New Jazz Review: Ahmad Jamal’s Standard-Eyes (Cadet, 1961)

Read it here.

Bop and Beyond’s 50 Personally Indispensable Jazz Albums:

Monty challenged me to come up with my own list of 50 personally indispensable jazz albums in response to the Amazon 100 list.

The criteria was simple, name the 50 jazz albums I personally could not live without. That’s it… a list of favorite albums (not necessarily the greatest albums either). Anyone who has followed this site knows my taste so most of these albums won’t come as much of a surprise anyway.

Monty’s list is posted here: http://rightheredude.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-top-50-jazz-albums-of-all-time.html

In the meantime, here’s mine…

01. Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

02. Duke Ellington – Money Jungle

03. Clifford Brown & Max Roach – A Study In Brown

04. Thelonious Monk – Monk’s Dream

05. Billie Holiday – Lady Day: The Master Takes

06. Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington – The Great Summit

07. Coleman Hawkins – Body and Soul

08. Ornette Coleman – At The Golden Circle

09. Miles Davis – In A Silent Way

10. Peggy Lee – Black Coffee

11. John Coltrane – Coltrane’s Sound

12. Alice Coltrane – Ptah, the El Daoud

13. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Like Someone In Love

14. Ahmad Jamal – The Legendary Okeh and Epic Recordings

15. Curtis Amy – Katanga!

16. Von Freeman – The Great Divide

17. Mary Lou Williams – Black Christ of the Andes

18. Paul Chambers – Bass on Top

19. Alice Coltrane – Journey in Satchidananda

20. Charlie Rouse – Bossa Nova Bacchanal

21. Thelonious Monk – Misterioso

22. Booker Ervin – The Freedom Book

23. Ike Quebec – Blue and Sentimental

24. Sonny Rollins – Saxophone Colossus

25. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme

26. Miles Davis – Ascenseur Pour L’echafaud (Lift to the Scaffold)

27. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Au Club St. Germain

28. Duke Ellington – Fargo, 1940

29. Coleman Hawkins – Night Hawk

30. Mal Waldron – The Seagulls of Kristiansund

31. Herbie Nichols – Love, Gloom, Cash, Love

32. Jimmy Smith – Back at the Chicken Shack

33. Pharoah Sanders – Jewels of Thought

34. The Jazz Crusaders – Freedom Sound

35. Django Reinhardt – Paris and London

36. Dexter Gordon – Our Man In Paris

37. Andrew Hill – Smokestack

38. Stanley Turrentine – Jubilee Shout!!!

39. Don Byas – Laura

40. Clifford Brown – With Strings

41. Grachan Moncur III – Evolution

42. Earl Hines – Once Upon A Time

43. Horace Parlan – Speakin’ My Piece

44. Lou Blackburn – The Complete Imperial Sessions

45. Sonny Rollins – East Broadway Run Down

46. Carmell Jones – Jay Hawk Talk

47. The Curtis Counce Group – Carl’s Blues

48. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – Free For All

49. Paul Gonsalves – Boom Jackie Boom Chick

50. Kenny Burrell – Midnight Blue

Amazon’s 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All-Time

Amazon has posted their “100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All-Time” and it is an interesting list to say the least. Ornette Coleman tops out at number one with…

A controversial pick to be sure, though I love the ballsiness of it. I’m also impressed with any list smart enough to include such under-valued virtuosos as Alice Coltrane, Ahmad Jamal, and Andrew Hill.

You can view the list here:

Amazon’s 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All-Time

Ahmad Jamal Trio – Darn That Dream (1959)

Ahmad Jamal – piano
Israel Crosby – bass
Vernell Fournier – drums

Standing in the background around the piano: Hank Jones, Ben Webster, George Duvivier, Papa Jo Jones, Nat Hentoff, and Harold Ashby.

The Curtis Amy, McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, and Frank Strazzeri Show

The main focus of the show tonight will be on an expertly recorded 1962 live date at The Lighthouse featuring the Curtis Amy sextet in full-swing. Mosaic Records’ Curtis Amy box set has proven to be a treasure trove of wonderful recordings from Pacific Jazz that I will continue to mine in future broadcasts.

Also tonight, music from an unreleased Frank Strazzeri session that features the wonderful Carmell Jones on trumpet.

Carmell Jones, like Curtis Amy, is another Pacific Jazz treasure who is finding the spotlight again thanks to the Mosaic Records series of Select reissues.

All that, plus McCoy Tyner and Ahmad Jamal!

Bop and Beyond, Wednesdays from 6pm to 8pm

http://www.prattradio.com

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