Help Me Expand My Music Taste

Hello Dennis,

Try to locate a "Borders" or "Barnes & Noble" equipt with auditioning headphones in their CD section. Take these recommended artist list, and head out for several hours of sampling. As "Photon46" mentioned, help us narrow down prefered instruments and music style(s). To many, composition is priority, but as with all music, recording quality varies tremendlessly. A well-engineered/recorded alblum sure increases your HiFi playback experience, and of which, I feel, contributes to much premature component criticism if lacking. Do you have SACD or HDCD?

Frank

Here's an idea that I would only suggest on an audiophile site: Buy a program like Limewire ($50 or so) that allows you to download music for free over the net. It's a peer to peer file sharing program. You can listen to tons of music (start with suggestions you get here) and decide what you like. Many people will balk at this idea and call it 'stealing' music but i disagree: The sound quality is so poor (for an audiophile) that it's not tolerable so you're only using the service to make decisions on what to buy. Exploring music this way, in the last 3 months, I've spent more money on cds than i have in the last couple of years. I love it!

Weather Report's Heavy Weather, self titled Weather Report or Mysterious Traveller are all great

Dave Brubeck, Take Five or Bravo Brubeck are superb

Chick Corea The Leprican

It won't be hard to figure out I'm a fan of GRP Recordings.
Dave Grusin has put out some superbly recorded albums.
One would never know some were recorded live...

"Homage to the Duke" (Dave Grusin)
"The Gershwin Connection" (Dave Grusin)
"The Hang" (Don Grusin)
"Belly of the Sun" (Cassandra Wilson)
"The Essential Dave Brubeck" (2 CD "best" of)

IMHO "The Gershwin Connection" is a must have.
As a matter of fact four of the five I consider as must haves.

Blues
1. Muddy Waters: Folk Singer
2. Buddy Guy & Junior Wells: Alone & Acoustic

Jazz
1. Jazz at the Pawn Shop
2. Jessica Williams: Live at Yoshi's

Check out http://www.allmusic.com to read about most of the suggestions mentioned. they have an excellent rating system and you can also sample alot of songs.