Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with jazz

Looking for awesome boogie piano

captainscared — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:20:54 -0800

I'm looking for excellent piano tracks, particularly boogie woogie and rag time. I'm looking for upbeat songs that have rhythm. I tend to like early rock and jazz not electronica. Songs that come to mind are Duke Ellington's Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, anything by Booker T and the MGs. That kind of thing. Vocals are optional. Thanks.

In need of awesome flute solos.

3FLryan — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 11:04:50 -0800

What are some poppy/jazzy/hard-rocky songs that feature a great flute solo? I just listened to Who Is It by Michael Jackson. It has an awesome flute solo.

What are some other poppy/jazzy/hard-rocky songs that have an awesome flute solo?

I can't think of many other examples off of the top of my head, but one other that comes to mind is Spain by Chick Corea, which features the flute pretty much throughout. I guess I'm looking for more pop or rock music though, and not straight-up jazz.

Lead Sheet for "Friends" by Chick Corea

MattMangels — Tue, 28 May 2013 22:22:10 -0800

Where can I find a lead sheet for the song "Friends" by Chick Corea? Even better, where can I find transcriptions of the flute and piano solos in that song?

Open jazz jam sessions in East Bay?

zeri — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:12:52 -0800

Are there any venues in East SF Bay, preferably Berkeley/Oakland, that host jazz jam sessions that are open to all comers (e.g. an amateur saxophone player such as myself)? Such places must exist, but Google and Craigslist have both failed me so far.

"Just For Fun"

phrontist — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:25:59 -0800

Identify this jazz tune titled "Just For Fun", which featured a lot of block chords with an unchanging upper voice, and some pretty interesting harmony. It was either all piano, or piano and a minimal rhythm section. Post-bop-y, maybe "third way" (ala Bill Evans).

Smooth jazz for spring weddings?

inbetweener — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 03:11:10 -0800

Looking for jazz tracks to play at a wedding in mid-march. Hi jazz fans of metafilter. I am getting married in mid-March, very small wedding. Looking for suggestions of jazz tracks to play during a (very non-traditional) wedding, including a specific track for the entrance of the bride.

"Smooth" may be the wrong word - I am looking for discreet, subtle and warm / positive. Whilst I like jazz I am far from an afficionado. However, after thinking about it we don't want anything pop and classical feels too staid.

Thanks in advance!

Old timer New Orleans Jazz - trumpet

JayRwv — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:45:38 -0800

Trying to remember a jazz musician. He went commercial way back in 60's I think. He played trumpet I think. One tune I recall was "Elephant Walk" He was a very big man. He was on TV for quite a while. Can anyone remember this?

Jazz recommendations please!

.kobayashi. — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 05:22:57 -0800

Lately, I can't get enough of the sound of McCoy Tyner's piano from the recordings he did with that great Coltrane quartet. I'm wearing those grooves thin. What else should I be listening to? Assume that I'm pretty familiar with the stuff JC & Tyner recorded together. I'm also moving through Tyner's own catalog right now. So recommendations for maybe lesser-known albums where Tyner plays as a sideman, or more contemporary albums where the pianist is influenced by Tyner are warmly welcomed.

Easy jams for keyboard and bass

morninj — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:15:00 -0800

I've played classical piano for years, but I'm just starting out with jazz and blues. A friends is learning bass guitar from scratch. Can anyone recommend some easy riffs or chord progressions we could play together?

Help me identify a much-loved, long lost, Duke Ellington LP record!

pyotrstolypin — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 10:26:59 -0800

I am trying to find a vinyl LP 33rpm record I owned second hand in the UK in the late 1980s. I remember it being called something like "Ellington in England" or "The English Ellington", but I might be wrong! at any rate, it featured tracks from Duke Ellington's 1930s tour of England, and one of the tracks was "Ain't Misbehavin'" - a vocal, not an instrumental, version. The record I remember was most probably released in the 1970s, but could conceivably have been 1960s. Various extensive web searches and some decent Ellington discographies have come up blank. I'm not wrong am I? I'm not remembering something that never existed? Help me, Mefite Ellingtonians!

Modern jazz recordings reference?

avysk — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 03:17:14 -0800

Which book should I buy to replace the (non-existent) 10th edition of "The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings"? I own both the 7th and the 8th editions of "The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings" by Richard Cook and Brian Morton and I am very pleased by those. The 8th edition was published in 2006, and recently I decided to update it to the more modern edition. To my dismay I discovered that after the 9th edition the book is effectively discontinued, replaced by mere 768 pages of "The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums". That book, according to Amazon reviews (which give it less than 2 stars out of five), is no longer encyclopaedic, lacks the index, does not list performers in alphabetic order and is useless as a reference.

Is there any other book which I can buy? I'd like it to be:
- comprehensive,
- useful as a reference,
- cover at least 2004-2010 period,
- resemble "The Penguin Guide" as much as possible, :)
- for XX century recordings I can use the old books so a book with XXI century jazz only will do fine.

Any advices?

Southwest Christmas jazz?

dhartung — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 12:05:18 -0800

I just heard a recognizable piece of music at a Christmas event, but can't name it. General characteristics are that it has what I would call a Southwestern feel but it was in a jazzy motif (possibly just because of the make-up of the group). The main tune was possibly a tenor saxophone (but may have actually been played by a keyboard, I didn't see the brass on stage). The song reminded me a lot of Ravel's "Bolero" but was not Bolero or a Christmas arrangement of it, and didn't have the march feeling of the Bolero harmony. The sax line had a series of notes that would match very closely with the Fiddler on the Roof line "Is this the little girl I carried?" but instead of repeating and then a counterpoint, it drops an octave and you have a fillip or flourish more like "Bolero". It did not, however, have the same overall feel of building tempo and intensity like Bolero.

Because all of the other music was dead-familiar Christmas standards ("Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", "White Christmas", etc.) I'm pretty certain this one had a holiday motif as well. And as I say, I know I've heard it before.

What big band swing LPs, 45s, or artists would you recommend for a newb?

missed — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 06:55:55 -0800

I would like to explore the world of (classic) big band swing music. What LPs, 45s, or artists would you recommend for a newb? I just picked up Benny Goodman's "The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert (Vol. 1)," which is pretty awesome. My interest/preference is also along the lines of non-vocal.

My normal music preference is new wave, alternative, indie and garage music, so this is, save a track here and there, a completely new area of music that I would like to explore.

Help me find that band!

foxhat10 — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:10:10 -0800

Name that band filter: Could be a song called "Shifting of the Sand". I believe I have found the song, but I'm having a hard time finding the jazz-y band singing it... The lyrics I caught were "I was born to wander...by the shifting of the sand". (It sounded more like she was saying "sun" instead of "sand", but googling came up with "sand" so I guess I'll go with that.)

Anyway, the band was really cool jazz-y with a girl singer with a soft-ish voice. So, I am pretty sure about the song, just can't find this particular version.

I was in a different city, so I have tried looking up the radio stations. Although, for some reason, I didn't make a clear note of the station, so checking online didn't produce anything ("was it 88.3 or 89.5..??") Argh!

Anyway, thank you very much in advance for any help with this!

Hot jazz where the words keep up with the music

yankeefog — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 03:18:48 -0800

My favorite kind of song: fast, swingy jazz with lyrics that are witty and/or intricately rhymed, performed by somebody who delivers the words and the music with equal skill. Examples include Bobby Short singing 'Nagasaki', Ella Fitzgerald singing 'Everything I've Got', and Louis Jordan singing pretty much anything. What other performances should I check out?

This sound is coming like a ghost sound.

roger ackroyd — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:17:53 -0800

What do the cool dead kids listen to? I'm looking for vintage spooky pop with a particular flavor: that sparse, echo-y Day-O/Ghost Town mournful message from beyond-the-grave sound. With a beat. Additional details: Dead Man's Party is too lively, Portishead is too modern. The answer may be dub or fado, but I don't really know those genres, so specific tracks would be much appreciated.

Best Music Writing 2012

Potomac Avenue — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 07:29:48 -0800

What are the best pieces of music journalism/criticism that were written in 2012? I have been pretty out of the music writing scene this year, and it looks like my usual go-to refresher Da Capo's Best Music Writing series, ain't coming out anytime soon.

Mainstream outlets are fine but I'm especially interested in examples of weird experimental stuff that pushes the boundaries of what music journalism can do, from blogs or other obscure sources and about subjects far outside the realm of pop. But most importantly I'm just looking for really good writing.

Self linking is also appreciated. If you're too embarrassed to hawk your shit memail me.

Rotten Tomatoes for Jazz?

kristi — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:50:38 -0800

I'm buying CDs for a friend to fill in his jazz collection. What are good online resources to help me pick the best discs? My friend is a jazz fan. He has lots of discs by his favorite artists, but there are still a lot of CDs he doesn't have.

I'm looking for sites that will help me figure out which discs are the best discs.

So, for example, say he likes Miles Davis but only has half of his CDs. What would be a good resource to help me figure out that Disc X is a classic but Disc Y is a badly-recorded bootleg?

Fan ratings are great, but something with some knowledgeable criticism would be even better - something along the lines of Rotten Tomatoes would be terrific.

Something that is both sortable by numeric ratings and complemented by text reviews would be ideal.

I would especially like something with albums ranked for each artist - so, using the Miles Davis example, a list of the best Miles albums would let me go through and check off which discs my friend has and then get the top albums he doesn't have.

(Note: I'm not worried about buying him something he already has; I have a good idea of what artists he likes and what discs he owns.)

Thanks!

What are some songs or clips from songs that slowly build up by adding instruments one at a time?

ch3cooh — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 09:24:53 -0800

What are some songs or clips from songs that slowly build up by adding instruments one at a time and/or by featuring one instrument at a time? I'm taking a film-art class, and would like to make a short (3-8min) video of cooking where the footage mimics a song being built out of a bunch of instruments. Ideally, I'd like to use a musical piece that I don't have to assemble from scratch and one in which the different instruments can be matched with sounds that are made during cooking (an egg cracking, the oven preset beeping, etc.) so that I can fade, over the course of the piece, from the sounds of cooking into the sounds of music. So, my absolute ideal would be a song that's close-to perfectly broken down into individual instruments.

The closed song I've ever heard to what I'm looking for is Sly and the Family Stone's "Dance to the Music." but that's a little overwhelming to be a background...
I don't care so much about the music style (rock, jazz, pop, etc.) just the structure of the 'sound montage' within. :)

Thanks so much for any help/suggestions finding something!

Where can my girlfriend and I go see Glenn Miller play live?

John Kenneth Fisher — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:16:41 -0800

Where can my girlfriend and I go see Glenn Miller play live? Okay, maybe not Glenn HIMSELF, but are there any actual Big Band venues/nightclubs still out there, like in the old movies, with a band shell and a band belting out the top hits of 1938?

We're in NJ, but I'd be interested to know of anything in the country that fits this.

Happy jazz music for cocktail hour

blithecatpie — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:05:03 -0800

Please recommend your favorite upbeat, happy jazz songs. I'm trying to come up with a playlist for the jazz band we hired to play during our wedding cocktail hour, but I'm coming up a little short on songs (seems I mostly like the sad stuff).

I really like Pennies from Heaven by Billie Holiday, and I'm looking for similar-sounding songs.

Your help is appreciated!

Old-fashioned instrumental jazz?

one_bean — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:41:35 -0800

Please recommend music similar to this Jack Teagarden version of When Your Lover Is Gone. Slow, instrumental, a little bluesy - I'm trying to class up a cocktail party overlooking the Pacific Ocean but can't afford a band.

Your favourite band might not suck as much as some people think.

adamvasco — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 04:23:41 -0800

For me Miles Davis Bitch's Brew is the epitome of good driving fusion /jazz / rock. Help me push the envelope. I remember some Wayne Shorter, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, Weather Report, John McLaughlin. I need more of this good music in my life.

So, does everybody indeed want to be a cat?

The Giant Squid — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 21:18:04 -0800

Please help me find exciting jazz pieces that might entertain my (almost) 4 year old son! So, recently, I acquired Disney's The Aristocats, and it's been on semi-permanent repeat with my (almost) four-year-old and my (almost) two-year-old.

I don't mind so much, it's a cute film, and I get a kick out of much of the voice acting. And this tune is a favorite with the offspring.

So, I'm in my truck with the kiddos, fiddling with the radio. For some reason or other, my kids have outgrown The Clash, and the (almost) four-year-old says: "Dad, can you play some JAZZ?"

I switch it over to the local high-school's jazz station, and it's all California-made electronic easy-listening jazz. Pretty much a failure on all parts.

So, I know, the usual responses of Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong (hell, I'm a Louisianan ferchrissakes), but, I'm looking to make a 'special' CD full of exciting, iconic jazz tunes, with a bit of vocal and heavy horn, as I think that's what the kiddos are looking for.

I'm happy to take any suggestions you fine folks have....

August in Marciac advice

ruelle — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 11:46:04 -0800

Has anyone attended any of the Jazz Master Classes at Marciac in August? Any words of wisdom to pass along? Where did you sleep? Where did you eat? What were the surprises? What do you recommend to a newcomer? + two extra questions on jazz workshops in general and on this jazz festival in particular.. So, in general, what makes or breaks your experience at a given jazz workshop or master class? How's the peer pressure? After being at it for 6-7 hours, should you just break away from the group, or is time spent talking shop with fellow peers really invaluable?

The Marciac jazz festival - ok, spill your beans! I heard there's a big Woodstock-like atmosphere. What were your impressions? What do you recommend?

Bonus question: so Mariac is in Gers, the least populated area of Europe - what's there to visit in the surroundings? People say I gotta visit Lourdes.. Anywhere else you recommend?

(Thank you all for the advice and suggestions!)