100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#34) - Miles Davis - Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)

#34 - Miles Davis - Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)

I'm a huge fan of  Gershwin's opera Porgy & Bess -- such a huge fan that I generally don't even like tunes being excerpted by jazz musicians (there are exceptions, like Sidney Bechet's or Pete Fountain's renditions of "Summertime", but I'm really picky). The biggest exception for me is the album that Miles Davis recorded in 1958, featuring his ground breaking trumpet interpretations over Gil Evans's arrangements. The record is like a modern jazz opera in itself, equally satisfying as the original (at least to me). As a wind player, considering what Miles does on his horn, it's also endlessly inspiring.

This musical prayer to the Physician of Souls is a high point for me, though the whole album is worth countless listenings. Stay safe everyone, and God Bless you.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#33) - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers - Dr. Jazz

#33 - Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers - Hello Central, Give Me Dr. Jazz

To everyone out there who reads The Jazz Clarinet -- I'm praying for all of you, every day during this COVID-19 pandemic. We're all in this together: stay safe, love each other, and listen to some great music when you can. Heres's some Jelly Roll Morton for medicinal purposes.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

 

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#32) Paul Desmond with Dave Brubeck - Audrey

#32 - Paul Desmond with Dave Brubeck - Audrey - 1955

The opening number of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's first album - Brubeck Time - is immediately gripping in its understated beauty, inspired by actress Audrey Hepburn. Extra points for anyone who can catch the Mahler quote in Brubeck's intro.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#31) Peggy Lee

#31 - Peggy Lee - My Heart Belongs to Daddy

I've always loved the way Peggy Lee got a band to eat out of her hand...how she holds them back till they burst...how they jump when she whispers...no whispering here, but you get the idea.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#30) Artie Shaw - My Funny Valentine

#30 - Artie Shaw - My Funny Valentine

Hey, it's February 14th, so why not? This version also happens to be one of the great, final recording of Artie Shaw and his Gramercy 5

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#29) Jelly Roll Morton * The Chant

#29 - Jelly Roll Morton - The Chant (1926)

This band, people...this band...listen to how organically and easily they hit everything together, and the perfect delineations of the colors of the instruments...it's beautiful...no sacrifice of soul for balance, or balance for soul...incredible...

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#28) Lyle Mays with Pat Metheny

#28 - When We Were Free - Pat Metheny - 1996

The Pat Metheny Group played a inordinately large role in my life as a listening musician from the time I was in High School onward. In 1996, they released an album called Quartet which still stands as a beautiful anomaly in their output, being largely unplugged. The music is intimate, relaxed, often whimsical, always highly imaginative.

"When We Were Free" is a gem: a beautiful, simple jazz waltz with a melody you somehow feel you've always known. For me, it's also one of the defining moments in Lyle Mays's career; at least it's a gift that I've mulled over since first hearing it. His chorus begins at around the  3:14 mark. His basic idea for the solo seems so simple, but so original. By the 4:25 mark the whole solo comes to fruition beautifully. Mays's whole approach here made me rethink the idea of a solo, and what one could do with patience and careful discernment.

R.I.P. Lyle Mays (1953-2020). Thank you for all the beautiful music. And thank you for what it taught those of us blessed to listen.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#27) Pete Fountain - Hindustan (Live)

#27 - Pete Fountain Live in Santa Monica (1961) - 'Hindustan' - Jack Sperling on drums

An epic performance of 'Hindustan', nearly 12 minutes long, and most of it a duo between Jack Sperling's brilliant drums and Pete Fountain's clarinet. Towards the middle, the whole band joins in for awhile, but then it's back to Pete and Jack. Pete's melodic invention seems endless, as does Jack's rhythmic and tibral brilliance. Only in the very last chorus does Pete really give us anything like the full melody line to the tune. Sheer brilliance.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#26) Benny Goodman - Bugle Call Rag 1936

#26 - Benny Goodman - Bugle Call Rag - 1936

Unlikely we'll ever hear anything like this again. Bands don't use the same instruments they made back then, so the fundamental sound of a jazz band is different now, and they don't play five shows per day, six or seven days a week to packed, crazed audiences. The men who played in Goodman's band and others like it back then had the opportunity ( and the pressure) to reach a level of tightness and unity that we can only marvel at now.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#25) Charles Mingus

#25 - Charles Mingus - II B.S.

Rip your head off groove! Serious soul!

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#24) Doug Richford with Bob Wallis and His Storyville Jazzmen

#24 - Doug Richford with Bob Wallis - 'Alla Turca' - 1960

You have to suffer through the clunked-Mozart piano intro, but that's a small price to pay for admission to one of the fiercest, most intense trad-clarinet solos on record (by Doug Richford). Listen to that growling, that howling, and the snarling brass in the background!

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#23) Charlie Barnet

#23 - Charlie Barnet - Cherokee/Redskin Rhumba 

Before the bebop crowd made it a test tune of virtuosity in 12 keys, "Cherokee" was the epic theme song for the Charlie Barnet Band. Charlie's soloing isn't flashy, nor was it intended to be, but his proclamation of the melody is unique, effective, and over the wah-wah pattern of the trombones, creates one of the truly great moments in jazz history.

I first heard this as a kid on a cassette tape that fell into my hands somehow. It was stolen, along with my first Sony Walkman on an 8th grade field trip. I wasn't too torn up about losing the Walkman, but wished the kid who took it had at least left behind the tape. It was years before I could find another copy!

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#22) Joe Henderson

#22 - Joe Henderson - Black Narcissus

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#21) Acker Bilk

#21 - Acker Bilk - In A Persian Market - 1962

There are several versions of Acker playing "In a Persian Market", all of them worth checking out. This one (from the movie It's Trad, Dad) is among my favorites, if only because we get a closeup of Acker's technique and a chance to see the stump of a finger he managed to play with on his left hand. Other than Pete Fountain, very few Trad clarinetists have had the ability to 'lift' a band the way Acker could, with a type of soaring power. While his technique wasn't as fluid as Fountain's, he had the ability to turn even novelty tunes into uplifting achievements -- a quality all but entirely lacking in modern jazz. There's a sense of fun, humor, and joy here at an unusually high level.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#20) Frank Trumbauer and Bix Beiderbecke

#20 - Bix and Tram - I'm Coming Virginia

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#19) Edmond Hall

#19 - Besame Mucho - Edmond Hall - 1944

I hate it when a recording is so stiff you can hear how many music stands are in the studio. None of that junk here. Every music stand probably banned within a five mile radius.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#18) Thelonious Monk

#18 - Thelonious Monk - Bye-Ya

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#17) Eric Dolphy

#17 - Eric Dolphy - God Bless the Child (Live) - 1961

Seems an appropriate meditation as the March for Life is kicking off in D.C. 

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#16) John Coltrane with Duke Ellington

#16 - John Coltrane with Duke Ellington - In a Sentimental Mood

How to play a ballad.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#15) Wynton Marsalis

#15 - Wynton Marsalis Live at the Village Vanguard 1994/94 - In the Sweet Embrace of Life

Haven't heard this before? Got an hour? Check it out...

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]