The Basic 49 +1 From CD Review

Definitive Jazz Library April 1990

Thomas Conrad Volume VI Number 8

Selections were based on musical permanence, not sound quality. I included only individual recordings (a couple are two-disc albums) and no multi-disc boxed sets. 1. Cannonball Adderley 2. Louis Armstrong 3. Count Basie 4. Clifford Brown 5. Ornette Coleman 6. John Coltrane 7. Miles Davis 8. Miles Davis 9. Eric Dolphy 10. Duke Ellington 11. Duke Ellington 12. Bill Evans 13. Bill Evans 14. Gil Evans 15. Tommy Flanagan 16. Benny Goodman 17. Charlie Haden & Carla Bley 18. Jim Hall 19. Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Benny Carter 20. Billie Holiday 21. Dave Holland Quintet 22. Ahmad Jamal 23. Keith Jarrett 24. Keith Jarrett 25. Michel Legrand 26. Mahavishu Orchestra 27. Charles Mingus 28. Hank Mobley 29. The Modern Jazz Quartet 30. Thelonious Monk 31. Thelonious Monk 32. Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane Somethin' Else The Hot Fives Volume 1 The Essential Count Basie Volume 1 Memorial Album At The Golden Circle Volume 1 A Love Supreme Kind Of Blue Sketches Of Spain At The Five Spot Volume 1 All Star Road Band At Newport At the Village Vanguard At The Montreux Jazz Festival Out Of The Cool Thelonica Live At Carnegie Hall The Ballad Of The Fallen Concierto Three Great Swing Saxophones The Verve Silver Collection The Razor's Edge At The Pershing Still Live The Koln Concert Legrand Jazz The Inner Mounting Flame Mingus At Antibes Workout The Complete Last Concert Genius of Modern Music Volume 1 Monk's Dream Blue Note 1958 Columbia 1925-6 Columbia 1939 Blue Note 1953 Blue Note 1965 MCA 1964 Columbia 1959 Columbia 1959-60 Prestige 1961 Doctor Jazz 1957 Columbia 1956 Riverside 1961 Polygram 1968 MCA 1960 Enja 1982 Columbia 1939 ECM 1982 CBS 1975 Bluebird 1929-46 Polygram 1956-7 ECM 1987 Vogue 1958 ECM 1986 ECM 1975 Phillips 1958 Columbia 1971 Atlantic 1960 Blue Note 1961 Atlantic 1974 Blue Note 1947 Columbia 1962 Prestige 1957

33. Wes Montgomery 34. David Murray 35. Oliver Nelson 36. James Newton 37. Charlie Parker 38. Joe Pass 39. Art Pepper 40. Art Pepper 41. Oscar Peterson 42. Michel Petrucciani Trio 43. Bud Powell 44. Don Pullen 45. Sonny Rollins 46. Horace Silver 47. Art Tatum 48. McCoy Tyner 49. Ben Webster Revised in CD Review Best Of Music 1992 +1. Miles Davis 48 Revised. McCoy Tyner

The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery Ming Blues And The Abstract Truth The African Flower The Savoy Recordings, Master Takes Volume1 Virtuoso Art Pepper Plus Eleven Winter Moon Nigerian Marketplace Live At The Village Vanguard The Amazing Bud Powell Volume1 The Sixth Sense Saxophone Colossus Blowin' The Blues Away The Best Of Art Tatum Double Trios Stormy Weather Winter 1992 The Complete Concert 1964 New York Reunion

Riverside 1960 Polygram 1980 MCA 1961 Blue Note 1985 Savoy 1944-8 Pablo 1974 Mobile Fidelity 1959 Fantasy 1979 Pablo 1981 Concord 1984 Blue Note 1949-52 Black Saint 1985 OJC 1956 Blue Note 1959 Pablo 1953-5 Denon 1986 Black Lion 1965

Columbia 1964 Chesky 1991

[Once you get the basic library together, you should treat yourself to a couple of those boxed collections...] Boxed Sets mentioned 1. Art Pepper 2. Miles Davis 3. Bill Evans 4. Thelonious Monk

Complete Galaxy Recordings Complete Prestige Recordings Complete Riverside Recordings and Complete Fantasy Recordings Complete Riverside Recordings

Mosaic Records mentioned Chet Baker (live and studio with Russ freeman), Paul Desmond (with Jim Hall), Cecil Taylor (on Candid), Gerry Mulligan (with Chet baker), among others...

Artists with Desert Island Discs Not Available to Conrad in 1992 Tadd Dameron (with Fats Navarro on Blue Note?), Woody Shaw (the Columbia dates?), Booker Ervin (the "Books" on OJC?), Akiyoshi/Tabackin Band (one of the RCA

Conrad's comments

lbums) and no multi-disc boxed sets. Just a pick up session, but it was definitely somethin' else As unignorable a part of history as the Dead Sea Scrolls The Basie to start with And you thought you'd heard trumpet A very warm night in Sweden It's transfixing to be in the presence of this clamorous spiritual aspiring The Muse spoke the night they made this transcendent album The greatest of the great collaborations with Gil Evans and the orchestra. Davis described it as "like one big guitar" Dolphy and Booker Little, two masters at the height of their powers, at a long-defunct jazz club, on a summer night that will never be forgotten You can go home again - if you used to live in Carroltown, PA The night has passed into mythology, the music lives Musical discourse elevated to a great art You and I should have been there The most sublime and hypnotic big band jazz album ever made The very best work of this ultimate accompanist was done in the service of others, but Thelonica is representative "A landmark of recorded music" "a milestone"......... you get the idea An act of the imagination so fully realized that before it is over, the fallen are all of us In addition to being a masterpiece, this one stone takes care of two additional birds, Paul Desmond and Chet Baker Perhaps no other single CD contains so much significant jazz history, and the sound quality is a technological breakthrough Exceptional sonic quality, immortal accompanists, and the voice that could contain all of the human predicament Jazz as perpetually new and sleek and purely competent as next year's Porsche When you keep going back to it over the course of thirty years, it must be more than cocktail piano A gorgeous live concert recording of standards that are part of our culture's "tribal language" I tried to leave it out, but it just wouldn't go Cannonball, Ben, Miles and an incredible arrangement out of la belle France Fusion peaked early - about 1971 Eric Dolphy, Booker Ervin and wild inspiration on the south coast of France The most underappreciated tneor saxophone in the history of Jazz You've got to have MJQ in the library, and this is the one to have Be present at the creation of, as the title says "modern music" - very modern music Yes it's on Columbia. Yes it's late. Yes it's a masterpiece Triumphant synergism

It blew everybody's mind then, it'll blow your mind now Avant-garde radicalism steeped in history A famous classic that deserves its famous status Some permanent works of Duke Ellington, nine of the most important players of the 80s, and an exalted level of creativity None are quite right, but you've got to have one Bird For guitar players, listening is instant humility As perfect as improvised jazz ever gets, recorded by the greatest engineer of his era, Roy DuNann You should have one with strings, and this is perhaps the most satisfying jazz album with strings ever made How to choose one from an output so enormous and so consistently excellent Piano trio jazz like music of the spheres Sit rapt in the presence of inexplicable genius No one very famous, just consistent compositional and improvisory excellence on the near fringe of the avant garde The art of the saxophone has not evolved much beyond this point in time - 1956 The actual unadulterated truth It's monumentally presumptuous for a single disc to make this title's claim, but it is anyway From Tyner's awesome body of work,pick the one of the top four or five that is the best recorded There's not a lot on CD under his own name, and this is really how he sounded

[This concert] may not be Miles' greatest concert, but it is the greatest concert ever recorded McCoy and tenor guru Joe Henderson at the top of their respective games, and sonic quality that really is (I apologize for the phrase) state of the art

het baker), among others...

Akiyoshi/Tabackin Band (one of the RCA albums?)