Random A-List for Set: Jazz

Jazz, including fusion, excluding vocals.

Here are 12 A-list albums, selected at random from Set: Jazz. Use your Reload button to get more.

Louis Armstrong: An American Icon [1998, Hip-O]
Put off my feed by a single godawful piano solo, I fretted that this post-WWII overview was too lax. Certainly he recorded many of these 60 tunes many times; in other versions, seven are on Columbia/Legacy's 16 Most Requested Songs, an utterly convincing budget-priced survey of Armstrong the Beloved, the Entertainer--the Icon. A few selections here are merely lovable and entertaining, not iconic. But having played all three discs many times--Louis is one artist the boy-group fan in the back seat will always settle for--I've yet to locate another moment I'd rather not hear. Armstrong is my favorite artist because he epitomizes what Gary Giddins's newly reissued Satchmo breaks down as the entertainer-as-artist/artist-as-entertainer: "He was as much himself rolling his eyes and mugging as he was playing the trumpet. His fans understood that, but intellectuals found the whole effect too damn complicated." A

Gato Barbieri: Bolivia [1973, Flying Dutchman]
I like this better than the well-reviewed Latin America: Chapter 1 (on Impulse) because I prefer Lonnie Liston Smith and Barbieri's other Afro-American sidemen to his less disciplined all-South American band. But not by much. Both are recommended introductions to the only jazzman this side of Miles Davis to translate avant-garde into semi-popular without sounding venal. A-

Count Basie: The Best of Early Basie [1996, Decca]
It was the sure shots of the Basie Ken Burns Jazz that enabled me to go back and hear this 1996 budget item. Late Basie is as springy as brass plush gets. But though Orrin Keepnews's big-band focus is purist--this would still have been a unified record if he'd made room for Helen Humes pop and gone out on a terse piano feature like "Hey Lawdy Mama"--jazzbos don't divide Basie into Old and New Testament just because he's a god. Not all 21 tunes here are as indelible as "One O'Clock Jump." But most are close enough, and deliver the prime pleasures of Basie at his most original: Bill's uncannily understated theme, Lester's insouciant honk, and a bandleader's dozen of superb musicians in the service of volume and beat. True, amplifiers soon achieved a similar effect with less fuss. But the amplifier has never been a solo instrument. A

Ornette Coleman: Sound Grammar [2006, Sound Grammar]
Looking back, we understand that Coleman was always an inspired melodist. We may even conclude that it was his melodies that made his free, harmolodic and avant-funk concepts irresistible. But at 76, he turns the page with this two-bass, two-Coleman quartet. Tony Falanga bows most ballad themes and is hornlike or maybe just cellolike throughout. Ornette's alto (though not his trumpet or violin) could also be described as cellolike, and his new compositions suit the mellow mood even when the arrangement gives Denardo Coleman room to bash and rumble. Exemplary is one of just two remakes: 1959's "Turnaround," which was a lowdown gutbucket blues on Tomorrow Is the Question but is a whimsical chamber-music blues here. Both times Ornette quotes Cole Porter's "Do I Love You"; here he also quotes Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer." Conceptually as major as Change of the Century (1959) or Of Human Feelings (1979) and almost as consummately executed. A

Miles Davis: Get Up With It [1974, Columbia]
Only two of the six "short" tracks--they total about an hour--are more than good background. "Maiyisha," which recalled his most lyrical early-60s stuff, and "Honky Tonk," a snazzy blues. Even the rocking "Red China Blues" is marred by a Wade Marcus horn chart, and "Rated X" is an experiment in organ noise that's not so great in the background either. But the two long ones--they total over an hour--are brilliant: "He Loved Him Madly," a tribute to Duke Ellington as elegant African internationalist, and "Calypso Frelimo," a Caribbean dance broken into sections that seem to follow with preordained emotional logic. Not necessarily music to fill the mind--just the room. A-

The Lounge Lizards: Voice of Chunk [1989, 1-800-44CHUNK]
Determined to become the thinking man's David Sanborn by hook or by crook, John Lurie swallows his indignation and elects to market himself--you achieve retail access by dialing the label name on your home telephone. And dial you might. His tone is as rich as his tunes, his solos are lifelike, his musicians thrive as individuals, his musicians function as a unit, and his arty moves kick in with a satisfying thwock. As usual, free jazz meets Henry Mancini meets Kurt Weill meets Peter Gordon meets the Ramada Inn. But the pomo patina has worn away--he's lyrical and catchy rather than "lyrical" and "catchy." Biting and funny he never put quotes around. A-

Marc Ribot: Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans) [1998, Atlantic]
This witty, beautiful, slightly bent tribute to the old-time trés-playing bandleader Arsenio Rodriguez--inventor of the son montuno, the Cuban conjunto, and practically speaking the mambo--reduces all that action to a guitar-bass-drums-percussion jazz quartet, sometimes with organ and once with a few horns. Deconstructing as it adores, enjoying the rhythms and melodies of arrangements that function simultaneously as dance music, dinner music, and art music, it epitomizes what it is to love something from a distance there's no denying, yet love it well. A-

Pharoah Sanders: Message from Home [1996, Verve]
Where Sanders's serviceable if eerie new collection of Coltrane replicas is pure middlebrow market ploy, this putatively commercial move ventures into the unknown. With his fabulous sound, un-American activities, and grandly simple musical ideas, the man was made for Bill Laswell's world-jazz strategems. Lacking an "Upper Egypt" or "The Creator Has a Master Plan," he establishes his leisurely command, then immerses in an "Ocean Song" that is more former than latter before going out on the two friendliest, wildest, and most African of the six cuts. These highlight old Laswell hands Foday Musa Suso and Aiyb Dieng, and by the time they're over, you'll forget whether you remember the tunes. A-

Sonny Sharrock: Guitar [1986, Enemy]
New thing's answer to Hendrix and McLaughlin circa 1970 and Material's embodiment of creative chaos circa 1980 sits in a studio and plays some tunes--sometimes more than one at a time, either counterpointed or strung together in a suite. Like so many jazz avant-gardists, Sharrock got his start in r&b, and you can tell--with the bullshit cut away he's both funky and beautiful. Tempos are slow to moderate, melodies simple and even lyrical, structures clear, and still he generates enough sonic danger to drive that roommate you can't stand right up the wall. A

Swingrass '83: Swingrass '83 [1983, Antilles]
"Progressive" folk/country/bluegrass guys and gals are always watering down Western swing that could use some beefing up, and from there their jazzy moves go downhill to various mood enhancers and cocktails for carrot-juicers. But here supereclectic jazz bassist Buell Neidlinger mixes with fiddler Richard Greene and mandolin whiz Andy Statman, both of whom do astute work whenever they're given the chance, and together they play three of the sprightliest Ellington tunes you'll ever hear, as well as three of the drollest Monks. Drummer Peter Erskine is too heavy-handed for the gig, but at least he's a jazzman of sorts, and though tenor player Marty Krystall's solo space impinges on the mood a little, he's got the spirit too. Even Peter Ivers's slightly klutzy harmonica fits in. Left-field instrumental of the year. A-

World Saxophone Quartet: World Saxophone Quartet Plays Duke Ellington [1986, Nonesuch]
As someone who's never gone all the way with the elegantly appointed orchestrations of what all agree is the man's greatest period, I admire the way the quartet format suggests sonorous magnificence without deploying an embarrassment of riches in its service. Barely touched by deconstructive anarchy, these homages constitute the richest, mellowest music ever recorded by a group whose accomplishment has always been tarnished by a certain theoretical veneer. I suppose a rhythm section would only distract from its textured gloss. And have no doubt that the guest composer adds a quantum of quality. A-