Jorge LG

Well...here I am, guilty for my part, the last one, of that guide or list or...who knows ? We were just trying to make ir easier to a ( most of the times ) young newcomer to this music, as many of the readers of the spanish webpage we did it for, to go to a record shop and find some records to start a Jazz collection. The problem here is that I feel like many of you are making a hard judgement of it as if it was something litterally like its name...it's true that maybe our most important mistake was the title of the...thing, I mean, we could maybe just tried to find something that doesn't need the explanations in the texts ( in spanish...I know it's difficult to read them, and I really apreciate your efforts to do it ) to let you know what we were trying to make with as much love for this music, respect for it and attention to the jazz fans of our country, those Fer tried to describe so well. That is maybe our bigger fault, but I must say also that in spanish, wich is much more wordy than english, it doesn't sound so...contundent. Imagine that our first condition was the accesibility, so, the discussion about compilations or not, was quickly surpassed, but of course we had some talking about it. The most severe criticisms to it I read around are about the after-sixties...so, that's my business...OK, I would try to explain the reasons for my choosings. I know there were, and are, some great players from other times still making great music, I mean...why to left Andrew Hill, wich is, by the way, one of my one thousands idols ( this month ) and so influential on some of the most interesting music during this years, Osby's for example ? Because his music was even more important in the sixties, it was a paradigm of the end of the decade, so if being in this guide, it had to be there, not later...it's not a problem of the many musicians you want to put into, but how many you must left out when you choose so few ! How can any of us left out a record like Joe Henderson's one on Strayhorn's music, one of the best records of its time if I have to choose some to take to an island ? Because we are trying, and we know the limitations of something like a guide of "essential" records, to describe with them the time they were made, and for that...well, I see you don't love him and his music very much, but isn't Marsalis "Black Codes" a much more paradigmatic record, and a very influential for the musicians and listeners coming out at that time ? Or why I choose a Five Elements record instead one of excellent Greg Osby's records ? Because the "first swordsman" of this current, the M-Base, one of the most important ( I see it like that, but maybe I'm wrong ) currents in modern Jazz, and not at all, I disagree totally with that, any "remake of fusions" or neo...Jazz Rock ? is Steve Coleman, so if anyone likes this music after getting the "Def Trance" one will get more records, or look in the AMG guide, find quickly references about Mr. Osby, and get into his amazing music. Jazz Rock..! I hadn't heard those two words together, wich never fit any well, talking about this music, for years. Jarrett ? Of course, I would loved to have here also some records of his great seventies american quartet, but we didn't have space, and anyway, the impact to the world of music of his Standards Trio, and those two records were the origins of that impact, was ( and is ) inmense, so...is it wrong to say that those were some of the six more representative records of the eighties/nineties ? I don't think so, but maybe, again, I'm wrong. Are Marsalis or Murray small people compared to the old masters ? Well...I don't think those great masters of the past, if they were born in Marsalis and Murray years, were very happy with those comparisons. These new musicians are people of their time, great musicians of their years, and when we talk about their music we think about the time when it was made : I was eighteen years old when I heard for the very first time "Ming", and the impact of all those musicians coming from the Loft generation was incredible for people of my age, and when I heard "Black Codes" I was twenty two, and Wynton was twenty three or four, and the impact of it was incredible, and when I talked with many of my friends, musicians, all of them in their twenties, that record was seen like the very big example of what a young guy like us could make, and it determined, for better or worse, many of the music coming after. And it still sounds great to me. But maybe...once again, something's wrong in my ears.