Help me build up a jazz album collection. Can you suggest a must have album?


Just got back into analog after not having a turntable for 38 years. That was a Thorens TD 320. Now I have a VPI. Building a jazz album collection now since jazz seems to be what I enjoy now. I have barely 12 albums from Miles Davis, Art Blakey, King Curtis, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Ike Quebec and Illinios Jacquet. Can you suggest a must have album? I generally like great sax, and percussion and sometimes a good vocalist, but I am open to anything that sounds GREAT. Also, if there is a particular label, issue or type of album. Thanks in advance.

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For Bill Evans, I like Waltz for Debbie even more than the Village Vanguard album which came from the same series of performances.  Also, his Portrait in Jazz.

I concur otherwise with many of the above suggestions.  But an omission is Herbie Hancock--get a greatest hits anthology or Maiden Voyage and (if you like electric funk-jazz) Chameleon.

Paul Desmond is my favorite alto-sax player.  His albums with guitarist Jim Hall are wonderful, although one of them had some string arrangements I could do without. Easy Living is one of their better albums.

Anything by Charnett Moffett. My favorite is The Art of Improvisation. He is a great stand-up bassist and musician. I first saw him with Stanley Jordan and have followed him ever since. 

I'll add to some of the greats already mentioned, Art Pepper Today, which has his 3rd recorded rendition of "Patricia" with Cecil McBee on bass.

"Katanga!" from Tone Poet- a great reissue.

I have not heard the newish reissue of Woody Shaw's Blackstone Legacy, but the OG is a wonderful album. The new one was promoted as being cut by the notorious Bernie G, but apparently was done by Kevin Gray. 

Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans, "Know What I Mean?" should still be in print as a Kevin Gray cut on Craft; I compared it to a couple others and if you can find a mid-'80s OJC copy in clean playing condition, you'll find it a little more visceral. 

Gary Bartz and Maisha- Bartz was one of the original spiritual jazz players with his own discography; here, he teams up with a young collective inspired by the original spiritual jazz movement. Bonus: cut direct to disc.

Cochemea’s All My Relations- part of the Daptone band that backed the late Sharon Jones, a cool record that is a sonic treat. 

None of these should be terribly pricey. 

OGs of some of Pharaoh Sanders' work are now expensive, as are some of the early (pre-Ashram) albums by Alice Coltrane. Many have been reissued using digital sources. Worth trying, perhaps, to see if you like any of them enough to spend the money on original pressings. 

It's all a great adventure. Part of the fun is "surfing" players to find other works. I was entranced by Cecil McBee a few years ago, and started buying pretty much anything I could lay my hands on. Hope you find your own muse in exploring. 

There is a recent Pharaoh album that is undoubtedly cut from digital but it is all standards and ballads- very straight ahead without the multi-phonic sqwack for which he was known--entitled "Welcome to Love." Very accessible though not typical of his work. 

The Kevin Gray recut of Hancock's "Crossings" just sparkles. I compared it to an unmolested green label and the recut had more of everything. It's a hodgepodge of jazz sounds turned on its head, very inventive, like a primer to every jazz idiom put into a blender. 

There's a whole lot more that is worth exploring. I'm a big fan of the work Gil Scott Heron did with Brian Jackson, like "Winter in America." It was released on Strata-East and has that wonderful chime-y Rhodes sound. Also released (and cheaper) as retitled The Bottle. The Strata-East label is a gold mine of jewels and dross and worth researching- now pricey.