You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - A List of Lists

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Adam and Peter talk "Best Of's" and who's got the top list of best Jazz albums ever made. You can find OS' list right here!You can find The New Yorker's list right here!Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey. Some people's wheelhouse has a wheelhouse. Yes. In this case, we're going to make a list of our lists. A list of lists. A list of lists. We're making lists, and we're going to talk about who's been naughty and nice.

We're checking them once. We're checking them once. Just once. They're very loosely. I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at Podcast. Jazz Explained.

Explained. Brought to you by Open Studio. Go to Open Studio. Jazz.com for a deeper dive on all this. Peter, we are... We're looking at lists. We're looking at the bet. We were just talking yesterday about, you know, what it takes for a jazz album to hit the mainstream.

Right. And so during that conversation, you got on your little Google machine. My Google machine, I Googled it. And you Googled. I don't know what you were Googling. Well, I Googled, and we might even not be coordinated. First of all, warning, warning, warning, you know, they have the warning that you're going to be light strobes. Yeah.

Warning, this could be a little bit of a sloppy mess of an episode, or it can end up being one of most brilliant episode. I think it's going to be amazing. I don't think it's going to land anywhere in the middle, just to warn you. Yeah, so what we're going to do today is look at, you know, there's a lot of clutter online. There's a lot of lists of the greatest jazz albums of all time. Yeah. We're going to rate them, right? Yeah, we are. We're going to judge them. There's a, so, should we start with this one from jazz wise?

We could start with that. Now, full disclosure, we might not have even Googled this. What did you Google? I googled, I googled greatest jazz albums of all time. Okay, I googled biggest jazz records ever. Biggest, like large prints. Well, I think we got to sort of, what was the first thing that you saw when you Google? What was like, what came up? The 50 bet, the jazz fuel? Yeah, jazz fuel.

Okay, so jazz fuel seems to never heard of the site. I haven't either. I cannot. I'll be honest. I haven't heard of most of these sites. That's right. Jazz-wise, I don't know. I think it's a magazine.

We're going to get to at the end a couple that I have heard of that I think are kind of actually useful. But the idea is that with these greatest, biggest, most important, and whatever desert island kind of records. I mean, it's a little bit, you know, they can be great discovery tools for somebody just coming to this. But I also think that, like, some of these are 75, 50, 100. I mean, you've got to have something in there,

which some of these do that, you know, even folks like us haven't heard of and our dear listeners, something that can kind of inform and maybe add to your jazz listening pleasure, I think. But we're going to start with the jazz fuel one, right? Let's start there. Okay.

So this is, The 50 best jazz albums of all time. Essential listening guide. Okay. So you're kind of, you're not, I mean, you're raising the bar, Matt Fripp. This is by Matt Fripp. Well, I'm not familiar with. Yeah.

But I feel like essential listening guide, is it going to be, so my question is, is this going to be super conservative? Like, oh, like nothing we can argue with or are there going to be some omissions that we're going to be rate Mr. Fripp with. Some prediction. Okay. Number one. Yeah.

K-O-B. Of course. course. It's just a matter of where it's going to land. I'm going to say it's number one on this particular list. This thing is so long, I haven't even gotten down there. In fact, if we find a list where KOB isn't number one? Yeah, I've already found a couple. Oh, really? Okay, because it's usually KOB and Love Supreme.

So what's Matt's list? Yeah, it's number one. Is it number one? Okay, great. It's hard to get down there. So the jazz fuel is listed in anti-hierarchial order. I don't know what that means. 50 to 1.

It starts with 50. They all are. Yeah. But this is a kind of funny thing. So number 50 is, we're not going to go through every one of these, but 50 is Ella Fitzgerald. Ella sings the Duke Allington song book. Now, that is an amazing record.

It's a really great record. I mean, one of Ella's, you know, I can name 20 records that are all, you know, that doesn't stand above it, but, I mean, her quality level obviously was so great. This is a great one. It's with Duke Allenton and the orchestra. So I don't have a problem with that. But if you're going to say the 50 greatest and then rank them, where number one is what we know it's going to be,

are there really 49 better records than this or is like one through 50 they're all equally essential? I think that's, I mean, you know, we're not shy about making our own list, Peter. And you know how hard it is to make a list? Yeah. It's really hard to make a list. And I'm sure you're thinking to as they're making this list like, you know, what's the most success? People are going to go down to number one. Yeah.

Right. I don't know. It's tough. That's a tough one. Yeah. It's just, it's a little bit. I almost feel like there shouldn't be. It should just be like these are the 50, 50.

50 you know subjective lists of 50 or 10 or whatever then why it's always number one why I know but it's just such a you know and then you know jaco pastoreas jaco of course that's an amazing record uh charlie christian loit you know but this this one's just a lot of the usual suspect so I would say this list and this is probably why it's at the top of you know dizzy galasmy McCoy real McCoy but then it goes to kurt Rosenwinkel interesting so Kurt is a little better than McCoy at 44 is McCoy Tyne of Real McCoy. Kurt Rosenwinkel.

Next step. Great record. Mark Turner's on that is killing. And then 42, Herbie Hancock made a voyage. So Herbie's a little better. Wow. Than Kurt Rosenwinkel, who's a little better than, I'm sorry. Am I projecting here?

You might be projecting a little bit, yeah. But I mean, this is the problem. Some controversy. But so if it were only classic 60s records and you didn't try to put in anything from the modern era, then you could get it accused of, you know what I'm saying? This is why I'm making a list. I think, I like your idea of not. non-numbered list. However, we have to remember, too, we're looking at sites that want traffic.

Yeah. And there's a reason why 50 is at the top of the page and number one is at the bottom. Right. You have to scroll all the way down there. Look at all those ads on the way. So I'm looking at jazz wise now. And I think this is much. Wait, just before we move on, I got to say full on jazz room, I'm just reading this because I didn't do any research on this. That's the other thing. Like if we screwed up or offending one, our apologies, full disclosure, we did no research. We just had this idea at the end of the last episode and just started pulling up sites. but jazz Mr. Jazz Fuel does say So as a result

Here's our updated selection of 50 essential Okay Which is fine That's your opinion essential But then he or she says Or dare we say it Best Jazz albums ever From some of the greatest

So now you put it out that you say That these are the 50 Bass which I feel like is You know whatever But these but I gotta say Piano starts here by Art Tatum I see what's going on I got no problem

Is there any Peter Martin Trio Alms in there In the 50 Best Here's why he's getting salty folks There you go There you go. Okay, jazz fuel is done. John Coltrane, Johnny Hart.

Okay, this is a pretty good list. Amad Jamal. This is conservative there. Michael Brecker Tales from the Hudson? Yeah. Hello, love it. Joe Henderson, inner urge. Okay, this is the greatest site ever.

So I'm on jazz-wise, and I'm pretty sure this is very Eurocentric because right after Jimmy Smith at number 32 is Jan Garberich. Do you know Jan Garberic? Jan Garberic? Jan Garberic. Jan Garberic?

Yeah, you don't know Jan? I don't know Jan. Oh, yeah. Great. Awesome. Awesome. Number 33. So this is what I'm saying. This looks like, interestingly enough, we're going to get a little bit of the Euro spin here. Yeah. So this is kind of an interesting list.

Like, there are some albums on here. Billy Holiday Live at the Jazz Philharmonic. That's Chickoria, return to forever. Stan gets focused. See, this is what I'm saying. There's some albums on here that I don't think are even in our wheelhouse here, Peter. But that's kind of fun. It is kind of fun.

It is like exposing some new things. I feel like we should start our Spotify list, like of... Well, you know, we're going to come. I'm going to surprise you. You don't realize we actually have, I mean, it's credited to me, but I'm sure we spoke about this. We have on the open studio site a smaller list. Maybe we'll jump to that next. Seven essential jazz piano albums.

That's a good one. Have you ever heard of... Peter Brotsman-Octet? I have not. Yeah. Not familiar. Number 60. Okay.

Right? After, apparently, it's more essential than birth of the cool. Okay. Can we, are we enough on that side? Are we ready to jump off? Yeah, but you got some more things. I'm ready to jump off. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here we go, bestofjazz.org, which sounds like an important organization. Dot org makes me think of educational. Oh, this is a good. I found a really good. Okay, go ahead, good. Okay, you go that next. So the three greatest jazz.

albums of all time. I like this. They boiled it down to just three. I just found one for five. This is what I'm talking about. And this was written in 2022. So this year. Okay. So, and they're not numbered. It's just the three greatest. Now, this is, could also be the three biggest jazz albums of all time. See if you can guess it. Because this is just, these are probably the three biggest selling acoustic jazz records. So, and they're not numbered. But one is. K-O-B. Exactly. Two. Love Supreme. Love Supreme. Three, are you looking at the site? No, but I'm looking at a very similar one.

Three. Is it, Waltz for Debbie? Doobo do, do, do, baby, baby. Time out. Exactly. So that's just, you know, this is a good, but that's not a discovery type of thing. I have one here.

So on that same thing, this is from jazz observer.com. What are these sites? Jazz, a passion for music and travel. Jazz Observer. Hey, I have a passion for music and travel. I feel like that's, I have the same. Yeah. Jazz has been experience of resurgence.

while many have loyally followed the genre for decades, a younger audience is also embracing this eclectic expressive music. Yeah, that's right. Some of us. I'm not a fan of jazz, obviously. Regardless of which group you fall into or if you're somewhere in between spending time with the best jazz albums of all time is never a mistake.

Was this written in like 1987? I think so. And they don't have this listed at all. So this is just the five best jazz albums of all time. Jazz, I like the first one they list? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Second one, love Supreme. Now it gets a little interesting. Chick-Korea returned to forever. Okay. I like that. Big seller too, though. Big seller, for sure. Then Mingus Aham.

That shows up on a lot of these. Yeah, that's a good record. That's a big seller. I think the album cover. We should listen to that on the Sesh. Yeah. Let's get that going. That's a good one.

And then number five, but they're not numbered, but the last one is something else, kind of Adelaidea's something else. With Miles Davis on. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. I like these, I like much better.

the list of three and five. That takes a lot of confidence. But I feel like it's all going to be K-O-B-Luff Supreme. Yeah, yeah. And it's just, you know, whatever. Okay, so let's do one more. Let's do one more. Can we do two more if we include ours?

Okay, so we're going to jump to the Open Studio one because I forgot we had one. So in full disclosure, to be fair, we're going to rate and judge ourselves just as harshly. So this is seven essential jazz albums. We'll have links to, well, at least this one. I don't know about all of them. but this is open studio jazz.com slash seven essential jazz piano albums. And this is by me.

So I'm really put myself out there. Peter Martin gives a highly subjective list of his top seven jazz piano albums featuring Art Tatum, Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson. Can we just talk about how ridiculous it is we got this far into this episode before you realized you made one of these things?

I was like, we should do our own instead of like dumping on everybody. Do we make too much content? But look, I'm in the comments. Look, but then I've got at the very top of the list, Star Star. Disclamer. Highly subjective, many obvious omissions, and in no particular order. You're doing right. And I didn't just add that in. That's sitting right here. And this is seven. A list of seven? Seven, of course. Seven must listens. And I do have a number, but I say there is no particular order.

Okay. That would be something you might be interested. Yes. And I've tried to get a little. I remember when I did this. It was like specifically jazz piano records. Because I'm kind of like, how do you compare Lewis Armstrong, Hot Fives and Hot Sevens box set to. Some Bix. Yeah, well. No, that's what I'm saying. I'm in that genre to like monk or... To Brad Meldal solo, you know, whatever. I don't know. So this is just piano, jazz piano.

And this was really about like trying to help people. They're like, I want to be, I want to learn about jazz piano. I want to learn to play. I want to learn to listen or whatever. So number one, our Tatum piano starts here. That's number one. That's number one. But I said no particular order.

No particular order. Peter, you already have the best jazz list. Two, Keith Jared, facing you. This is amazing. This is incredible. The loniest small. Solo month, number three. Dude, I'm loving this so much.

Four, Herbie Hancock, River, the Joni letters. Well, this is the thing. It's not, no, no, no, but it's not maiden voyage. It's not, you know, like the obvious. It's a great record. You know what I mean? It's not secrets ever heard of it. No.

I know yours would have been secrets, right? It would just sort of been seven secrets. Amad Jamal, but not for me live at the Persian. Now, that's kind of an obvious one, but it's a great one. Now, Bill Evans, I mean, how can you not have him? I mean, you could not have him, but it would be an audition. Would you have interplay? Interplay, exactly.

a little bit of an offbeat thing and then also pulling in, you know. And then Oscar Peterson, I went with exclusively for my friends volume one, which is, you know, just some great stuff that I just love. So anyway, I'll fill that out there. Let's talk, man, yours is my favorite list, and I'm not just saying that. I do have one more that might supplant that one, just to tell you. The list, you mean? Yeah.

I just want to talk about this New Yorker list of 100 Essential Jazz albums. Oh, that's one else can talk about. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, this is actually really great because they have it in, Okay there You're right? This New Yorker list is great because they have it in chronological order

So number one Well sort of chronological order Not strict Not strict but I think it is kind of Number one is Fats Waller handful of keys Yeah 1922 to 1943 And then it's like you know

King Oliver three Like you were saying three to five Is all Louis Armstrong But I was This is funny because you're starting out with These aren't really albums These are like box sets, some of them. There's a little bit, I mean, it's very New Yorker of them, very inclusive.

You're going to like this because you're on this one. So I'm going back from the back. So this is where it gets really interesting. Yeah. Number 100, 2007, the Bill Charlotte Trio live at the Village Vanguard. Number 97, Joshua Redmond Quartet, Spirit of the Moment live at the Village Vanguard in 1995. You're on that one, Peter. Interesting.

Also from 1995, this is one of my favorite records that I discovered in the last year. Charlie Hayden and Hank Jones steal away. Yes, you exposed me to that record last year. It's a great record. This later half here... I guess it is sort of chronicle. Not strictly, though. Not strictly, but it is kind of like following definitely an era.

Also, this list, not that it makes it any less... And this is by David Remnick. But it's from 2008, so that's the reason you're not going to... Like, the last thing on here is Bill Charlotte Trio from 2007. That's a good record, by the way. Yeah. Live at the Village Vanguard. I mean, I got a little bit of a,

let me see if there's another, so. There are, it is. Okay, there's only one Winton Marcellus record, which is fine, no problem with that. But it's Live at the Village Vanguard from 1999. That is not, I don't think that's the greatest by far, Winton Marcellus record. It's really good, though.

But that's a little bit funny, but I like that, you know. But they're saying essential jazz record. So it's like, if you're going to have one Wintinthalas record, that's essential to your jazz collection. I'm not sure about that. Cassandra, traveling miles, fantastic. There's a couple other I could say, but that's great.

Keith Jarrett, Coln Concert. Of course, I'm partial to facing you, but you can't go wrong there. Again, the Chickory of Return to Forever, which we're seeing on some of the more all-star lists, but also these more thoughtful, nuanced lists, I would say. I like this one. Yeah.

I wasn't sure I would. I think I like it. We're going to link to this one and to ours. How about that? Does that work for you, Caleb? I see what you're saying stuff. So it's us, and we're parallel with the New Yorker. Exactly.

That's basically what you're saying. Well, the New Yorker one is much better of written. I'm sure. The font is better. But it's a different. Don't sell yourself short, Peter. No, no, no. It's 100 essential albums.

And ours is seven essential jazz piano albums. Yeah. So their list is awesome, by the way. If you're getting into set in jazz piano, it's a good one. But it's highly. But I mean, look, he's got two Eric Dolphys with one of your favorite, you know, out to lunch and out there. Out there, yeah.

You know. And then I love. Love this, the Coltrane. He's got four. I mean, this is a thoughtful list. Ascension, a lot of people don't know that record. Love Supreme, okay. Complete Village Vanguard recordings.

That's not an actual, I mean, that's like a put together. He's got Andrew Hill Smokestack. That's a killing choice. Yeah, very good. And let me see, he better have Betty Carter. Oh, yeah, he's got Betty Carter. Yeah. Betty Carr's finest hour.

That's a compilation. So my only problem with this list is that it's not. Not enough Peter Martin? No, it's, I don't, I can't believe I'm on this list. have been on us i do not need to be on an essential list i'm big thanks than i am but i mean no that it's a thousand a hundred a hundred essential jazz albums and compilations and box sets are great but i wouldn't consider them jazz albums like when such a great part of this genre is the amazing i mean a love supreme um uh i mean there's many you know um uh uh

ella fitzgerald and and with the duke only can orcs the duke unlington orcs These iconic records. Billy Holiday, Lady and Satin, Wint Marsalis, you know, Black Coats from the Underground, Kenny Garrett's songbook. I thought you were going to say

there's the lack of trombone. There should be some, I wonder if JJ Johnson. I think there's some JJ on here. Yeah, I would think so. And then there's some folks that, you know, Thelonious Monk set,

you know, three recordings. I mean, no, this is great. Birth of the Cool Miles, bags, groove, great, K-O-B, okay. So highlights from the plug nickel. Again, not really a record, but I don't have a problem with that because that's a great exploratory area. Biches brew, kind of an obvious choice from then.

I'm excited, man. I like this. All right. Well, check it out. You can check out a link to those lists here in the description of the podcast and the YouTube video. Don't forget to go and subscribe here if you're watching us on YouTube or if you're listening on the podcast. And leave us to speak pipe. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app.

That's right. Anything else, Pete? That's it. Until next time. You'll hear it. Thank you.