I love an album list with creativity and Glenn Kelly made a great one in the name of jazz.
I’ve responded to criticisms of jazz before. They’re often tired and lack knowledge of its history. So when I read that Glenn Kelly had done the same, I could relate.
People in the U.S. are really into hating jazz. Remember when a bunch of us got really cranky about that Buzzfeed “What’s the deal with jazz?” thing? (Yeah, no, I’m not gonna link to it.) Then just a couple of weeks ago on the Twitter a high-profile profile writer recounted how Billy Bob Thornton once told her that jazz was a long con and that anyone who said they liked it was just doing a long con themselves.
A long con?! Before a vein pops in my head, I’ll move on.
On his blog, Some Came Running, Glenn picked 42 jazz albums “on the floor by my coffee table” which I could also relate to (LPs on the floor rather than owning that many jazz albums). And it wasn’t a snobbish list or one with an agenda; in his own words “it’s just by whatever I picked up first”. Can’t argue with that.
I recommend you read the blog post but if you want to see the full list, you can see it below.
- Tina Brooks, Back to the Tracks (Blue Note, recorded 1960)
- Lee Konitz, Brad Meldau, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Live At Birdland (ECM 2011)
- Cedar Walton, Bob Berg, Sam Jones, Billy Higgins, Eastern Rebellion 2 (Ti, 1977)
- Sonny Stitt Sits In With The Oscar Peterson Trio (Verve, 1959)
- Sounds of Liberation (Corbett Versus Dempsey, 2019)
- Harold Land, The Fox, (Contemporary, 1958)
- Paul Motian box set (ECM, 2013)
- Wes Montgomery Trio (Riverside, 1959)
- Dave Douglas, Uri Caine, Andrew Cyrille, Devotion (Greenleaf, 2019)
- William Parker/In Order to Survive, Live at Shapeshifter (Aum, 2019)
- Dunmall, Gibbs, Taylor, Young Landscapes (FMR, 2019)
- Matt Mitchell, Phalanx Ambassadors (Pi, 2019)
- Keith Jarrett, Arbour Zena, (ECM, 1976)
- Houston Person with Ron Carter, Just Between Friends (High Note, 2005)
- Forde Gjerstad with William Parker and Hamid Drake, On Reade Street (FMR, 2006)
- Steve Kuhn Trio w/ Joey Baron and Steve Swallow, To and From The Heart, (Sunnyside 2018)
- Duke Ellington Octet, At The Rainbow Grill 1967 (Gambit, ?)
- Bill Evans, California Here I Come (Verve, 1967)
- Art Pepper, Live at Fat Tuesday’s (Elemental, 2005 recorded 1988)
- Keith Jarrett, Paris/London, Testament (ECM, 2009)
- Barry Guy @ 70 (FSR 2018)
- Dexter Gordon, 5 Original Albums
- Dexter Gordon Quartet, Tokyo 1975 (Elemental 2018)
- The Tal Farlow Monkey Album (Norgran, 1955)
- Art Blakey, The Jazz Messengers (Columbia 1956)
- The Max Roach Trio, Featuring The Legendary Hassan (Atlantic 1965)
- Walter Bishop Jr. Trio, Speak Low (Venus 1993)
- Randy Weston Trio Plus Cecil Payne (Fresh Sound compilation 2012)
- The John Coltrane Quartet, The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions (Impulse, 1961/1995)
- Art Blakey, Indestructible (Blue Note, 1964)
- Count Basie, April in Paris (Verve, 1958)
- The Amazing Bud Powell, Volume One (Blue Note, 1951)
- Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans, You Know What I Mean? (Riverside, 1961)
- Paul Bley, Footloose (Savoy, 1960)
- Art Taylor, AT’s Delight (Blue Note, 1960)
- The Lucky Thompson Quartet, Lucky Strike (Prestige 1964)
- Sonny Rollins, The Bridge (RCA, 1962)
- Oscar Peterson, My Favorite Instrument (Verve, 1968)
- Duke Ellington and Ray Brown, This One’s For Blanton (Pablo, 1975)
- Bill Evans, Some Other Time (Resonance, 2017/1968)
- McCoy Tyner, Today and Tomorrow (Impulse, 1963)
- Bill Evans, Another Time (Resonance 2016/1968)