Recommend some jazz to me, please

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I suppose what I want, really, is to discover something a little less obvious - something I wouldn't have stumbled on in my local HMV or Virgin. A real gem. I've always known that I don't tend to appreciate contemporary jazz (Derek Bailey being one of the few exceptions), but until I got these two albums, I didn't realise how much I like this kind of crashing, euphoric, ditsy piano, jazz, whatever it is (I don't even know what sort of jazz style it is known as: New Orleans Style, Swing Style, Bepop Style, Cool Jazz, Hard Bop Style??).

I
don't even know where to

Ignore that strange little tape worm hangin' out of the arse of my previous post!

"Bing Crosby and Some Jazz Friends" has more of Crosby with jazz backing
Fred Astaire "Jazz Time" is a great record Astaire made in the 50s backed by an all-star jazz band
And you might try Fats Waller.

Leroy Jones, Mo' Cream from the Crop
Bob French, The Legacy Lives On
Mark Braud, Shake It and Break It

It almost sounds like you want something campy, though?

xpost I absolutely love Tony Bennett.

xpost I absolutely love Tony Bennett.

You are a weird dude.

Yes, I see why it would appear like I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not saying I don't like lounge music per sey, just that Roland Kirk is too loungey for me. It's never clear cut is it.. I mean, I don't dislike folk music, but while I really really like The Incredible String band and Woody Guthrie, I can imagine saying that, personally I find The Crofters *too* folky, because they are archetypal and too purist for my tastes.

John Lurie is a good call! I always forget about him, but I love the Lounge Lizards (note: Lounge Lizards not actually loungey).

Smokey.

Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay
Charles Mingus - The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady / Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
Miles Davis - A Kind Of Blue / In A Silent Way
Herbie Hancock - Headhunters
Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
Art Blakey - Moanin'
Cannonball Adderley - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
Courtney Pine - Modern Day Jazz Stories

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/feature.html/?ie=UTF8&plgroup=1&docId=1000518441&plpage=1

tell me which 3 to buy. i already have birth of the cool, blue trane and maiden voyage.

'Money Jungle', 'Go', 'The Sidewinder', and 'Live at the Golden Circle" , for me...

idle moments, mode for joe & midnight blue

money jungle, something else, amazing bud powell vol. 1

Our Man in Paris, because it has my favorite take on "A Night in Tunisia", and shows one of the greatest tenor sax players in top damn form. It was the album that finally got me into what I'd up to that point found to be a "boring" sort of jazz (coming from rock, I wanted Mingus & Dolphy & Kirk, y'know, because it didn't feel as "clean" and, well, obscure as straight jazz somehow did)

Atomic Basie. Great big band arrangements played like hell.

Dialogue. Rather stranger than the other two, "post bop" I guess; intricate yet catchy, surprising but never ridiculous, and, I dunno, just really intriguing and interesting and enjoyable. (I have no idea. It's simply great.)

Hrm, everyone needs The Amazing Bud Powell vol 1 though... Probably instead of Atomic Basie, since they're both "hot" albums.

Besides the ones named, I'd definitely recommend:
Horace Silver - Song for My Father (probably the essential hard-bop/latin crossover record)
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy (maybe the best 'modal' hard bop record and one of the most exciting jazz records imo)
Andrew Hill - Black Fire (slightly more 'advanced' than other picks but great)
Sonny Clark s/t (a very tasty hard bop piano trio record)
Wayne Shorter - Juju or Speak no Evil (both are great examples of his prowess as a composer)
Chick Corea - Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (Possibly the most intense piano trio record I've ever heard)
Tony Williams - Spring (neat post-bop record that skirts the edges of in/out)

Thx everyone. I'm going with Amazing Bud Powell V1, Atomic Basie, and Money Jungle. I also bought some albums with a small number of tracks a la cart on an mp3 site -- Midnight Special, Idle Moments, Go.