October 13, 2003

Greatest jazz albums

Posted by Chris

Norman Geras’s greatest jazz albums poll is up. I managed to vote for just one in the top 15, Ellington’s Newport album. There’s rightly a lot of Coltrane in there, but, disappointingly, my own top pick, his Live at the Village Vanguard didn’t make it.

Posted on October 13, 2003 04:49 PM UTC
Comments

What a weird list. Nothing modern, nothing primitive. Just hard bop and modal for the most part.

It’s a crime Django Reinhardt’s Three Fingered Lightening isn’t on there.

Posted by Rufus T. Firefly · October 13, 2003 06:00 PM

I like Django a lot; I was just too lazy to decide on which of his albums to recommend.

As Geras observed, the (post-1952) “album” format distorts the poll considerably.

Posted by Patrick Nielsen Hayden · October 13, 2003 06:48 PM

Yeah I missed the deadline. My list had almost all newer stuff. This one reads like ‘classic fundamentals’. I can see getting into Blanton-Webster going way back, but I’m surprised to see no fusion whatsoever. I’m still putting my list together because it’s so hard just to throw up a name without saying something about it.

Posted by Cobb · October 13, 2003 07:24 PM

This list pretty much reflects my preferences, but I think it’s mostly a matter of the age of the voters. Most people’s favorites reflect the music they first heard when they started listening to it. Since jazz fans tend to be getting long in the tooth but are not yet dead it’s no surptise that most of us fell in love with jazz during the post-bop era. Surprised there’s no Brubeck or Mulligan, though

Posted by fyreflye (but not rufus t) · October 13, 2003 08:51 PM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.