by John Lawrence
Intro to Jazz:101 can be found here. The next 5 most important and/or best selling jazz albums are the following.
#6 Dave Brubeck: Time Out
Like many or the greatest jazz albums, this one was also released in 1959. One of the best selling jazz albums, this album featured compositions based on unusual time signatures for jazz such as 9/8. Take Five, a tune by saxophonist Paul Desmond, became a popular hit and part of the basic jazz repertoire. Take Five was in 5/4 time signature. According to Desmond, "[Take Five] was never supposed to be a hit. It was supposed to be a Joe Morello drum solo."
Paul Desmond's real last name was Breitenfeld. Like composer Jimmy Van Heusen (Here's That Rainy Day), he picked a name out of a phone book he liked better. The Brubeck group exemplified the cool, west coast sound.
Dave Brubeck was the composer of In Your Own Sweet Way, a beautiful ballad that has become a jazz standard. Some of his other great albums are Dave Digs Disney and Gone With the Wind.
Dave was one of the first jazz artists to sense the potential of getting gigs at college and universities. His wife, Iola, was his booking agent, and together they made a great and successful team.
In 2005, Time Out was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. It was also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Brubeck attended the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Later, Brubeck was nearly expelled when one of his professors discovered that he could not read music on sight. Several of his professors came forward, arguing that his ability to write counterpoint and harmony more than compensated, and demonstrated his familiarity with music notation. The college was still afraid that it would cause a scandal, and agreed to let Brubeck graduate only after he had promised never to teach piano.
According to Wikipedia, Brubeck organized the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951, with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone. They took up a long residency at San Francisco's Black Hawk nightclub and gained great popularity touring college campuses, recording a series of albums with such titles as Jazz at Oberlin (1953), Jazz at the College of the Pacific (1953), and Brubeck's debut on Columbia Records, Jazz Goes to College (1954).
In 1954, he was featured on the cover of Time, the second jazz musician to be so honored (the first was Louis Armstrong on February 21, 1949). Brubeck personally found this accolade embarrassing, since he considered Duke Ellington more deserving of it and was convinced that he had been favored for being Caucasian.
In 1958 African-American bassist Eugene Wright joined for the group's U.S. Department of State tour of Europe and Asia. Wright became a permanent member in 1959, making the "classic" Quartet's personnel complete. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Brubeck canceled several concerts because the club owners or hall managers continued to resist the idea of an integrated band on their stages. He also canceled a television appearance when he found out that the producers intended to keep Wright off-camera.
#7 Charles Mingus: Tijuana Moods
Charles Mingus was one of the major innovators of jazz. He was a bassist, composer and band leader. He played with many of the innovators of bebop including Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. A famous recording, Jazz at Massey Hall, included them, Bud Powell and Max Roach. There are several Mingus recordings that might have been included in the top ten. I chose Tijuana Moods because it's my favorite. Frequently mentioned also is the Mingus album, Mingus Ah Um, also recorded in the vintage year 1959, which includes the famous tunes Goodbye Pork Pie Hat and Fables of Faubus.
Another album from this period, The Clown, the title track of which features narration by humorist Jean Shepherd, was the first to feature drummer Dannie Richmond, who remained his preferred drummer until Mingus's death in 1979. The two men formed one of the most impressive and versatile rhythm sections in jazz. Both were accomplished performers seeking to stretch the boundaries of their music while staying true to its roots. When joined by pianist Jaki Byard, they were dubbed "The Almighty Three". The Clown is one of my favorite albums and is much underrated in my opinion. It includes one of Mingus' most beautiful compositions, Reincarnation of a Lovebird, dedicated to Charlie Parker.
Mingus was a controversial figure know for his temperamental outbursts. He often worked with a mid-sized ensemble (around 8–10 members) of rotating musicians known as the Jazz Workshop. Mingus broke new ground, constantly demanding that his musicians be able to explore and develop their perceptions on the spot. Those who joined the Workshop (or Sweatshops as they were colorfully dubbed by the musicians) included Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Jimmy Knepper, Charles McPherson and Horace Parlan. Mingus shaped these musicians into a cohesive improvisational machine that in many ways anticipated free jazz. Some musicians dubbed the workshop a "university" for jazz.
In 1993 the Library of Congress acquired Mingus's collected papers—including scores, sound recordings, correspondence and photos—in what they described as "the most important acquisition of a manuscript collection relating to jazz in the Library's history".
Mingus wrote his autobiography, Beneath the Underdog, in which he recounted many, sometimes lurid, details of his life.
#8 Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto: Getz/Gilberto
This album is important because it incorporated the Brazilian bossa nova sound into jazz. This album turned out to be one of the biggest selling jazz albums of all time. The music is very accessible. It introduced the music of Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim to American audiences. Getz/Gilberto made bossa nova a permanent part of the jazz landscape not just with its unassailable beauty, but with one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history -- "The Girl From Ipanema," a Jobim classic sung by guitarist/singer João Gilberto's wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home prior to the recording session. This music has nearly universal appeal; it's one of those rare jazz records about which the purist elite and the buying public are in total agreement.
Stan Getz (born Stanley Gayetski) was born in the 1920s like many successful jazz musicians who came to prominence in the 50s and 60s, the Golden Era of jazz. Timing is everything especially the timing of being born. A tenor saxophonist like John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol,Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott Yanow as "one of the all-time great tenor saxophonists".
According to Wikipedia, Getz worked hard in school, receiving straight As, and finished sixth grade close to the top of his class. Getz's major interest was in musical instruments and he played a number of them before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Getz instantly fell in love with the saxophone and began practicing eight hours a day.
In 1941, he was accepted into the All City High School Orchestra of New York City. This gave him a chance to receive private, free tutoring from the New York Philharmonic's bassoon player. He also continued playing the saxophone. He eventually dropped out of school in order to pursue his musical career, but was later sent back to the classroom by the school system's truancy officers.
He became involved with drugs and alcohol while a teenager. In 1954, he was arrested for attempting to rob a pharmacy for morphine.As he was being processed in the prison ward of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, his wife, Beverly, gave birth to their third child one floor below. Immediately after his divorce from Beverly Byrne in 1956, on November 3, 1956 in Nevada, he married Monica Silfverskiöld, daughter of Swedish physician and former Olympic medalist Nils Silfverskiöld, and had two children with her: Pamela and Nicolaus. Partly to escape Getz's legal problems, the pair lived in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Returning to the U.S. from Europe in 1961, Getz became a central figure in introducing bossa nova music to the American audience. In the mid-1980s Getz worked regularly in the San Francisco Bay area and taught at Stanford University as an artist-in-residence at the Stanford Jazz Workshop until 1988. In 1986, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
Getz died of liver cancer on June 6, 1991. His ashes were poured from his saxophone case six miles off the coast of Marina del Rey, California, by his grandson, Chris.
#9 Thelonious Monk: Monk and Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
There are several albums by Thelonius Monk which could be on this list. Thelonious Monk was a pianist and composer. He was one of the greatest influences on jazz.
This particular recording, which was recently "rediscovered," has been highly praised: Newsweek called it the "musical equivalent of the discovery of a new Mount Everest," and Amazon.com editorial reviewer Lloyd Sachs called it "the ultimate definition of a classic". Soon after its release, it became the #1 best selling music recording on Amazon.com.
The discovery substantially increased coverage of Monk and Coltrane's partnership; the only other recordings known are The Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings CD set (assembled from previously issued albums) and Discovery, believed to document a reunion at the Five Spot café in 1958, recorded on amateur equipment by Coltrane's first wife.
Monk made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than a thousand pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70. Monk started playing the piano at the age of six and was largely self-taught. He attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City but did not graduate.
In August 1951, New York City police searched a parked car occupied by Monk and friend Bud Powell. They found narcotics in the car, presumed to have belonged to Powell. Monk refused to testify against his friend, so the police confiscated his New York City Cabaret Card. Without this, Monk was unable to play in any New York venue where liquor was served, and this severely restricted his ability to perform for several years. Monk spent most of the early and mid 1950s composing, recording, and performing at theaters and out-of-town gigs.
On Brilliant Corners, recorded in late 1956, Monk mainly performed his own music. The complex title track, which featured Rollins, was so difficult to play that the final version had to be edited together from multiple takes. The album, however, was largely regarded as the first success for Monk; according to Orrin Keepnews, "It was the first that made a real splash."
One of my favorite Monk albums is Thelonious Alone in San Francisco, solo piano, released again in the magic year of 1959 and recorded at Fugazi Hall in San Francisco without an audience present.
In 1993, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006 he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for "a body of distinguished and innovative musical composition that has had a significant and enduring impact on the evolution of jazz."
#10 Art Pepper: Modern Jazz Classics
This album is a compilation of jazz classics arranged and played very well by west coast musicians with Art Pepper as soloist recorded in 1959. Marty Paich was the arranger. The tunes included Denzil Best's "Move," Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight," Gerry Mulligan's "Walkin' Shoes". In addition other composers of tunes on the album are Horace Silver, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins. These tunes resonate as some of the best compositions. However, there are many more great compositions by the likes of Benny Golson, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown and others that did not make the cut. It just goes to show the potential of the jazz idiom for creating beautiful compositions, something which is not encouraged or supported today much in the same way that the musical legacy of Cole Porter, Jimmy Van Heusen, Irving Berlin, George Gerswin and Richard Rogers has not been encouraged or continued due to commercial trends unfortunately.
By the 1950s Pepper was recognized as one of the leading alto saxophonists in jazz, finishing second only to Charlie Parker as Best Alto Saxophonist in the Down Beat magazine Readers Poll of 1952. Along with Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Shelly Manne, and perhaps due more to geography than playing style, Pepper is often associated with the musical movement known as West Coast jazz, as contrasted with the East Coast (or "hot") jazz of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.
Art Pepper was a heroin addict who spent much time in a half way house, Synanon, made famous because other jazz musicians, for example, Joe Pass, spent time there. His autobiography,[5] Straight Life (1980, co-written with his third wife Laurie Pepper), discusses the jazz music world, as well as drug and criminal subcultures of mid-20th century California. Soon after the publication of this book, the director Don McGlynn released the documentary film Art Pepper: Notes from a Jazz Survivor,[6] discussing his life and featuring interviews with both Art and his wife Laurie, as well as footage from a live performance in Malibu jazz club. In the book, which the redaer doesn't know how much to take factually, Art recalls a recording session with Miles Davis' rythm section from which the 5 star album, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, was produced. He claims in the book that he hadn't touched the saxophone for six months and recounts scroujnging around on the floor for drugs that he had accidentally dropped, a pretty sordid description. Is he trying to tell us that his talent was so great that he could be an abysmal drug addict and still be a world class jazz musician at the top of his game?
