Favorites that shouldn't be favorites

[David Ayers]

Know what I mean? I suspect that most of what we hoover up on this board shouldn't really be the favorite of any right-thinking person. But within that there's a lot we agree on. I'm talking about the ones that are no way official but just hit the sweet spot. I'm not saying stuff that isn't good. I'm saying you find it great beyond what anyone else might think. All sorts of ways to come at this.

I'll start with one of mine. Maybe seems like no more than a festival one off, but this William Parker title just gets me every time. I'm obsessed with it, in fact:

That's a good record by any standard, but for me a favorite that shouldn't be (probably). Yours might be corny or even rubbish, but you love them.

Just for fun!

[xybert]

My taste is highly questionable, i have so, so many albums that i love that would fit this bill.

So much Chick Corea.

So much Pat Metheny.

So much Wynton Marsalis.

I'll try to think of some of the more note-worthy 'gems' and come back.

[A Lark Ascending]

I like The Sound of Music.

Top that!

(Well I suppose there's Andrew Lloyd Webber - I'm afraid even I can't pretended to like him)

[Joe]

[CraigP]

Boy, this just stopped everything down!

[JSngry]

So...this is like guilty pleasures w/o quite as much guilt?

[felser]

Ronnie Laws - "Always There"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANhb-svKimY

Also "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by A Taste of Honey, and some other disco cuts.

Edited December 17, 2013 by felser

[David Ayers]

So...this is like guilty pleasures w/o quite as much guilt?

Yeah I guess that's it...

[king ubu]

okay, here's one I've always loved dearly:

and one more:

[xybert]

Al Di Meola - Casino (love the first five Di Meola albums)

Chick Corea - My Spanish Heart, The Mad Hatter (so much Corea i could pick but these are two standouts that i genuinely love. love the Elektric band)

Claude Bolling - Suite for Flute & Jazz Piano Trio (actually not sure if this is regarded poorly but i presume it is)

Duke Ellington - Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (see Claude Bolling)

Jimmy Giuffre - Dragonfly, Quasar, Liquid Dancers (see Claude Bolling)

Mike Stern - Jigsaw (pleasant weird nostalgia vertigo)

Pat Metheny Group - We Live Here (see Mike Stern)

Wayne Shorter - Atlantis, High Life (see Mike Stern but there is more to it than that... Shorter is a Genius)

A lot of stuff i could pick but i tried to go for stuff that unequivocally has zero cred and that i genuinely love. For example i left out stuff like The Empty Foxhole, as though it cops a lot of hate you can get away with liking it. Funnily i couldn't actually pick out a particular Wynton album... he get's blanket hate but people don't tend to pick on particular albums... i guess i could go for the Monk album, but i don't actually love it myself. Was tempted list some Brubeck but it's note hated enough and i don't love it enough.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Jackie Ivory - Soul discovery - Atco

This was a cult album in Britain in the 60s. It's on sale for a hundred quid on UK ebay now. US ebay has it for $49.99 ($45 mono). Some Japanese site has it for $33.77.

Never been reissued on CD.

MG

[BeBop]

If I get the concept we're shooting for here...

My days as a "completist" probably fell into this category. Once you've got an artist's generally available material, you've generally got the good stuff. (Broad generalization, of course.) Once you get waaay out into the obscure/hard-to-find, it can be pretty crappy - it's out there for a reason sometimes - but it can be immensely satisfying to have and even listen to.

[John Litweiler]

My favorite guilty pleasures are arson and burglary.

[page]

I like The Sound of Music.

Top that!

(Well I suppose there's Andrew Lloyd Webber - I'm afraid even I can't pretended to like him)

Well I would sing a long with that indeed.

My favourite would be the West Side Story though.

Coming to think about guilty pleasures I used to love the Eurovision Songcontest. Not something I would really want to confess to these last years since the whole concept went kind of crazy, so I do not really watch it any more, lol.

Edited December 17, 2013 by page

[A Lark Ascending]

West Side Story is tremendous - but it has street cred too! The Sound of Music now has post-modern ironic street cred but that's quite recent.

Completely beyond the pale for hipsters and Great Minds (an outraged eyebrow is raised above one side of the pince-nez) but I love the ballads here. Don't much care for the 'rawk' parts but I could play 'Lying Eyes' again and again, trying out the different harmonies.

[TedR]

The Bobby Hackett Mosaic........and I mean the first two CDs, the "easy listening" sides. Many of those cuts I remember hearing through my parents console tuned to their favorite radio station in the early-mid sixties and later. Many warm memories when I listen to this.

[Larry Kart]

Johnny Richards' "Something Else":

http://www.amazon.com/Softly-Something-Johnny-Richards-Orchestra/dp/B000B6TRNO

The hair-raising trumpet section includes Maynard Ferguson, Pete Candoli, and Buddy Childers; Stu Williamson and Shorty Rogers are along for the ride. Some of Richards' most extreme, goofily exuberant work; the man had a surreal sense of humor -- e.g. the writing for piccolo!

[danasgoodstuff]

The Move - Shazam

Grant Green - Visions

Objectively the're both fine, but flawed. Subjectively, I love 'em.

[Joe]

I have a soft spot for Andre Previn's WEST SIDE STORY "songbook" for Contemporary. Somehow, his predisposition towards cuteness enhances rather than undermines the material. It's as if he gets (and maybe only subconsciously) the Great White Way-ness of it all and just runs with it as far / high as he can. I mean, the vulgarity of Broadway, not that vulgarity is always a bad thing... like, if Stanley Elkin made a jazz LP...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aXqdR3EwuA

Edited December 18, 2013 by Joe

[xybert]

Non-jazz but i'm a reasonably big Dream Theater fan. The only band i know that can have an 'eagle screech' sample at the beginning of a song and be completely straight faced about it. At times they do what i can only perceive as being these wierd homages to horrible, completely un-hip bands like Slipknot, recent U2 and Muse... so it's almost like they are on this meta level of complete unhipness. Not a band i would recommend to anyone unless i thought they would be particularly inclined, but the stuff of there's that i love, i love (the epic cheesy prog stuff).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd3IzR6ch8A

[jeffcrom]

Bobby Hackett Plays Henry Mancini (Epic). Even the clerk at the record store laughed at me when I bought this.

[erwbol]

http://youtu.be/tdHhfhLBZLw

http://youtu.be/NkycSgx21nk

I was a big fan of Joe Satriani's Time Machine when it was released in 1993. John Coltrane was mentioned in the extensive liner notes and this piqued my curiosity. I still love to listen to that double album, especially the final two live tracks on disc two with his 1988 trio, Lords of Karma and Echo.

Surfing with the Alien in its Legacy Edition sounds fabulous and I enjoy it now as much as ever. It even has a DVD with a concert performance of Satriani's 1988 band at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

I no longer listen to Hendrix and all the other non-instrumental music that interested at the time. These two Satriani albums, however, are very upbeat and that's probably the reason behind the continued appeal. Of course, I listened to all music on very poor equipment until the late nineties.

Edited December 28, 2013 by erwbol