CD-Charts Position 21
Average Rating:

Holon

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Nik Bärtsch's Ronin

Release Date February 05, 2008
wow, this was a killer album, classical spacious music,with serious groove, yes groove. that bass is bone rattling, and the icey cold piano ,cuts like a knife, mix in a bass clarinet with that creepy sound ,you have a winner. i mean they are really cookin. plenty of ear pearcing alto too ,like john surman style. the music is meditative and stirring. so i guess jazz isnt dead .this album fools me into thinking its electric ,but it isnt. only the bass is .i get an est vibe here, but more upbeat, but yet plenty of meloncholy. i just love it.gorgeous.

CD-Charts Position 22
Average Rating:

Blue Light 'Til Dawn

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Cassandra Wilson

Release Date November 02, 1993
most jazz musicians make concessions to popular and contemporary music at one time or another to broaden their fan base and seek wider critical and public acceptance . as is so often stated of this album , the producer and MS. WILSON had a true meeting of the minds and the tree started to bear exquisite fruit right away . you can read about the spare arrangements and outstanding musicianship at great length elsewhere (it's all true) . i adore CASSANDRA'S jazzier projects such as "SHE WHO WEEPS" and "BLUE SKIES" and "RENDEZVOUS" and so on . from this point forward , however , MS. WILSON garnered an audience rarely afforded a superb jazz vocalist and artist . and that my friends is how we win converts to authentic jazz music rather than preach to the ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 23
Average Rating:

Solo Piano

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
from: Sony

Release Date August 07, 1989
Don't play this in an elevator; don't play this while you make dinner; don't play this on a Sunday afternoon while you read; don't play this while you watch tv; don't play this while you put away the clothes; don't play this in your car; don't play this while you're getting ready for work in the morning or going to bed at night; don't play this while you're having a conversation with a friend on the phone whom you haven't seen in three years. Play this when you are ready to stop and listen. Don't even think. If you are able to listen and lose thought, you'll enjoy this music.

CD-Charts Position 24
Average Rating:

Freak Out!

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention

Release Date May 02, 1995
The first Mother's album was a huge step outside the normal rock and roll of the mid sixties, introducing it's audience to the Psychodelic era. This album is historic if nothing else. The music is an early Frank Zappa with the current culture influence, it sounds nothing like the later Frank and has rough edges.

CD-Charts Position 25
Average Rating:

Nightmoves

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Kurt Elling

Release Date April 03, 2007
I heard this guy on my local cable music channel and I immediately leapt up to write down the name, and I'm glad I did.

I'm a sucker for balladeers like Frank and Nat and Gino Vannelli and Matt Dusk but this is so much closer to jazz, which makes it so much better ... more New York than Vegas.

And the cheesiness of Michael Bublé-types is absent from this album--you could never get this guy to sing at your wedding. He would politely decline.

CD-Charts Position 26
Average Rating:

Jazz Icons: John Coltrane Live in '60, '61 & '65

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
starring: John Coltrane

Release Date September 04, 2007
With this album and A Love Supreme I travel from one ecstatic experience to the next in Coltrane Land. The commentaries already posted pretty much cover the particulars.

CD-Charts Position 27
Average Rating:

Metheny Mehldau Quartet

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau

Release Date March 13, 2007
I had most of Pat Metheny's musical output. I did not have this and I did not have his very first CD "Pat Metheny Group." I ordered both CD's at the same time. I love the "Pat Metheny Group" CD and if you don't have it get it as it really is one of his best. This CD pales by comparison. The music is pleasant but goes nowhere. Pat Metheny in my mind is one of the few musicians whose music is evocative to me. I get chills even now thinking of some of his songs in my head. There is nothing evocative or memorable here. Great dinner music but it starts and stops there. There are a couple of songs that stand out (Towrds the Light in particulary) but much of it is infected by sameness. I am no fan of the Jim Hall collaberation for much of the same reasons. I'm still glad ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 28
Average Rating:

The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Charles Mingus

Release Date November 07, 1995
This is probably the best jazz album of all time. Mingus, one of the great jazz composers and all time lunitics, has a suite in Black Saint that runs the entire span of jazz, from Dixieland to the then (1963) rising avant garde. Free playing passages sit next to blues and Ellington interludes. Louis Armstrong and Don Cherry seem to be sitting chair by chair. All of jazz up to this point (And you could argure projecting into 1970) is encompossed on this album.

Add all this to Mingus' mad genious, and the racial struggle of the era, and you have one amazing emotional backdrop. This album may be a well composed jazz history sculpture, but it works primarly on the emotions. Listen to the second track, and how simple blues can build into an avant-garde emotional flood ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 29
Average Rating:

The New Crystal Silence

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: Chick Corea, Gary Burton

Release Date February 05, 2008
The unaccompanied duet disc will please fans of the original Crystal Silence. As other reviewers note, the selections are more uptempo, but they are still dazzling treatments of Chick Corea's writing, and his playing is more mature than in the earlier era. Gary Burton is terrific as always. The other disc has the two of them backed by an orchestra. In general, I don't think orchestral accompaniment serves jazz very well (Charlie Parker and Strings included). There are some remarkable solos on the orchestral disc, but it's still pretty much a snooze. But the cd is priced reasonably for a double and is well worth buying for the duet disc.

CD-Charts Position 30
Average Rating:

Ghost Rock

CD-Charts > Music > Avant Garde and Free Jazz
by: NOMO

Release Date June 17, 2008
An amazing step forward for NOMO. More edge and a bit more electronics that makes Ghost Rock sit right in between greats like Miles Davis, Can, Eno and M.I.A. - Yea, it's that good. Check this out!