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Disappearing Jazz?

After years of collecting all types of music except jazz and big band I'm now playing catchup.  Looking at the recordings of Ruby Braff (trumpet), Dick Hyman (piano) Roland Hanna (piano). Art Tatum (piano), Claude Bolling even the great vocalist Sarah Vaughan I find the majority of their catalog is only available used on vinyl.  There are many other names I could have included in this list - I'm gradually getting to them (Thelonious Sphere Monk, etc ).

Beyond the lack of availability what alarms me as a new collector of this genre is that there doesn't appear to be musicians to take the place of these giants.  Not to say there are no more Big Bands or jazz pianists BUT how many new artists have the hundreds of recordings these musicians created?

Is jazz disappearing?  Will streaming services eventually include recordings only available on LP? 

Feel free to offer any suggestions for other artists to collect in the traditional jazz / big band category.  I also have collected Miles, Coltrane and Bill Evans though just starting to dive into Ellington.

Hoping to find this music soon.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

bigquery
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,532 posts
 

Do you stream Qobuz or Tidal? The problem with recommending jazz is the variety, even if we’re talking about a single musician’s work.

I use roon with Qobuz to explore music. It provides a lot of recommendations based on what I’ve listened to. If that’s not for you, just search the forums for Jazz and you’ll find plenty of threads with recommendations.Here's a good long one:

Audiogon Discussion Forum - Jazz For Aficionados

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,498 posts
 

New AND hundreds of hours?

There are plenty of current artists with requisite catalogs, some recently gone too young like Joey Di.

Gordon Goodwin's large bands for excellence with minimal archival tracks.

Try streaming.

bigquery OP
978 posts
 

@spenav

@tomcy6 

 

Many thanks for your thoughts.  I'll followup on both suggestions.  That said, I'm still very concerned that the majority of the catalogs of the great jazz artists (some of who I mentioned) will be forgotten because they have never been digitized off of vinyl.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,816 posts
 

I suggest you start with two books:

"Original Jazz Classics Collector’s guide" (1995)

"All Music Guide to Jazz" 3rd and 4th Editions. (1998 & 2002)

Both paperbacks and only available used.

You will know just about everything recorded by the most important artists, and a very good review of each album.

Don’t be put off by the dates of the books. Remember, a lot of people think that the best year for Jazz was 1959.

Between Amazon, Discogs, Presto and ebay, you should find most of it.

+1 JAZZ FOR AFICIONADOS thread.

Cheers

BTW, If they could be easily replaced, they would not have been considered giants.

jafant
18,803 posts
 

bigquery

 

The Jazz torch continues to burn brighter than ever. As you start collecting, check out WWOZ on-line. This will get you on the right Path.

 

Happy Listening!

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