The Core 200
The inclusion of Hoarded Dreams as one of the 200 in The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings’ Core Collection, described as ‘a basic library of jazz records which readers… might consider as their first priority purchases’, was not only a well received accolade, but has prompted me to try something similar.
Over the next however long it takes I’ll be adding to this list of my Core 200 or so of tracks or records which I wouldn’t want to be without. It will be a mixture of jazz and classical, with perhaps some unexpected choices for a jazz composer to make. Also folded in will be some books and authors, painters and other artists, I have particularly liked and/or been influenced by. As such it will, in time, replace the Recommendations sections of this site.
The List (so far)
In the jazz composer I promised to list on this site the jazz composers I admire. They are marked in red below, with more to be added in due course.
Thomas Adès: Asyla
Conrad Aiken
Australian Art Orchestra: ‘Strange Meeting’, arr. Paul Grabowsky
Jon Balke: Jøkleba! Live
Bela Bartok: String Quartet No. 6, Concerto for Orchestra
Harry Beckett
Luciano Berio: Sinfonia
Carla Bley/Paul Haines: Escalator Over the Hill
Roberto Bolaño
Roberto Bonati: un sospeso silenzio, A Silvery Silence
Betty Carter: Feed the Fire
C. P. Cavafy
Curios (Tom Cawley): Closer
Christoph Cech Die Launen des Capitan
T. J. Clark
Ornette Coleman
Graham Collier (Which may seem immodest, but…)
John Coltrane
Malcolm Cowley
Miles Davis
Pierre Dorge & The New Jungle Orchestra
The Dolmen Orchestra
Duke Ellington
Bill Evans
Gil Evans
William Faulkner
Hugh Fraser
Jan Garbarek
Stan Getz
The Detail
Can be found here.
Previous recommendations which will be incorporated in due course.
Fraud
Wayne Horvitz
Paul Klee
Malcolm Lowry
Geir Lysne
Joseph McNeil’s Netherland
Christian Mülbacher
Jackson Pollock’s Alchemy and Phosphorescence seen in the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice.
Alex Ross’ The Rest is Noise, a highly praised, and highly readable look at 20th Century Music.
John Surman
Tim Winton’s Breath
ZAUM and Steve Harris