Jazz and Blues Lounge

Creating your Basic Jazz Library

by balaspa on April 18th, 2008

I was doing some more noodling around online and found something that NPR has put together for your fledgling jazz folks out there.  You can click HERE for their “Basic Jazz Library.”  It appears to be a series of articles or blogs that goes back to 2005.  What struck me is that the first record on the list is Cannonball Adderly’s “Somethin’ Else” which is one of my all-time favorites

Cannonball was one of those guys who was all over the place during the 50s but not nearly enough people know his name.  They know Miles and they know Coltrane, Mingus and Park, but they really should know the roly-poly sax player who was dubbed “Cannonball” as a kid thanks to his prodigious gut. 

“Somethin’ Else” was created about the same time as “Kind of Blue” and it also features many of the same musicians, including Miles Davis.  For all I know once they all finished “Kind of Blue” they just decided Cannonball needed to release his own album and started to work on this one.  I first heard it on vinyl a the jazz radio station I worked at back in college and I fell immediately in love with it.

The list goes on for pages and pages.  It kind of makes me wonder if it just has every single classic jazz album ever created.  There is a lot of Louis Armstrong, for example.  Louis certainly is the pillar upon which modern jazz was built, but I also noticed “Kind of Blue” was not listed among the first few pages, but Davis’ “Nefertiti” was.  While just about any Miles album is something I can listen to (well…almost…) that is not one of my particular favorites

However, other artists are mentioned that I have forgotten about and probably deserve a lot more space here such as Art Blakey and Count Basie.  Sydney Bechet is another example as is Benny Carter.  The vocalists are also mentioned and while I have never been a huge fan of jazz vocals, I do like Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole.

So, check out the lists and enjoy your reading. Also, get the checkbook out and start buying or start downloading.  This is a pretty darn good list and this would make an oustanding start to any jazz collection.  If you can dig up an old turntable and find them on vinyl, even better, I think.

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