Classic Bop Recommendations?

bigjazzboy

New Member
Hi all!

I’m in the mood for some new music. Or rather, new listening to old tunes.

My search through jazz started largely with the Coltrane / Coltrane-esque outside stuff (Pharoah, Ayler, Gayle, Doyle, etc), and I’ve since branched into more post-boppish stuff (some of Henderson, Tyner, later Davis, Dolphy, etc) and hard bop (Gordon, Hubbard, and such), but I am really clueless when it comes to earlier, well, at the point of straight bop stuff.

I have a little of it on CD and vinyl—some random Charlie Parker compilations, some Clifford Brown—but really not much. And I’m not sure where to go further.

So, could y’all give me some recommendations? Particularly bop records that are pretty well mastered (my current ones aren’t so great on that front)? Big names or obscure names are equally welcome.

I’m totally down for even earlier stuff, too. Big band, etc.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks!
 
If you want to get right to the heart of the start of bebop, you should track down this compilation:

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I've got the vinyl double LP set I snagged years ago, it appears to available on CD as well.

This is a good overview as well:
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Coleman Hawkins, James Moody, Lester Young, Zoot Sims, Fats Navarro (Monk, Powell, Dameron)

Listening to this excellent Fats Navarro collection on vinyl this morning:
 
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Hey -

We've seen you on the Jazz Playlist, and welcome aboard! There are so many recordings, one doesn't know where to begin. For the record, I've never been one for labels. Bop certainly had it's classic period, so to speak. There were certainly things about it that were different, but it was also built upon what came before, and of course, forever influenced the music, where everything is influencing everything. In the 50's, I remember reading a Coleman Hawkins interview, where he was saying that all the jazz musicians were doing, was what Bach and Handel had done so many years before that. Not meaning that they were playing the same things, but they were fleshing out chord changes. Barry Harris, the great pianist, often refers to himself as a classical pianist, because of his approach to playing. Because all the great classical composers knew how to run chord changes.

But anyway, you could approach your bop listening by tracking down certain artists and recordings. As time went on, some of those earlier "bop-isms", were toned down a bit and things became a little more subtle, and to generalize, it all became modern jazz. After Trane and them things kind of went off in another direction. The early 60's stuff, Miles' new band and things like that, also had a different thing going.

Here are a couple of great recordings off the top of my head.










 
Hey -

We've seen you on the Jazz Playlist, and welcome aboard! There are so many recordings, one doesn't know where to begin. For the record, I've never been one for labels. Bop certainly had it's classic period, so to speak. There were certainly things about it that were different, but it was also built upon what came before, and of course, forever influenced the music, where everything is influencing everything. In the 50's, I remember reading a Coleman Hawkins interview, where he was saying that all the jazz musicians were doing, was what Bach and Handel had done so many years before that. Not meaning that they were playing the same things, but they were fleshing out chord changes. Barry Harris, the great pianist, often refers to himself as a classical pianist, because of his approach to playing. Because all the great classical composers knew how to run chord changes.

But anyway, you could approach your bop listening by tracking down certain artists and recordings. As time went on, some of those earlier "bop-isms", were toned down a bit and things became a little more subtle, and to generalize, it all became modern jazz. After Trane and them things kind of went off in another direction. The early 60's stuff, Miles' new band and things like that, also had a different thing going.

Here are a couple of great recordings off the top of my head.











That makes a lot of sense. I never really thought of it in such terms as reaching back to say Bach or Handel. That’s such a wonderfully, deceptively simple formula—just running chord changes—and it puts a lot in perspective. I think that’s one of the things I tend to forget when thinking about some of the jazz I listen to, especially the totally out there post 60’s free jazz maniacs like Charles Gayle or Arthur Doyle—the reality that for as much as their work is anti-traditional, it’s got roots. And that, I suppose, is a big reason why I want to get into earlier stuff, so I can better appreciate those roots. Thanks for your really insightful reply.
 
That makes a lot of sense. I never really thought of it in such terms as reaching back to say Bach or Handel. That’s such a wonderfully, deceptively simple formula—just running chord changes—and it puts a lot in perspective. I think that’s one of the things I tend to forget when thinking about some of the jazz I listen to, especially the totally out there post 60’s free jazz maniacs like Charles Gayle or Arthur Doyle—the reality that for as much as there work is anti-traditional, it’s got roots. And that, I suppose, is a big reason why I want to get into earlier stuff, so I can better appreciate those roots. Thanks for your really insightful reply.

Enjoy, and keep hanging with us on the Jazz Playlist!
 
Some others to consider: Art Blakey and Art Pepper. Look for live stuff. Blakey has many different bands with a variety of players. "Birdland" is exceptional. "Village Vanguard" for Pepper is one of my personal favorites.
 
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