Jazz Recommendations


I am just starting to get into Jazz. I recently bought Thelonious Monk Quartet "Live at Monterey" and was blown away. Could you recommend other mainstream Jazz recordings that I should have in a basic collection to help me get started.
kadlec
Thanks to Audiogon's redefinition of the threadbank, I stumbled upon this treasure trove! While vacationing last summer in Bordeaux I wandered into a book/music store and heard Didier Lockwood's"Tribute to Stephane Grappelli" playing. WOW! This guy swings!...AND is superbly backed by N. H. Orsted Pedersen (bass) and B. Lagrene (gtr). Well-recorded by SONY-FRANCE, just released in the US on Dreyfus. It won 5 jazz awards in Europe last year......... (As much as I like Grappelli's work, I've always been disappointed by the recorded quality of his efforts: I attended a concert of his (with the Pizzarellis) at the fine-sounding Sanders Theatre at Harvard a few years ago, and asked the sound guy (who had EQ's the room very carefully) why Grappelli's violin sounded so bright and hard. He said it was due to Grappelli's insistence upon using his old favorite mike, with a decidedly bright lower treble, allowing Grappelli to monitor himself despite his hearing loss! So this tribute by Lockwood et al is doubly rewarding in that the upper partials and harmonics of the violin are so well-recorded. It'll REALLY test your upper crossover and tweeter, as well as keep your toe tapping.) Hope you enjoy it. Ernie. (PS Yeah, Charles Lloyd's Water is Wide is great, and getting a lot of airplay in Boston.) Cheers.
Some incredible trombone jazz artists are J.J.Johnson, Kai Winding, Conrad Herwig, Steve Turre, Curtis Fuller, Bill Watrous, Jiggs Wigham. Keith Jarrett has been mentioned but check out his six sessions at the Blue Note in 1994. Have fun.
Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain. Frank Morgan, Mood Indigo. Horace Silver, Song for my Father. Charlie Haden, Quartets West Series. Mose Allison. Duke Ellington. Chick Corea, Cannonball Adderly...
Read quickly through the various posts. Seems no one mentioned big bands. I like the Toshiko Akioshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band, Tales of a Courtesan and Long Yellow Road. Rob McConnell & the Boss Brass (I know the name sounds lame) Big Band Volume 1 on PAUSA and The Brass is Back on Concord. Merely suggestions. Not exhaustive for sure and not necesarily winners of desert island sweepstakes either. They just sound good to my ears and they certainly swing, each in their own way.