Please list jazz albums which you would qualify as "sleepers"

My avatar.... Dave Brubeck's Time Further Out - Miro Reflections. It is a lot moodier than Time Out. It is loaded with experimentation. The cover is a Miro painting that has a string of random numbers in it. Dave used those numbers as time signatures on all the songs.

Look for a cheap vinyl copy or the $10 cd. I think you will really dig it.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

I never knew that Art Pepper and Barney Kessel had a session together. Looks like Shelly Manee is on it too. 3 of my favorites, so I'll have to seek this one out over the weekend.

 

Tommy Flanagan Trio - Overseas
Anthony Braxton - 8 (+3) Tristano Compositions
Arthur Blythe - In The Tradition
Blue Mitchell - The Thing to Do

 

Muhal Richard Abrams--Blues Forever
--Afrisong
Cannonball Adderley--Nippon Soul
George Adams--Paradise Space Shuttle
--Sound Suggestions
Henry "Red" Allen--1929-36 (Robert Parker Series)
Louis Armstrong--Swing That Music (1936-38, MCA)
Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt--Jug and Sonny
Rabih Abou-Khalil--Blue Camel
Count Basie--Chairman of the Board
Chu Berry--Chu
The Jaki Byard Experience
Art Blakey--The Big Beat
Carla Bley--European Tour '77
Anthony Braxton--Creative Orchestra Music 1976
Dave Brubeck--Brubeck Plays Brubeck (solo piano)
Don Byron--No Vibe Zone
Sidney Bechet-- Volume 2 (Blue Note LP)
Steve Bernstein with Sam Rivers--Diaspora Blues
Kenny Barron--Maybeck album
Mario Bauza--944 Columbus
Lester Bowie--The Fire This Time
Brother Ah--Sound Awareness
Donald Byrd--Free Flight
Dave Burrell--Windward Passages
Sonny Clark--Sonny's Crib
Avishai Cohen--Adama
Benny Carter--A Gentleman and His Music
Roy Campbell--New Kingdom
Uri Caine--Toys
Betty Carter--Now It's My Turn
Paul Desmond--Pure Desmond
Richard Davis--Philosophy of the Spiritual
Jack DeJohnette--Tin Can Alley
Gil Evans--Individualism of
Duke Ellington--Jazz Party
--New Orleans Suite
--70th Birthday Concert
--Historically Speaking
Booker Ervin--The Space Book
Johnny Frigo--Live at the 1997 Floating Jazz Festival
Chico Freeman--Spirit Sensitive
Tommy Flanagan--Jazz Poet
Ella and Louis (all 3 volumes)
Ricky Ford--Flying Colors
Dexter Gordon--Stable Mable
Johnny Griffin--Return of the Griffin
Dizzy Gillespie and Machito--Afro Cuban Jazz Moods
Stan Getz--Anniversary
Benny Goodman--On The Air (1937-38)
Charlie Haden--Closeness
--The Golden Number
Lionel Hampton--My Man
John Hicks--Inc.1
Heath Brothers--Live at the Public Theater
Coleman Hawkins--Meets the Big Sax Section
--Rainbow Mist
Abdullah Ibrahim--Ekaya
--Ode to Duke Ellington
James P. Johnson--Original 1942-45
Eddie Jefferson--The Main Man
Keith Jarrett--La Scala
Elvin Jones--The Ultimate
Barney Kessel--Easy Like
Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh
Rahsaan Roland Kirk--Bright Moments
The Leaders--Mudfoot
Yusef Lateef--Eastern Sounds
--The Three Faces of
--Cry!/Tender
Ronnie Matthews--Roots, Branches and Dances
Pat Metheny--80/81
Charles Mingus--Tijuana Moods
Modern Jazz Quartet-- The Last Concert
Thelonious Monk--5 By Monk By 5
Jay McShann--Kansas City Hustle
Bheki Mseleku--Celebration
David Murray--Holy Siege on Intrigue
Phineas Newborn--The Great Jazz Piano of
James Newton--Paseo Del Mar
Eddie Palmieri--Palmas
Duke Pearson--Wahoo
William Parker--O'Neal's Porch
Joe Pass--Portraits of Duke Ellington
Art Pepper--Today
Sam Rivers--Waves
Sonny Rollins--Alfie
Archie Shepp and Horace Parlan--Goin' Home
Zoot Sims--Hawthorne Nights
Eddie South--In Paris 1929 and 1937
Jess Stacy--Stacy Still Swings
Sun Ra--Cosmos
--Unity
--St. Louis Blues
Skatalites--High Bop Ska
Clark Terry--Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival (Arrangements by Ernie Wilkins)
Henry Threadgill--Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket
--Too Much Sugar For a Dime
Lucky Thompson--Lucky Strikes
Art Tatum and Ben Webster
Cecil Taylor--Silent Tongues
McCoy Tyner--Trident
--Supertrios
Lew Tabackin--Rites of Pan
Cal Tjader--Soul Sauce
Sarah Vaughan--Live at Mister Kelly's
Dinah Washington--The Jazz Sides
Randy Weston--Tanjah
Fats Waller--Turn on the Heat
Kenny Wheeler--Gnu High
James Williams--Magical Trio 1
Teddy Wilson--Solo Piano: Keystone Transcriptions 1939-40
Phil Woods--Musique du Bois
Mary Lou Williams--Free Spirits
Lester Young Trio

 

Max Roach and Cecil Taylor/Historic Concerts/Soul Note
Bennie Maupin/The Jewel in the Lotus/ECM
Keith Jarrett/Expectations/Columbia
Charles Mingus/Let My Children Hear Music/Columbia
Tony Williams Lifetime/Believe It
Joe Henderson/So Near, So Far

There are so many jazz musicians known only to a small audience that calling their best recordings 'sleepers' doesn't make sense to me.

 

That is a great list. Mingus' "Let My Children Hear Music" is fantastic, and deserves to be widely heard. That is an example of an album that jazz fans generally knew about in the 1970s. Back then, it was commonly thought of as a really good album that everyone either had or thought about getting soon. Now with the passing of so many years, who remembers it, and do younger listeners even know about it? There are so many great jazz albums like that.

 

Don't know about these two. In my experience, these two always get mentioned first when talking about Shorter's solo records.

 

Yes, yes, yes! It even covers a Beatle tune: Blue Jay Way. Love this album. Listen to it by candle light with a nice cabernet.

Also, if you are a fan of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme check out Pharoh Sanders' Karma.

Also, one of the all time greatest: Pat Metheny Group's Still Life (Talking).

 

John Hicks—Naima's Love Song (DIW) w/Bobby Watson, Curtis Lundy, Victor Lewis.

 

Everybody Digs Bill Evans: Bill Evans, Philly Joe Jones, and Sam Jones.

 

Actually, this is one of Bill's better-known albums.

 

Mingus himself said that Let My Children Hear Music was his best album, even though you may not consider him to be the foremost authority on that issue. I just heard it on the radio a few weeks ago. Simply beautiful music. The ensemble blowing is as intense as Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, the charts and arrangements are positively Ellingtonian. Easy to find for short money.

 

Agreed
also...
Bill Evans & Toots Thielemans - Affinity

 

How about:
Dave Brubeck, Jazz Impressions of Japan
Ahmad Jamal, The Legendary OKEH and Epic Recordings
Bud Powell/Don Byas, A Tribute to Cannonball
Bud Powell, A Portrait of Thelonious

 

With the exception of a handful of albums aren't they all sleepers?

...but I'll add ten to the list:

Dave Brubeck - Gone With The Wind
John Coltrane - Black Pearls
Lee Konitz - Motion
Charles Mingus - Mingus At Monterrey
Gabor Szabo - The Sorcerer
Jimmy Smith - Hoochie Cooche Man
Earl Hines - Once Upon A Time
Stan Getz & J. J. Johnson - At The Opera House
Oscar Peterson - Oscar Peterson + One Clark Terry
Cecil Taylor - Conquistador!

 

Charles Lloyd-Canto
Coltrane-Ole'
Ron Carter-All Blues
Joe Henderson-Lush Life The Music of Billy Strayhorn

 

You must manage the reissue department of Sony/Columbia.

 

One of my favorite Mingus albums! It sounds like part three of the two albums he cut for Columbia in 1959 ("Mingus Ah Um" and "Mingus Dynasty"). The original 1971 vinyl sounds excellent too.

Here's another candidate:



"Sweet Rain" by Stan Getz, from 1967. Stan moves away from bossa nova and gets into something a little more wistful and introspective.

 

Getz/Evans: Some experts do not think much of this one but I always loved it:

http://www.amazon.com/Stan-Getz-Bil...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1248279466&sr=1-1

 

By your original definition of "sleeper", I think most of the suggestions apply, though a few are actually quite well known, to jazz audiences at least.

How many of the above suggestions, though, would fall into a slightly more select category of records that belong in any decent jazz collection, but for some reason get overlooked?

 

I should have mentioned two Stan Getz albums from late in his career. They were recorded live in Coppenhagan long after his heyday. He had been diagnosed with cancer and he played his heart out. Kenny Barron on piano deserves special recognition for provide perfect support and tasty playing throughout.

Stan Getz-Anniversary
Stan Getz-Serenity

 

I never could get into that one, but this one I LOVE:

http://www.amazon.com/But-Beautiful-Featuring-Stan-Getz/dp/B000000XV6/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b

But Beautiful by Stan Getz and Bill Evans. Recorded live in 1974. I'll have to pull it out again.

 

Coltrane Plays the Blues
Mr. Day is one of my favorite pieces of music.

 

Great thread, I appreciate the suggestions. I am a newby to jazz and I will try to follow up on a few of these titles.