travel

^^this one itself covers a bunch of his albums. def go for this 1st & figure out which 'era' you like the best

imho

no-ones mentioned heliocentric world of?

imo when someone asks for jazz recommendations & we spend half the thread going on about sun ra we are basically off topic

Nope, because I said in my original thread post:

Stuff I picked up tonight (never heard any of these before, will listen soon):

Miles Davis - Nefertiti
Miles Davis - On the Corner
Sun Ra - The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume One

― ilxor, Wednesday, January 19, 2011 9:29 PM (2 days ago)

(xp to Algerian Goalkeeper there)

there's volume 2 though

i think they were the 1st sun ra i ever bought (on vinyl too)

sun ra's 'on jupiter' is actually way more danceable & straight-up (drunk) disco-y than disco 3000 ime

guess i oughtta track it down. *sigh* so much ra...

Speaking of Ra, I'm about to listen to "Strange Strings" for the first time...

imo when someone asks for jazz recommendations & we spend half the thread going on about sun ra we are basically off topic

fair enough. he's a cult unto himself, but i do love him. funny that we've had like 50 posts on sun ra and only a small handful on like duke ellington and louis armstrong. this is ILM, though, so no surprise.

I also mentioned upfront that I'm pretty well versed in kraut/space/psych rock and free/psych-folk idioms, so I think (hope!) many of the Sun Ra recommendations are being made with that kept in mind as well.

I'd figure one could draw lines between Sun Ra --> Parliament/Funkadelic --> Sonic Youth --> OutKast (or something similar) as well, which would be in line with my (and other ILX folks') listening habits and tastes.

Sun Ra --> Parliament/Funkadelic --> Sonic Youth --> OutKast (or something similar)

deej gave me shit for doing this on some other thread fwiw

but yeah would be happy if people went off about various Duke albums

been meaning to get Black and Tan Fantasy for awhile

Are those two different albums -- Black; Tan Fantasy -- or one album called Black and Tan Fantasy?

(Yes I realize I could've just Googled that but I'd obviously rather flaunt my ignorance.)

Keep in mind I'm approaching jazz from the standpoint of loving stuff like krautrock, psych rock, "weird" folky stuff that gets a bit drone-y at times.
enthusiastically second In A Silent Way! (also Filles de Kilimanjaro)
although Herbie Hancock's Sextant is a great and logical recommendation, the Headhunters record might be a better place to start (SO many people love this record upon first listen)
Weather Report's Mysterious Traveller (if only for "Cucumber Slumber")
Sun Ra's Languitity (mentioned already?)
Dave Douglas (interesting mix of tradition and experimental electronics on "Freak In"...)
Ornette's "Dancing in Your Head", "Of Human Feelings", and "Body Meta" (those last two will be tough to find, but worth the search)

Black & Tan Fantasy is one record.

If you're trying to invent a line from Sun Ra to Sonic Youth and non-jazz improvised music (beyond philosophical inspiration), Strange Strings might make sense as a waypoint:

After finishing a series of concerts of New York State colleges sponsored by ESP, Sun Ra decided to assemble a number of stringed instruments bought from curio shops and music stores. Ukuleles, Mandolins, Kotos, Koras, Chinese Lutes and 'Moon Guitars' were handed out to his reed and horn players in the belief that 'strings could touch people in a special way, different from other instruments [3].' The point was that the Arkestra didn't know how to play them - Sun Ra called it 'a study in ignorance.' [3]

'Next they prepared a number of homemade instruments, including a large piece of tempered sheet metal with an "X" chiseled on it. Then they miked the Sun Columns.

'Marshall Allen said that when they began to record the musicians asked Sun Ra what they should play, and he answered only that he would point to them when he wanted them to start. The result is an astonishing achievement, a musical event which seems independent of all other musical traditions and histories.... The piece is all texture, with no sense of tonality except where Art Jenkins sings through a metal megaphone with a tunnel voice. But to say that the instruments seem out of tune misses the point, since there is no "tune", and in any case the Arkestra did not know how to tune most of the instruments...'

It's surprisingly listenable.

Sun Ra --> Parliament/Funkadelic --> Sonic Youth --> OutKast (or something similar)

deej gave me shit for doing this on some other thread fwiw

― ex-heroin addict tricycle (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, January 21, 2011 1:28 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i know there's a strain of listener who likes all of these things but Shakey Mo's Black People Should Get Off This Planet mix doesnt per se outline influence or significance to anyone but shakey mo & the niche of similar listeners

... aaaaaand let's cut the Sun Ra influences discussion there, before we derail this thread completely. :)

btw i haven't seen it mentioned in this thread, so i will mention it (because it completely blew my mind in high school):

john coltrane - live at birdland

― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Friday, 21 January 2011 18:25 (1 hour ago)

Yeah same. This was another one of those less "essential" records I heard first and loved. Oh, btw, MY FAVORITE THINGS -- great, great jazz record for a jazz noob.

Similarly, I heard Milestones way before Kind of Blue and I still think I may like it better.

Birdland has that awesome sounding slightly out of tune piano.

yeah my favorite things (the track, then the whole album) was probably the jazz gateway drug for me. never ever gets old.

I mean I'm going to troll a little here, but given the choice between Sun Ra's entire discography and just My Favorite Things as the only music I have to listen to, I would unquestionably take the latter

ill cosign 'live at birdland,' anythin w/ afro blue x alabama is gonna be unstoppable

I also like Coltrane's Sound better than Giant Steps

Shakey Mo's Black People Should Get Off This Planet mix ...

― *gets the power* (deej), Friday, January 21, 2011 11:50 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

ffs, dude

ha thats a play on an old shakey mo post

duh, okay. scanned more aggro than necessary.

(seriously I would totally flip my shit right now if there were some rap act saying "black people got to get off this fuckin planet and into space - and here's the music to go along with it")

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, April 12, 2006 5:58 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think significance (or maybe i should say relevance) changes depending on context and audience. like it's reasonable here to tailor recommendations and discussion to the musical world of the admittedly krautrockin ilxor. like more sun ra & coltrane, less art tatum.

I would totally flip my shit right now if there were some rap act saying "black people got to get off this fuckin planet and into space - and here's the music to go along with it"

plus shut the fuck up, me, cuz that's obviously what sun ra was saying, and just as obviously what you were referring to. i can't think sometimes...

Skimming through here: just chip in that giving Ascension a go as a first record by Coltrane is completely fine as you pretty much know he did lots of different things. Just as Ra making singles isn't at all strange.

Good stuff. I've noted that it's probably not the best entry point to Coltrane, but may give it a whirl anyway if it's the first record of his I happen to stumble onto for a fair price. And anyway, I don't plan to hear any one record, say Ascenion by Coltrane, and flip the "off" switch on exploring his other stuff if I don't enjoy it. I'm in this for the long haul, and it goes without saying that most of the musicians mentioned here did lots of different albums that may sound vastly different from one another.

I agree Duke Ellington has been under-represented on the thread so far. Armstrong too, but that's a pretty big leap back in the time machine for somebody starting from krautrock and psych.

I was trying to remember how I got from Bitches Brew (the first jazz album I bought) to '30s, '40s, and '50s jazz. I think maybe Miles' records with Gil Evans, Sketches of Spain in particular, made it easier for me to appreciate Ellington's big band sound. I got the Ken Burns Ellington compilation, wore that out for while, then started getting more Ellington. After that I was able to get more out of Armstrong, Parker, Monk, Coltrane, etc. than I had before.

Did you like Bitches Brew at first? I remember coming at it from jazz, I found it hard to listen to. There may also have been something flat about the remaster I had. Then one night I was driving around with a friend and he put on one of those Complete Bitches Brew Sessions discs, and the whole thing totally opened up for me. The non-BB material kind of helped me enjoy the BB stuff more. But the whole thing also sounded more open and had more sonic depth than I remembered.

Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges - side by side
get this for the sweets edison solo on 'stompy jones'

Re Miles, I'd suggest In a Silent Way (xpost -- more ambient) and Jack Johnson (more rocking) as really accessible points of entry.

100% cosign.