Recommended music - other than classical and pop


I am not sure there is a thread on what Sonos is truly about - the music, so this might be an interesting thread. I have left out classical because that deserves a thread of its own and modern pop because it all sounds the same to me.
I have Phil Keaggy strumming Solitude from his Acoustic Sketches album right now in the bedroom on a play 1 pair and sounding very good indeed.
Recently heard and equally good music and mastering:
1. Michel Petrucciani and NHOP
2. Beyond the Missouri Sky - Metheny and Haden
3. Chiaroscuro - Fresu and Towner
4. Jan Johannsen - Jazz pa Svenska
5. The Astounding Eyes of Rita - Anouar Brahem
6. Last Dance/Jasmine - Jarrett and Haden
7. Saturday Morning - Ahmad Jamal
8. Melos - Paolo Fresu
All but the last are ITunes 256kbps purchases, the last a lossless CD rip.
Very little lost in translation for the lossy thing and Sonos convenience.
Any recommendations on similar music that uses the silence between the notes effectively?

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333 replies

Clifford Brown and Helen Merrill
I hadn't heard this one - very nice and I am in just my first listen. The singing style isn't modern of course, but making an allowance for that, it doesn't sound its age of 60 years.
Thank you.
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Just wanted to send kudos to threadstarter and emphazise his number 4 on his list: 4. Jan Johannsen - Jazz pa Svenska. Fantastic intrumental jazz. Just what you want to put on anytime to make an easy and feelgood mood. thanks
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If the above is to your tastes, these three are brilliant, I have found:
1. Ragas and Sagas - Garbarek and Hussain
2. Making Music - Zakir Hussain
3. Song for Everyone - Garbarek, Hussain, Gurtu
Garabarek on his own can be hard to digest, I have found, but I like him on these.


I took up the runes by garbarek is hugely used as background music on snowy tv-documentaries here up north
I hadn't heard this one - very nice and I am in just my first listen. The singing style isn't modern of course, but making an allowance for that, it doesn't sound its age of 60 years.
Thank you.


Timeless music never sounds dated. ;)

Her Gil Evans collaboration is also a classic, as, of course, is Miles Davis' work with Gil.
emphazise his number 4 on his list: 4. Jan Johannsen - Jazz pa Svenska. Fantastic intrumental jazz.
I agree. It is also surprisingly little known outside of Scandinavia. It is so good that I will endorse it again just now. Excellent recording of high clarity too and rarely heard tunes. I did not find any of his other work to be anywhere close to how good this one is.
Timeless music never sounds dated. ;)

By definition?!
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Their version of Strayhorn's Lush Life is definitive, IMO.
I agree. Lovely album.

Another of my desert island tunes is Round Midnight. There are so many versions of it but the 1957 Miles Davis version from the album of that name still rules in my book. And is still as fresh as ever.

Where it comes to singing it, Karrin Allyson, on an album by the same name, with an excellent band supporting her.
I was digging around looking for more of Clifford Brown and Kenny Dorham, when I came across a somewhat unheralded Art Blakey/Jazz Messengers album - Like Someone in Love. This from the Lee Morgan/Wayne Shorter iteration of the Messengers, is a companion to their Night in Tunisia that is a better known album.
I found Morgan and Shorter to be more to my taste on the lesser known album, propelled forward by some robust drumming by Blakey. Great medium and slow tempo blowing on the trumpet and sax, and very well remastered, so crisp and clean sound.
Been chillin' with a couple of Eddie Higgins Trio albums from Venus label lately. Standards and Ballads.

Pretty easy to see why he was loved by Japanese and Korean jazz fans back in the day (while being virtually unknown at home, except in his hometown Chicago). Great stuff.
I discovered three great Benny Golson albums, recorded in the late fifties, which still sound great for listening as well as background for dinner or working.

Grooving with Golson, Gone with Golson and Getting with it.

Three excellent recordings, listen to any one or all three. It isn't easy to find music of this quality these days, even though this comment dates me.

Another recent find via Golson is Art Farmer. His Modern Art is a great trumpet record, and one of the best of Bill Evans on piano as well. Recorded in - when else - late fifties.
Check out The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album for a really fine collaboration between the two masters.
I got that quite some time ago, and discovered that Bennett was a very good jazz singer too. Doesn't do much in that vein now though.
Ah, but he has the kids discovering the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer... Nothing wrong with that!
His Idle Moments album has been in my collection for a long time, but I recently discovered another album of his - the Rudy van Gelder remastered version of Green Street, another 1950s album.

Excellent straight ahead jazz guitar with just bass and drums. Many of the tracks are standards, but sound fresh on this guitar led trio. Highly recommended for listening at quiet times, and I am looking to see what else of his I can find that is just as good.
The music sounds like it was recorded yesterday!
Not surprisingly, there are more great guitar jazz albums from Grant Green. One of these that I can recommend is with Sonny Clark on piano in the mix as well - A 2 CD 19 track set, The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark.

The fifties seem to have been golden years for jazz and it is not surprising that in some places jazz is considered to be the music of the 1950s.
Check out this phenomenal 11 year old jazz pianist from Indonesia, who is taking the jazz world by storm.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f4V_uaxBVOw
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His Idle Moments album has been in my collection for a long time [...] and I am looking to see what else of his I can find that is just as good.
Idle Moment is one of my all time favourites.
But you can’t go wrong with any of his LP’s he made up to 1965.
Check out his LP’s with Larry Young on organ (‘Talkin’ About’ and ‘Street of Dreams’.
Check out this phenomenal 11 year old jazz pianist from Indonesia, who is taking the jazz world by storm.

Thank you, that is a great video. I had no idea that Indonesia had a jazz scene, leave along jazz prodigies like Joey. Remarkable. I wonder if he also improvises such that the song sounds different but the same each time he plays.
I found another good video with him that is long, but seems just as good. A little wordy in the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOV2mONU8a0

Check out his LP’s with Larry Young on organ (‘Talkin’ About’ and ‘Street of Dreams’.

I will, thank you.
I also found his first CD released just this year. I haven't heard all of it, but it sound very promising.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Favorite-Things-Joey-Alexander/dp/B00TZE3W0C/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1435542754&sr=1-1&keywords=joey+alexander
I also found his first CD released just this year. I haven't heard all of it, but it sound very promising.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Favorite-Things-Joey-Alexander/dp/B00TZE3W0C/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1435542754&sr=1-1&keywords=joey+alexander


Yep, been listening to it via Sonos and Rdio. Have to wonder where he'll be in 10 years...
Here's an opportunity to help keep jazz alive. Help fund Tessa Souter's next album. She's not well known outside the Manhattan jazz clubs (where she performs with greats like Alan Broadbent), but is widely respected by fellow jazz musicians. Trained under the great Mark Murphy, who asked her to help lead his singing workshops. Her last album, Beyond the Blue, is a fav of mine.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tessasouter/help-make-tessa-souters-next-cd
I don't understand. Would one not just buy/stream the CD/music if one likes it? Like that of every other artiste since the recording era began?

And with self publishing, I think it isn't as expensive to do this as in the past.
It's very expensive to pay for the studio time, the recording engineers, the musicians, etc. She details all that on the Kickstarter site.

If you are a jazz artist, no matter how superb an artist you are, and you don't stoop to "smooth jazz" and the like to get airtime, it's very difficult to get backing, since your album sales will be small. Therefore, you either front the money yourself, or get creative.

Tessa, IMO, is right up there with Irene Kral, a superb ballad singer well known only to other jazz artists.
Interesting concept, and she has certainly been creative with the rewards.
Irene Kral, a superb ballad singer well known only to other jazz artists.
Very good, that singer. New find, thank you!
I was reading up about her and she could have used kickstarter as evidenced by this quote:
"Kral paid for the Where is Love? session out of her own pocket and shopped the tape everywhere. The few interested labels all wanted to 'sweeten' the material by heaping string tracks onto the songs. Kral's uniform response — as her friend Lee Wilder told me — was a curt "**** you."
Lol. And that album, it appears, was her summit.