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KPLU School of Jazz
Jazz on CD
In addition to the four volumes in the KPLU School of Jazz series, of course, KCLS’ collection includes many other great music titles, in many formats. For starters, we have a number of music CDs which feature many of the artists ‘guest starring’ with the high school bands in the School of Jazz series, including:
Bill Anschell - More to the ear than meets the eye
Greta Matassa - Favorites from a long walk
Darren Motamedy - Square one
Steve Korn - Points in time
Mike Marshall - Brazil duets
Ben Thomas - The Madman’s difference
Jay Thomas - 360 degrees
Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra - SRJO live
Pearl Django - New metropolitan swing
But, of course we have much more music than by just local artists. For instance:
John Coltrane – A
Love Supreme
Perhaps the most iconic and significant single recording by a modern jazz saxophonist. Coltrane’s styles have influenced nearly everyone playing jazz today and you can hear hosts of imitators anywhere jazz is playing. This newer edition includes never-before-heard alternate takes with fellow firebrand Archie Shepp!
David S. Ware Quartet – Balladware
Some swell old ‘chestnut’ standards played by one of the reigning titans of free jazz saxophone. Not for the timid!
Bobby McFerrin – Bang!Zoom
A whole choir of voices improvising along with Bobby’s amazingly fluid, and kaleidoscopic voice!
Benny
Goodman Sextet featuring Charlie Christian, 1939-41
The king of swing shrinks his big band down to this small group which played perhaps the most complicated jazz before Charlie “Bird” Parker came along.
Best
of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
Satchmo’s growl and Ella’s bright and wide-ranging scat-singing should NOT work together, but they certainly do, on plenty of the classic standards of Gershwin, Porter and Mercer. Plus, great dollops of Armstrong’s wonderful trumpet, to boot!
Blue
Note Perfect takes
Some of the finest examples of post-bop from the label that practically invented this strain of jazz. Includes single classics from the likes of Monk, Miles, Mobley, Shorter, Blakey and more.
Jimi Hendrix – Blues
Don’t let his reputation as the father of heavy metal rock fool you: Jimi was also perhaps the greatest gutsy blues guitar player to ever wield the electric axe!
Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra (SWOJO) – Dream
Catcher
All women playing all jazz! And all from right here in the Great Northwest!
Weather Report – Forecast:
Tomorrow
Probably the most creative offshoot from Miles’ electric period; Wayne Shorter’s saxes and Joseph Zawinul’s keyboards combined with many more dazzling wunderkinds including electric bassist Jaco Pastorius and percussionist Alphonse Mouzon.
Getz/Gilberto
Stan Getz’ tenor sax was the sweet perfect foil to the samba of South America – think “A Girl from Ipanema.”
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
You can’t claim to like jazz and NOT have this in your collection! Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans join Miles Davis in some off-the-cuff improvisations that became classic solos that will live forever.
Preservation Hall Jazz Band – Made
in New Orleans: the hurricane sessions
The classic old time band of New Orleans’ original Dixieland jazz live, as always, in their hometown.
Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd - Monk’s Dream
Steve Lacy’s soprano sax and Roswell Rudd’s trombone could be hilarious AND profound in interpreting some of the classics from the wildly eccentric pen of Thelonious Monk.
Medeski Martin & Wood – Note bleu
The best of the best of the new ‘jam bands’ – keyboards, bass and drums played in a way that HAS to move your feet (as well as your head).
James Carter – Out
of Nowhere
Carter’s way with nearly all the saxophones is practically exhausting – but no one today swings harder either!
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Rip
rig & panic
Only one musician ever played up to 3(!) saxophones at once!: Rahsaan Roland Kirk. And pushed the music to the limit, too, as well as pioneering ‘circular breathing’ where he could hold one note practically forever; he also played flute, nose flute, and several other reed instruments he pretty much invented.
The
best of Art Tatum
You will think there is more than one pianist when you hear Tatum’s fingers fly. And the variations he could find in all the tin pan alley classics is astounding. This recording also features many other of the music’s torchbearers such as Ben Webster, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Buddy Rich.
Sun Ra – Reflections
in Blue
All his life Ra claimed to be from the planet Saturn (this was long before the era of psychedelic rock) and after hearing a few of his cosmic big band numbers, plus his own wild electric keyboards, you just might be convinced he was!
Thelonious Monk – The classic quartet
Monk’s piano playing could be so simple and seemingly full of ‘mistakes’ -- but there was never an error: he was just finding new sounds within the 88 keys of his instrument.
Art Ensemble of Chicago – Third
Decade
“Great Black Music – Ancient to the Future” was this Chicago group’s rallying cry and the two-reed & trumpet front line band exemplified this by covering every era of jazz (and beyond), including pioneering the use of miscellaneous ‘little instruments.’
Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool
One of this trumpet icon’s 5 or 6 seminal albums that added whole new developments in jazz (see also: Bitches Brew, Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, and even Doo-Bop and more).
Bill Frisell – The Intercontinentals
Newer Seattleite guitarist Frisell has truly gathered together an international cast of musicians to strum an amazingly varied repertoire.
Charles Mingus – Cornell
1964
A newly discovered recording from the gargantuan bassist, composer and overall titan, Mingus, leading perhaps his greatest group, featuring mercurial pianist Jaki Byard and most especially, the incomparable saxman, flautist and bass clarinetist Eric Dolphy, through Mingus’ all-encompassing compositions.
The Marsalis Family – A
jazz celebration
Pianist Ellis Marsalis leads his four musician sons Branford, Ellis, Delfeayo, and, in particular, the Pulitzer Prize winning, classical AND jazz trumpet sensation, Wynton, through a number of classics, focusing on their hometown of New Orleans.
Art Blakey – A
Night at Birdland (volume 1 & 2)
Post-bop drummer Blakely not only produced melodies out of his drumkit but was also a whole school of music in himself, introducing into his various groups a whole slew of kids, who went on to become the music’s leading lights. This version of his group includes trumpeter Clifford Brown, saxophonist Lou Donaldson and pianist Horace Silver.
Coleman Hawkins
As the true father of the tenor sax, Hawkins career stretched across a wide swatch of jazz’ whole history, and he played with everyone from Louis Armstrong’s cohorts to the ‘new cats’ like Monk and Coltrane.
Happy birthday, Newport!: 50 swinging years
One of jazz’ oldest major ‘parties,’ the Newport Jazz Festival is here celebrated with some of the special performances it regularly produced – including those by Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Mahalia Jackson and many more!
Mylab
Seattleites Tucker Martine and NY transplant & wizard keyboardist Wayne Horvitz explore some of the furthest outside sounds of the music called jazz.
Charlie Parker – Yardbird suite
Alto saxist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker was one of the founders of modern bop, and his style permeates nearly every jazz performance you’ll hear today!
Billie Holiday – The Ultimate collection
Poignant, heartbreaking and yet tough as they come, “Lady Day” avoided the usual fast scat singing of many jazz vocalists but is often called the music’s greatest vocalist.
Satch
plays Fats
Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong is practically the granddaddy of all jazz, and an amazingly inventive trumpet player, as well. Here, along with his “All-stars,” he interprets many gems from mischievous cohort and pianist Thomas “Fats” Waller.
The
essential Oregon
Cerebral alternative Northwest group “Oregon” could never be confused with anyone else, especially on their array of instruments, primarily Indian tabla, acoustic bass, 12-string guitar and oboe(!) Simplified and watered down, one could say their music inspired legions to create both “New Age” and “world music.”
Smithsonian
collection of classic jazz
Nearly the whole history of the music on 5 CDs, chosen by experts to cover the broad range of this ‘sound of surprise.’
And don’t forget the Blues:
Dr. John – N'Awlinz
This rockin’ drawlin’ pianist is always a hit show at Seattle’s Jazz Alley, for one!
Ray Charles – Genius & Friends
Charles, who spent some formative years in Seattle, managed to get some funky sounds out of just about any song he tried singing. Here at the end of his long career he teams up with many of today’s hottest vocalists for a little duet one-upmanship.
BB King – Anthology
Few performers in any medium have had so long and successful career as this electric blues guitar giant – here with many of his best songs from over a span of 36 years.
Two fine anthologies of blues spanning the whole gamut and time of this artform:
Martin Scorsese presents The blues: the best of the blues
Last Updated: May 7, 2008