What is your favorite Jazz song and why? (I love the impossible questions)

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

For me, I think overall, pound for pound its "A Night in Tunisia" or "'Round about midnight". But I'll have to think on it.

How 'bout you?

[chenGOD]

1. Right now it "Haitian fight song" by Mingus.

Yesterday though it was either "All Blues" by Miles or "Syeeda's Song Flute" by Coltrane.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

3. Haitian Fight Song is one of the future MRS CStheT's favorites!

She's a Mingus freak!

As for Miles I've been really into the Miles Smiles stuff - early in the life of his Wayne Shorter quintet days

[chenGOD]

5. Miles Smiles is a beautiful record...however...

for about the last 5 years "Walkin" with the Miles Davis Sextet/Quintet.
The album just makes me shudder in joy when I listen to it...

On edit: I mean the original "Walkin" back in 1954, with "Walkin", "Blue'n'Boogie", "Solar", "You don't know what love is" and "Love me or leave me".

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

7. Got it in my itunes - gonna switch to it!

MM mm good!

:toast:

[chenGOD]

9. It's funny, cause I didn't relaly get it until then...

i mean I picked it up back in like '92 or something, after reading the liner notes to Bitches Brew, and played it a few times, but it never really clicked for me until about 2000, and man it just dropped on me like this heavy, but beautiful stone.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

12. That's part of a series he did early on after Coltrane joined him

Workin'
Steamin'
Cookin'
Relaxin'
& Walkin'

All of them are great

Also from that period 'Round About Midnight has been in high rotation for me!

[chenGOD]

13. hmm i don't believe that 'Trane was on walkin'....

I know he was on the other 4 but I'm pretty sure it was someone else on Walkin...

On edit: yep I just checked and on Walkin' Lucky Thompson plays tenor with the sextet, and Davey Schildkraut play alto with the quintet.


Here's another fantastic record from the early 50's Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

14. Hey you're right! Thanks (Edit - DUH Walkin' isn't in that series!!!!)

I didn't like Trane's work on those albums and Walkin' is my least fav. Miles loved them but Trane felt they were week (he was still a junky and big drinker then too) That explains why walkin' gets the least play of that series. I prefer Steamin'.

As for Modern Jazz Giants - I do love that one especially for the behind the scenes drama that became legendary. Monk played on that album and the two of them (miles and Monk) fought the whole time. Miles wanted Monk to lay back and stay out of the way alot of the time so they got to fighting. The tension works and makes the album compelling, IMO!

Thanks about schoolin me on walkin' - I got to do some more home work.
(Edit - I knew this - Walkin' was the Miles Davis All Stars - I remember this from his autobiography - I need more java!)

Have you ever heard Miles' On the Corner?

[chenGOD]

19. Miles on the Corner is good stuff,

Sadly I don't have my copy anymore. I prefer Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew to On The Corner, but OTC was visionary.

Walkin with the Miles Davis All Stars is the one with Autumn Leaves on it non? I believe that's more of a greatest hits kind of deal...Miles had kicked the junk by Walkin' and I think that's why Trane wasn't on Walkin'. I just love it cuase it such an impact on hard bop. Everyone was still trying to ctach up to the cool that Miles had laid down over the previous few years, and then bam...he goes and messes up everybody's mind again...

Discussing Miles (and jazz/otheer good music) is one of the greatest pleasures in life, cause no matter what, one is always sure to learn something new and groovy every time.

[Magrittes Pipe]

2. "Equinox"

Trane.

I can't tell you why. I mean, that's not close to being my favorite period of Coltrane's work (that would be the recordings the classic quartet made for Impulse), but that song just kicks my ass every time.

The most specific thing I can think of as to why I like it so much is that McCoy Tyner's piano solo is simply divine -- and with McCoy being the only surviving member of the quartet, I've gotta give him props.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. On McCoys first solo album Inception he does a version of 'round about

midnight that gives me the chills ecery god damned time!

[vi5]

4. Not an afficianado but of what I know....

Either "Move" by Miles Davis or A Love Supreme Part 1. I like all of A Love Supreme but something about the way Part 1 builds and comes together just does it for me every time.

Not exactly deep answers, but what the heck.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

10. Any time you talk about A Love Supreme it gets deep - I just read a whole

book about that album - don't get me started!

[Jerseygirltoo]

20. and the 'sequel ' to A Love Supreme

Check out The Creator Has A Master Plan by Pharaoh Sanders

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

22. High rotation in my home!

We're Sanderphiles in the CStheT household

[LowerManhattanite]

27. Saw Pharoah live with Andy Bey at a small club in Newark

18 years ago. I had a front table. God-damn. The hairs on my neck went up so often I tought I was being "saved" or something. A near-religious experience.

Runner-up to that experience? The night my 8-months pregnant ex-wife and I went to Fat Tuesday's here in NYC and saw Jimmy Smith, Grady Tate and Kenny Burrell. Another front table night right next to Jimmy at the Hammond B-3. Between sets he and Grady sat with us for a few minutes talking with Jimmyplayfully eyeing the wife's plate of beef short ribs.

I love ALL music (My iPod sports tunes from the Chick Webb orchestra, Brandy and Kanye West and XTC) but there's just something about Jazz and it's immediacy that just gets me.

Bird Lives! (His "Just Friends" from the "With Strings" album is a more than honorable mention!) :)

[sundog]

6. Anything off the "Wave" album by Antonio Carlos Jobim --

Hard to pick just one song off it, since it works as a whole. That album just takes me to a different space, no matter what mood I'm in -- it has smoothed out some serious funks for me... so laid back, so smooth, just all around feel good music...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. Bossa Nova at its Zenith!

Good pick!

[Rooktoven]

47. I love that album, but for individual song

It's hard to go against All Blues of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

[Magrittes Pipe]

15. "Feels so Good" by Chuck Mangione.

Nah, I'm just fuckin' wit' ya. :P

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. No shit! You keep pulling that one

It gets me every time!

[Magrittes Pipe]

17. Aw... he looks so HAPPY to be with his flugelhorn!

:)

[Kahuna]

18. "The Mooch" by Duke Ellington...

nt

[noonwitch]

21. Yardbird Suite

Charlie Parker

[Red State Rebel]

23. Is Pat Matheny considered jazz?? First Circle :)

[oxymoron]

24. "Lullaby of Birdland"

Sarah or Ella

on edit: Many people have covered this song over the years. I heard both Ella and Sarah sing it live. Both versions were amazing.

[Jerseygirltoo]

25. I am so jealous

That you saw them both live.

[oxymoron]

59. Then I won't mention

that I saw Ella five times (with Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, and others) and Sarah twice. They really are great memories to have...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

36. Ella's version for me with that sax in the beginning...incredible

That's probably my all time favorite love song

[oxymoron]

58. Oh, you have to check out the live version with

Ella and Duke Ellington on the "Ella and Duke at the Cote D'Azur" (Juan-Le-Pins 1966). Freaking amazing.

[LowerManhattanite]

26. I have three...

The live version of 'Round Midnight from "Thelonious Monk Live at the It Club".

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers "Moanin'".


Duke Ellington's "La Scala (She Too Pretty To Be Blue)"

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

29. Moanin' yeah baby!!!!

That's the shizNIT!!!

[HuckleB]

28. This morning it's "Down San Diego Way" by Arther Blythe, last night...

it was "Russel and Eliot" by Yusef Lateef. Saturday night, it was "Chove Chuva" by Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66. Saturday morning, it was "For Mods Only" by Chico Hamilton. Friday night, it was "El Rey Del Timbal" by Tito Puente. As for 'Trane, since he seems to be dominating this board, I'd go with "Impressions."

[VelmaD]

30. For cool jazz...gotta be "Take 5"...

by Dave Brubek.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

31. I love take 5 but for cool Jazz I say "So What" by Miles

Which Erykah Badu tried to use as a kind of theme song.

I love her too but that's a different thread

[SnohoDem]

32. Flamenco Sketches

from Kind of Blue, because Bill Evans says so much with so few notes and both sax solos are wonderful. I also love the bass line. What a band.

[Ernesto]

33. "Compared To What?"

Les McCann with Eddy Harris on the "Swiss Movement" album..... The song is political kick-ass. It was recorded in the days of Nixon but it works very well with today's repug stupidity.

[Rooktoven]

48. a great ANGRY song

abortion is rarely mentioned in ANY song

34. Spiritual by John Coltrane

the long version on Live at Village Vanguard is my fave, but really any version.
If you have to ask why, well then never mind.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

42. It's like "if you have to ask how much it costs - you can't afford it"

Well, spiritually speaking.

I'm with you. I love the whole Village Vanguard disc.

*sigh*

[bo44]

35. McCoy Tyner and Eddie Harris' Compared to What Live at Montreaux

...have one doubt they call it treason...

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

37. It's a song called Mambo Banjo by the Allison Brown quartet

because it has incredible piano solos and does jazz with a banjo...and is an intense latin jazz piece with an awesome build.

Of the classics...it's Moanin's by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

[Squeech]

38. "Crepuscule with Nellie"

It's in the running for most beautiful composition in the world.

(Other contenders include Stravinsky's Firebird, Ives' Fourth Symphony, and "Waterloo Sunset.")

I think it was the one piece Monk told his band to play exactly as written, that there was no way to improve upon it.

[CO Liberal]

39. A Tie

Between "Midnight in Moscow" by Kenny Ball and "The Girl From Ipanema" by Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto. Musical reminders of a simpler time when JFK was still alive.....

[Forkboy]

40. Ya gotta help me...I dont know the name of it!!!

I know it's a live Duke Ellington song,early to mid 50's.It starts with marimbas and a nice Caribbean sound for a minute or two then goes into some of the most amazing horns I've ever heard.The song is probably 6-7 minutes long.

I've only heard it twice in my life and it stands out from everything else I've heard in the jazz field (admittedly not that much as I've only been listening to it for a year or so now).

[bif]

41. "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue"?

From "Live At Newport"?

[Forkboy]

45. I could kiss you!!!!!!

That's it!!!!!

Like I said,I've only been listening to jazz for a year or so.I normally listen to rather extreme music (punk,death metal,industrial etc.) so jazz is like stumbling into a whole new musical landscape of sounds and feelings I've never really experienced before.

Every night my local PBS radio station plays jazz.I go to bed and lay there letting it wash over me and it's so incredible.Thelonius Monk,Stan Getz...everything! The talent and skill is amazing,but like the music I listen to normally it's got a freedom to it that really attracts me.It's like playing with no rules.

I just downloaded the first few minutes of "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" to verify it was the one.Once I knew it was I called my local library and they have Live at Newport on reserve for me!!

Thanks a million bif.This music fan is always looking for new avenues and you've sent me on one,the best thing a person can do for me! :)

[bif]

56. No prob.

Great tune. It's the one with a long honking sax solo. At the end, after they bring the house down, you can hear Duke saying, "Paul Gonsalvez...Paul Gonsalvez."

[bif]

43. Currently "The Water is Wide" by Charles Lloyd

What a beautiful song. I could listen to it a thousand times and not get sick of it.

[Khephra]

44. Does Morphine count as jazz or are/were they more blues?

[notadmblnd]

46. anything by Keiko Matsui

[curse10]

49. Skunk Funk by the Brecker Brothers

why? because it kicks ass! :P

[TX-RAT]

50. Theme song to , Get Shorty

Got the sound track, love it.

[BlueJazz]

51. Probably "Tangerine" played by Paul Desmond

Also "So Danco Samba" by Stan Getz/Jim Hall.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

52. Far too many for me to have my favorite

But I wonder if you are talking about tunes that have been specifically written by jazz artists, or if it also includes tunes that weren't originally written for jazz, but have become very well-established standard fakebook tunes in any jazz musician's repertoire?

For example, "Dolphin Dance" by Herbie Hancock was written as a jazz tune and is one of my all-time favorites. But another favorite, "All The Things You Are" (favorite because I enjoy playing the changes to it) was a pop tune before becoming a favorite jazz standard. It lends itself to bebop very well.

I really like "500 Miles High" co-written by Chick Corea. I also like Chick's "Spain". I love almost anything written by Wayne Shorter, "Armageddon" being one of my favorite tunes to improvise over. Coltrane's "Naima" is breathtakingly beautiful and "Giant Steps" is breathtakingly challenging. "Freedom Jazz Dance" by Eddie Harris is one I love to play as well. "Blue Bossa" by Kenny Durham is one of the all-time great tunes as well as "Seven Steps To Heaven" by Miles Davis.

Just too, too many my friend.

[BrotherBuzz]

53. 'Cast your Fate to the Wind'

by Vince Guaraldi. I just love it 'cause it captures a moment and a feeling from my past. Vince lived up the street from me in the early sixties and the entire neighborhood was often serenaded with that piece. We knew it was special before it even became a hit. It still is.

[tigereye]

54. wow so many choices

can't pick one.

Kind of Blue and So What by Miles Davis.
Straight No Chaser
Betty Carter.. Surrey with the Fringe on Top - her voice is imcomparable

Sarah Vaughn.. hard to pick one. I love her ballads.

Duke Ellington - Caravan?

[taxidriver]

55. take five, peanuts theme song, freedom jazz.

[Blue-Jay]

57. Billie's Bounce by Charlie Parker

Why? Because I can play the whole thing from memory. Even the solo. It was the first Bird song I ever learned.

Second: Giant Steps by Coletrane. Why? Because it's friggin' Giant Steps!

[kodi]

60. On Green Dolphin Street. Miles Davis Sextet, circa 1958

Davis, Coltrane, Adderley, Evans, Chambers, Cobb.

Beat that line-up?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

61. Fables of Faubus

just something about the feel of the song, the rhythm, melody, backstory... I just love that one... but there are so many...