Eighteen reasons for not hating jazz

Herbie Hancock

When I used the term “modern jazz” in my previous post, I meant the inaccessible stuff which Be-Bop ushered induring the 1950s and which reached its unlovely zenith at the end of that decade. I didn’t mean to include Trad or Swing, which had their moments, or some of the terrific stuff that followed "modern" jazz, when a regular beat and tunes were reintroduced in the 1960s.

None of the jazz I enjoy is in the least bit exclusive or self-congratulatorily complex.  I expect many jazz enthusiasts wouldn’t even classify most of what follows as jazz, in any case.

Here, in no particular order are some of my favourites. I'll start with Benny Goodman's "That's A Plenty" which I first heard when Johnny Dankworth chose it as one of his Desert Island Discs years ago. Goodman was 19 when he recorded this in Chicago in 1928 and his performance is awesome:

Other brilliant Goodman recordings include his thumping 1937 version of Louis Prima's "Sing Sing Sing (with a Swing)", which features some of the greatest drumming ever committed to disc, courtesy of the great Gene Krupa, and "Big John's Special". And, also from that era, I've always been fond of Bob Cosby and the Bobcats' "Big Noise Blew in from Winnetka", especially when it goes bonkers about 1'45" in. That's Swing taken care of.

Post-modern jazz, now:  "Cantaloupe Island" is possibly the coolest record of all time, jazz or otherwise. I first heard it when a trendy and very nice photographer couple moved in a few doors down some 15 years ago and played a Herbie Hancock album at their housewarming party one hot summer night. I went out into our garden determined to be grumpy about the noise - but stayed for 20 minutes just to soak up the music. This is what I call a groove:

In 1993, Hancock's masterpiece was sampled on "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)" by the jazz-rap group, Us3 (a Top Ten US hit -deservedly so) - and I love that too. You can listen to it here. 

In a similar vein is the Horace Silver Quintet's 1964 "Song For My Father" (the old guy on the album cover featured in this YouTube video is Horace's dad, apparently - which is nice).

Seu Jorge

I'm not that keen on World Music, but I like a lot of Latin American jazz. My three  favourite tracks are Antonio Carlos Jobim's dreamy "Favela",  Seu Jorge's haunting take on David Bowie's "Oh! You Pretty Things", and Paul desmond's "Theme from Black Orpheus" (although I'm guessing Mr Desmond isn't actually Hispanic). 

Ronnie Law's relentless "Always There" sound like funk to me, but as it came on a Best of Jazz compilation CD, I reckon I'm justified in featuring it here. 

As for my earliest experience of jazz, that was either Bobby Darin's excellent Big Band version of "Up a Lazy River", which featured on a 1960 EP, or Vernon Girl Lyn Cornell's vocal version of Cannonball Adderley's "African Waltz" - but as the latter single, on which Ms Cornell was backed by the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra, is too obscure to make it onto YouTube, I'll have to settle for Johnny's 1962 instrumental version, which was a No. 9 hit in the UK (and has the merit of not featuring Cleo Laine). 

And, for old time's sake,  I'll bung in Kenny Ball's "Midnight in Moscow", from 1962, and Acker Bilk's "Delia's Gone", from 1958 - not cool, I know, but they mean something to me.

I have no idea whether contemporary artist, C.W. Stoneking's stuff counts as jazz, but this Australo-American white boy with the voice of a hard-living 65-year old Delta bluesman is so wonderful, he makes the cut in any case. I'll end with his utterly brilliant "The Love Me Or Die":