Ask The Ages - Sonny Sharrock
Perhaps the most 'jazz-like' record here, guitarist Sharrock plays a powerful set with a few jazz legends: Charnette Moffet on bass, Pharoah Sanders (saxes) and Elvin Jones at the drumkit. Scary good.
Song X- Ornette Coleman/Pat Metheny
Ornette, Metheny, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden and Denardo Coleman play some tricky, brutal, and snarling music. I read of review of this somewhere indicating that the gnarlier material was left off of the recording. Then a few weeks ago, I found out that Nonesuch is going to reissue this disc with a pile of unreleased blasphemy. I just might have to start believing in god.
Space Is The Place - Sun Ra
If they had a jazz big band playing on that old TV show Lost In Space, this would be the one. Take a sort of big band lineup, but then mix in some 1960's spacey keyboards and some truly wacky vocals. Sun Ra and his Arkestra were the Grateful Dead of their day.
And there you have it.
I'd be willing to bet money that the Duke will enjoy at least one of these records. In fact, as a sort of money back guarantee-type thing, I pledge that I will go out and purchase a Morrissey album if the Duke points his thumb down.
Article comments
1 - JR
You definitely went with the outside. I'd worry that there aren't enough accessible hooks there for someone who isn't already into harmonically abstract music. (Except for the Naked City, which is just plain fun for anyone with an attitude.)
There is plenty of music in the mainstream jazz tradition that might also appeal to someone with a more, ehm... "normal" harmonic asthetic looking for more energy. Art Blakey certainly won't put anyone to sleep, and who has more catchy hooks than Horace Silver? I might recommend Silver's "Blowin' the Blues Away" or "Finger Poppin'". Blakey's two volumes of "A Night At Birdland" are the quintessential hard bop.
Speaking of bop, you could go straight to the source with Charlie Parker, something like "Bird and Diz" maybe. Earlier stuff is better, but I don't know which are the good compilations.
Good large bands can be pretty exciting. Rumour has it that Count Basie swings; something like "The Complete Atomic Basie" comes off a bit Vegas-y, but it's fun none the less. Along the same lines, I'd probably try to turn people on to organ master Jimmy Smith through albums like "The Cat" and "James and Wes - The Dynamic Duo". Actually there are probably hundreds of better big band recommendations, but I'm kind of drawing a blank.
Ellington comes to mind, but his stuff can seem more artsy than lively, although it's all great. He did make an album called "Money Jungle" with Charles Mingus and Max Roach which is a bit rougher than one might expect from him. Good stuff.
A quirky one I got into early on was Roland Kirk's "We Free Kings". He did even more interesting stuff later, but I know that one is a good introduction.
One more recent album that I've found appeals to non-jazz listeners is the Charlie Hunter Quartet's "Natty Dread", a cover of the Bob Marley album. The combination of jazzy harmony laid over the simple reggae tunes seems to strike an ideal balance for Rock fans.
2 - Mark Saleski
right you are jr, there's tons of stuff in the more uptempto jazz realm, including big band.
heck, there's even the more modern big band stuff like Carla Bley and also the Either Orchestra.
i just went for the 'quirk angle'.
3 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
mark, i will check these out A.S.A.P, and thats a hell of a wager at the end there. i'm especially looking forward to this Song X malarkey.