User:Ozhu/A gentle introduction to jazz

This is a gentle introduction to appreciating jazz. I hope this can be a guide for newbies to the jazz genre, like myself, to dive head first into good jazz music without having to do too much research. The vast majority of music here is straight from my brother's playlist, and most of the background information was cherry picked from Wikipedia (I have no background or experience in jazz), so take it with a grain of salt.

Jazz, like pretty much any other genre of music, is mostly populated by filler, and is thus likely to alienate potential listeners whose first experiences are either with heavily marketed garbage (see also: country music) or highly technical experimental/progressive performances that require a background in music theory to appreciate (for example, avant-garde jazz). It's funny that the first True American Art Form is sometimes associated with smooth jazz-infused elevator music and cheesy porn music, which are basically synonymous with "bad music". Since some subgenres of jazz are obviously better than others, this will necessarily be a very limited guide to a very small subset of jazz flavors and artists.

tl;dr Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane


 * John Coltrane
 * Miles Davis
 * Chet Baker
 * Bill Evans
 * Thelonius Monk
 * Herbie Hancock

Starters
Easily one of the smoothest jazz-style pop songs I can dream of is a cover of the Love Theme from Spartacus by a Japanese songstress named Akiko Ishii (known in performance simply as 'Akiko') off the album What's Jazz?. Myspace stream

gershwin



Contemporary vocal jazz

 * Norah Jones
 * Melody Gardot
 * Love Me Like a River
 * Stacey Kent
 * Smile
 * Esperanza Spalding

Classic vocal jazz & traditional pop music
The Girl From Ipanema is one of the most popular pop songs of all time, and a defining piece of the Bossa nova sounds.
 * Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald
 * Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington
 * Frank Sinatra

Esperanza Spalding, Rochelle Ferrell, Andrew Gilbert Blossom in B Secret Love


 * 

Albums

 * Varner's 100 Greatest Jazz Albums
 * scaruffi's The Best Jazz Albums
 * Amazon's The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time
 * Charlie Parker
 * Time Out by Dave Brubeck
 * Two Blocks From the Edge - Michael Brecker
 * Art of the Trio, Vol. IV: Back at the Vanguard - Brad Mehldau Trio
 * Secrets - Allan Holdsworth
 * Paseo - Gonzalo Rubalcaba
 * Romantic Warrior - Return to Forever
 * The Way Up - Pat Metheny Group
 * Night Train - Oscar Peterson Trio