>"Kind of Blue"
Also gets my vote.
"Time Out" by Dave Brubeck:
I'm surprised we went as long as we did before someone mentioned this one.
The tunes are as catchy as they come, but it's the rhythms that make this
one revolutionary are the rhythms. Nothing is in the standard 4/4 time
signature. Instead you get tunes in 5/4 or 9/8 time and so on.
"The Shape of Jazz to Come" by Ornette Coleman is supposed to have ushered
in the age of free jazz.
A totally accesible angle for newbies would have to be the Bossa Nova (Stan
Getz, etc) scene from the 60's, although personally I have heard that one
album one too many times.
I had listened to jazz on the radio for years without ever making a
purchase. It was my introduction to the current Knitting Factory/Downtown
NYC scene that converted me into a buyer.
The first more or less "real" jazz records that I bought were by the Jazz
Passengers (tail end of the 80's) who on at least one level were definitely
trying to emulate early Louis Armstrong. Melodies, humor, and lots of
tight solos (with a healthy dose of noise thrown in from time to time).
John Zorn's Masada are excellent. A sax/trumpet/bass/drums quartet doing
hard bop with a heavy middle eastern accent and a totally charged rhythm
section.
Sort of in the tradition of "Time Out", there's the debut by Matt Darriau's
Paradox Trio (out late last year on Knitting Factory). Gypsy meets Balkan
folk music meets New York jazz and some heavy sawing on a five string
electric cello. The trio's actually a quartet; other player are: winds
(every kind of wind you can imagine - even a Bulgarian bagpipe), dumbek,
and eletric guitar. 7/8 time is about as normal as it gets on this record,
things like 13/8 and 15/8 abound. However this may look in print, it is a
very enjoyable record.
And Rip Rig & Panic:
What can I say. For almost a decade theirs were the only major label
records that I allowed in my collection. That's got to mean something.
Alexander