Switching from lo-fi to jazz recently for focus music. Just listening to spotify playlist right now, but would be interested in bingeing an artist if anyone can recommend one
Christian Scott Atunde Adjuah. Imo one of the best jazz artists alive right now. Everything he's made in the past decade is incredible. He's pushing the boundaries of what's possible in jazz. He's invented his own instruments (!!!) and incorporated so many musical styles into one he doesn't even like to call his music jazz anymore. Also a comrade. Cannot recommend his enough.
I have a lot of modern jazz Opinions and recs. Definitely check out the London jazz scene, most interesting stuff on the planet right now as a collective—Ezra Collective, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia are some of the names to check out. Very defined sound, is great. But Christian Scott is on another level.
The London Jazz scene is fulla bops. Adding 'The Comet is Coming' (great background grooving music) and 'Sons of Kemet' as suggestions. The latter has some pretty great anticolonial vibes.
Both awesome additions. Particularly love the latter as well, and I really enjoy that they imply the Queen of England is actually a lizard person in their wonderful album entitled "Your Queen Is a Reptile". Best songs on that one are "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman" and "My Queen Is Angela Davis," of course.
Such a good album! Great example of how mostly instrumental jazz can be actively political. Fuck Adorno; all my homies love jazz and its revolutionary potential.
Miles Davis' In a Silent Way on repeat used to be my study music. Coltrane's Giant Steps was my party music.
Now I'm reading your request more closely. I'm not sure either of these guys were comrades. Coltrane is more likely than Davis.
Yeah hard to parse Davis' politics. He had some disdain for consumer culture and was resistant to any sort of oversight or creative control by his labels, so there's that.
'Bitches Brew' and his 'Agharta' live recordings in '75 are fantastic as background once they're actively listened to and digested once or twice.
Bitches Brew can withstand several listenings, but it never did it for me as study music.
https://www.ecmrecords.com/shop/143038753052/selected-recordings-gary-burton
This is a great study album. Very different than Coltrane and Miles.
pat metheny group is some really good modern jazz - the album imaginary day is probably the jazz album i've listened to the most. the first circle is a bop, but the album itself starts with a song that is intentionally supposed to sound terrible.
bela fleck and the flecktones is like a combination of jazz and bluegrass, and they have a christmas album that features like throatsinging. definitely on the weirder end.
maybe not what you're looking for, but louis cole makes some really good funk. his first two albums have a bit of that lo-fi sound (mostly due to what he had to use to record), so i enjoy listening to them while i work on stuff. plus, if you enjoy his creative style, you can check out knower for electronic stuff or clown core for just weird shit
imo his best albums are "My Favourite Tune" (solo piano, 1994) and "A Letter From Slowboat" (2016), his last album. The drumming on Scenery is distractingly bad sometimes lol. Mellow Dream slaps though, I love that song. "My Favourite Tune" has maybe my favorite version, since it's just solo piano. Great rendition in "Ryo Fukui in New York" too. Fukui is a great choice.
Thanks for the information and comment, looks like I need to listen to more of Fukui's solo piano work :)
Grover Washington Jr. and his winelight album + Best of album is fucking awesome. What are the dude's politics, I couldn't tell you. But is his music awesome? YES. You can also find his stuff on vinyl if you feel so inclined.
90s smooth jazz was the unironically awesome and it's a shame it "died" out in America and fell out of the popular conciseness.
Also for a jazz/lofi mix check an arist named Vanilla and their album "Sweet Talk," it's basically J Dilla but not J Dilla.
-7DeadlyFetishes
Not comrades but anything that ECM (the record label) puts out is pretty good study music. My favorite is For 2 Akis by Shinya Fukumori Trio.
Kamaal Williams is a comrade. Check out his 2016 album Black Focus.
Just FYI, Black Focus (dope album) is actually the work of Kamaal Williams and Yussef Dayes in the group called Yussef Kamaal that broke up shortly after that album. So I recommend check Yussef Dayes as well!
I'm reading the book A Power Stronger Than Itself rn. It's about the AACM (association for advancement of creative musicians) a big chicago jazz/arts org. Very cool. Ton of good artists and records came out of this scene. Art Ensemble of Chicago, Muhal Richard Abrams, Artistic Heritage Ensemble, Lester Bowie, Wadada Leo Smith and Anthony Braxton to name a few.
Seconded, both the book and the music.
For some more books on free jazz, check out This is Our Music by Iain Anderson The Freedom Principle by John Litweiler Jazz in the '70s by Bill Shoemaker
For a brilliant AACM musician who's come to prominence after that book was published, Tyshawn Sorey. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/magazine/tyshawn-sorey.html Various reviews: https://www.freejazzblog.org/search?q=tyshawn
For more AACM folk - Nicole Mitchell is a comrade, I'm pretty sure, but much of her stuff has vocals and is less than ideal for studying. So maybe try Tomeka Reid, a cellist who recently joined the Art Ensemble of Chicago and has at least two fantastic albums by her eponymous quartet.
I wish I could rec my professional jazz musician/marxist grandpa, but most of his recordings are relegated to cassette tapes and old CDs. I might pass on some of the recs in this thread to him though, since he’s the kind of person who falls in love with news sounds when they hook him while absolutely refusing to branch out lol
My favorite albums:
- Naked City - Naked City (1990)
- Ornette Coleman - Science Fiction (1972)
- Don Cherry - Complete Communion (1966)
Also tend to like anything that Masayuki Takayanagi was involved with, although he might be a little too harsh for most people. I have no clue about any of their politics except Zorn, who is apparently some kind of Zionist, so I guess he's not much of a comrade.
Definitely check out Owane if you want more of a rock/jazz fusion thing. Recommend Love Juice and One Curl in Bangkok
