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The Most Exciting Jazz Albums Since 1969: 1969-1983
The Beatles
band / ensemble / orchestra
Jimi Hendrix
guitar, electric1942 - 1970
Grateful Dead
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1965
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
This was the most thrilling music I had ever heard. It became an obsession to me, and I quickly bought all the albums by the BB sidemen:
John McLaughlin
guitarb.1942
Joe Zawinul
keyboards1932 - 2007
Chick Corea
piano1941 - 2021
Weather Report
band / ensemble / orchestraOver the years, I have collected and listened to a LOT of jazz. I just hit the 7,000 album mark last month. And over the years, I have always searched for jazz albums that were thrilling. Nothing else has quite matched Bitches Brew, but I certainly discovered some brilliant, thrilling albums.
What are the elements of a thrilling jazz album? First of all, it's the groove, a rhythm so compelling you want to move or dance to it. Second, are the melodies that are immediately hummable and memorable. Finally, all these thrilling albums are brilliantly played by master musicians.
I'd like to give you a brief sketch of 72 of these Jazz Thrillers recorded between 1969 and 2023, six a week for 12 weeks. I'll present them chronologically and do my best to give you a sense of why I find them so thrilling.
72 Thrilling Jazz Albums, Part 1: 1969-1983
1
Down Another Road Graham Collier
Fontana
1969
Graham Collier
composer / conductor1937 - 2011
2
Way Back When John Surman
Cunieform
2005 (recorded 1969)
Unearthed 36 years after an informal one-day recording session, this album fires on all cylinders.
John Surman
saxophoneb.1944
John Taylor
piano1942 - 2015
Kenny Wheeler
flugelhorn1930 - 2014
John Marshall
drumsb.1952
Soft Machine
band / ensemble / orchestrab.1966
3
Bitches Brew Miles Davis
Columbia
1970
At the time of its release, Bitches Brew became the most controversial jazz album of all time. Was it even jazz? Well, Miles didn't even like to call it jazz, and on Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and Filles de Kilimanjaro (Columbia Records, UK: 1968, US: 1969), "Directions in Music" was printed on the cover. Bitches Brew redefined jazz and was his biggest seller up to that point. A lot has been made of the studio tinkering by producer
Teo Macero
producer1925 - 2008
4
Electric Kofi Donald Byrd
Blue Note
1970, 1995 (recorded 1969, 1970)
This album is a mashup of Byrd's two albums, Electric Byrd and Kofi—and I did the mashing up, so you'll have to obtain these albums separately. They were recorded about the same time but released 25 years apart. The music was clearly influenced by In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, but Byrd lays down a softer, dreamier groove than Miles. The music relies heavily on
Duke Pearson
piano1932 - 1980
Lew Tabackin
saxophone, tenorb.1940
Frank Foster
saxophone1928 - 2011
Wayne Shorter
saxophone1933 - 2023
5
My Song Keith Jarrett
ECM
1977
This is a whole different kind of thrilling. By all appearances, straight-ahead jazz, with a dancing, joyful loveliness that exudes from the grooves. The opening, "Questar," features a bouncing, dynamic melody, with extraordinary soloing by
Jan Garbarek
saxophoneb.1947
Keith Jarrett
pianob.1945
6
Masqualero Masqualero
Odin
1983 (five additional songs released in 1995)
What happens when you assemble a group of the most talented Norwegian jazz musicians, inspired by the second great quintet of Miles Davis and featuring one of Shorter's signature tunes, "Masqualero"? A simply magnificent album of kinetic energy and interaction. Recorded in two days at the famed Talent Studios in Oslo, where hundreds of ECM recordings were made. ECM then picked them up as a group and recorded three additional albums, more in the laid-back ECM style. The group,
Arild Andersen
bass, acousticb.1945
Nils Petter Molvaer
trumpetb.1960
Tore Brunborg
saxophoneb.1960
Jon Christensen
drums1943 - 2020
Wayne Shorter
saxophone1933 - 2023
Herbie Hancock
pianob.1940
Ron Carter
bassb.1937
Tony Williams
drums1945 - 1997
Next week
Six more thrilling, must-own jazz albums recorded from 1986 to 1994.To see all the albums in this series, scroll down the page and click on the blue MORE button.
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