Jazz

I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
Click to expand...
I'd say this is where streaming comes into play for ya. There are SO many things to recommend based on your list of most-liked so I can throw a few out there, but definitely recommend streaming a lot before buying. A bit hard to tell on fist glance what albums you have and have not listened to... but I feel like you need to check out Cannonball Adderly's Somethin' Else as it is a classic. Blakey has a ton of great albums. You can work your way through some of those folks' discographies you mentioned liking already. Coltrane and Miles have extremely expansive catalogues with tons of good stuff in different styles. Check out some of Donald Byrd's earlier stuff before he got into fusion. If you like Blossom Dearie, check out Sarah Vaughan--she's another awesome jazz vocalist.

I have been working my way through the Penguin Guide To Jazz Core Collection list which is fun. It can help expose you to a lot of different albums and stuff you may not have listened to:

Penguin Guide to Jazz: Core Collection List

www.tomhull.com
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
Click to expand...
Well from your list Hard Bop seems to be your jam (mine too!).

Lee Morgan is my favourite jazz musician and The Cooker is certainly up there as one of his best, but I would also suggest The Sidewinder, Search For The New Land, Volume 3.

Tina Brooks is great and the Tone Poet 'Minor Move' features Lee Morgan on trumpet. Brooks didnt release a lot but this one is killer.

I imagine you would like Wayne Shorter (he appears on The Freedom Rider on Tenor Sax) and some of his best as lead include Speak No Evil, Juju, Etcetera (another great Tone Poet).

With Coltrane his earlier work is in the hard bop sub-genre (later on he becomes more experimental). Soultrane is around his 4th release as lead. Blue Train was just before this and is one of his most well known (and only release on Blue Note). It was hearing this album for the first time that led me to look into Lee Morgan, as he features on it.

The way in which I initially discovered new jazz musicians was to listen to a handful (which you have done) then pick out which bits I like best and focus on who was playing that part. That will lead you into a rabbit hole in itself and you will soon realise that the majority of musicians will have worked together on an album at some point of their career. For example, lets say that you really like the piano playing on A Blowing Session. Well, that's Wynton Kelly and he was a pretty dominant side-man for much of his career (although he was lead on a great number of superb records) and appeared on Miles Davis' 'Kind Of Blue', Hank Mobley's 'Soul Station', Lee Morgan's 'Vol.3', Wayne Shorter's 'Introducing Wayne Shorter', etc.
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
Click to expand...
It depends a bit on how you get into music. I'm personally with @Selaws and I like to concentrate on just a few artists and go deep on them eg I love Miles Davis and have got a lot of his stuff whereas I've only recently started buying some more Coltrane after getting the essentials. The other approach is to go broad but to get all the best records in the style you like eg hard bop.

Most of all though, I'd say to chill out - this music has been around for 60+ years and it's pretty easy to pick up decent pressings of most things. I'd definitely recommend what @MikeH says and stream everything beforehand. Jazz or not, I pretty much don't buy a vinyl record without knowing that I will love it beforehand - it's too expensive and I have too little space to just FOMO buy.

That said, based on what you like I'd go deeper into the ones you like - Lee Morgan's Sidewinder, recent BN80s include Art Blakey's Buhaina's Delight and Indestructible and Introducing Johnny Griffin (all of which are great). If you want to push yourself a bit try some of later Coltrane - A Love Supreme is a good way in, Olé is another one I like. I see you've got some Miles Davis too - you can pretty much try every type of jazz with him: you've got ensemble works like Porgy & Bess and Sketches of Spain, the start of fusion with In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, and true jazz-funk with Agartha and On the Corner. My personal favourite is his 1967 Live in Europe bootleg series 1 with his second great quintet - just mindblowing jazz, but it took me some time to get into that style. Have fun!
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
Click to expand...

I’d also suggest streaming. I found just streaming all of the BN80 and Tone Poet pressings has given me a great idea of what I liked, and what I felt deserved a spot in my fledgling collection. Art Blakey has a handful of great releases in the BN80 series along with Lee Morgan. Give some of those a listen. You‘ll find new artists that you potentially will love with vast discographies of their own you can explore at your leisure.

My personal favorite discovery was Herbie Hancock’s Interventions and Dimensions. Killer album that strays a bit into modal jazz.
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
Click to expand...

adding to what others have offered, I’d recommend trying at least one Dexter Gordon title from the BN80 or Tone Poet series
 
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hey hey, if any of y'all have been digging live stream concerts, Blue Note New York is hosting an At Home series on their FB! in about an hour, an artist I work with is doing a set with pianist Oscar Perez.
to view, you just check the FB page linked above and they will have a Live video on their wall whenever it's time.
80254508_10157814831128621_9109381995185313169_o.jpg
 
Jeff Lerner said:
I need direction. I'm not a jazz noob per se, but my knowledge is pretty limited. My collection is growing, but I feel like I'm buying albums blind and I don't have the money or space for albums I don't love.

Here is my jazz collection: Check out jlerner33's music collection on Discogs

And these are the albums I love the most, I would be very appreciative of any and all recommendations for where I should go next:

Lee Morgan - The Cooker
Art Blakey - Freedom Rider
Blossom Dearie - s/t
Ben Webster - Soulville
John Coltrane - Soultrane
Johnny Griffin - A Blowing Session
Click to expand...
I agree with @MikeH about Sarah Vaughan in regards to Blossom Dearie. I'd also check out Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Monica Zetterlund, Johnny Hartman. Even Tony Bennett has a great album with Bill Evans that would fit.
 
Jeff Lerner said:
Can you recommend one or two Sarah Vaughan albums? The only Nina I have is Sings the Blues so I could use some more of her too.
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The upcoming Verve/AP reissue series includes Nina Simone's I Put A Spell On You and Pastel Blues, which are two of her best, in my opinion.

In Concert and Wild Is The Wind are some other highlights.
 
dhodo said:
The upcoming Verve/AP reissue series includes Nina Simone's I Put A Spell On You and Pastel Blues, which are two of her best, in my opinion.

In Concert and Wild Is The Wind are some other highlights.
Click to expand...

In Concert is one I keep on meaning to pick up, it's a great album.

I would recommend listening to anything by Nina Simone, she covers some very different styles with absolute class. I keep on going back to Here comes the sun, which is album of covers. Not her best album, but has some great tracks.

If you haven't seen it this recording at Ronni Scotts is impressive, I watched it on Amazon Prime through my HiFi, not sure what the sound quality on You tube is like.

 
Jeff Lerner said:
Can you recommend one or two Sarah Vaughan albums? The only Nina I have is Sings the Blues so I could use some more of her too.
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I was gonna suggest the same Sarah Vaughan that @mingerton did. As far as Nina goes, I love Wild is the Wind, Little girl Blue, At the Village Gate, I Put a Spell on You, Nina at Newport. There's a lot of Nina out there and most of it is pretty awesome.
 
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