Jazz for aficionados

Frogman, ok, good, now I understand you better. Things are much clearer, if not completely.

One more thing:
"Have there been musicians of the artistic caliber of a Satchmo, Bird, Miles, Sonny Rollins, Trane, Bill Evans and, yes, Ornette Coleman, or even the “tier” below (Johnny Griffin) that slipped through the cracks and were never discovered or have been forgotten? Not a chance in hell."

It is as if you are saying: If the unknown one had been good enough (meaning great), we would have heard about him for sure.

And it is also as if we should not ’dig’ any further, ’cause it is already all there what is to listen. I know that you do not mean this but a bit sounded like this. : )

mary_jo, thanks for your comments.

**** It is as if you are saying: If the unknown one had been good enough (meaning great), we would have heard about him for sure. ****

Well, that is exactly what I am saying.  Now, to be clear, we are talking about comparison to the greatest.  Was there some unknown player in some little town that was of the exalted caliber of Miles or Trane that chose to remain anonymous, or ”didn’t get the breaks” to become well known during his lifetime or at some point after?  I suppose it’s possible that there has been an example or two of musicians with that POTENTIAL who, for personal reasons didn’t want the limelight; but I seriously doubt it for the reasons mentioned previously.  A player needs to be in playing settings that push him to full potential; staying in obscurity doesn’t allow that.  Moreover, part of what drives a creative artist is the need to express himself; so.....
“if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Let me try and explain what I mean this way, and let’s try and look at the issue in concrete terms and not just the abstract.  Again, I am always glad to learn of some lesser known player.  It’s always interesting and sometimes adds to the historical context.  This is not a reflection at all of how I feel about Alex’s focus (sometimes) on lesser known players. I appreciate the posts very much and have enjoyed much of the music.  However, to be frank, I can’t think of a single one that has been posted who has caused me to think, based on MY feeling about the quality of the playing relative to most of the well known players of the same instrument, ”hey, he could have been a Miles or Morgan or....”.   

Concrete, not abstract, question for you or anyone else:  who and how/why?

Man can not live on "Hard-Bop" alone;    


      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKZQxZjGhYQ


      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgKMdqSUkKc

I think that I have all albums that I have posted here, and my personal feeling is that those ’underrated’ players are great ’spice’ to my (any) collection, simple beacuse it would be quite boring to have, perhaps only 20,30 ’great’ names, no matter that each of them could ’force’ you to have 50 of their records. After all, even among the ’greats’ not all of the recordings are worth having. But, its a matter of taste and the way each of us listen or buys records. I like to have broad selection but still, every now and than, think that I have nothing to listen...But wanted to point out, in ’defense’ to those ’forgotten’ players, that often lots of them made just one or two recordings as a leader, due to different, mostly unfortunate circumstances of their lives. So, we will never know and there is no point to speculate could they become ’great’ one day or not, but for me they are also an essential part of jazz, in the way I imagine it. Than again it was quite funny (or sad?) to read Frogman’s posted lists....it looks that jazz in general is slowly (or it is already) going to be forgotten....

Here is King Flemming trio...
https://youtu.be/d7o4j1vqxsM
https://youtu.be/KkcNUxien4Q