Ryan & Ryan In Conversation: All That Jazz
A deep-dive discussion into our favorite genre! Jazz!
Editor’s Note: Today we’re introducing a special audio edition of what we hope will become a new recurring feature: Ryan and Ryan In Conversation! Longer than our Aesthetic Arrest Friday podcasts, with more links and resources, Ryan and Ryan In Conversation will allow us to do a deep-dive exploration as we discuss some of our favorite topics in depth! Click below to listen!
Ryan & Ryan In Conversation: All That Jazz
R&R’s Latest Jazz Playlist: All That Jazz (featuring a few of our favorites):
Some legendary albums we discussed:
Also, check out Ryan Wildstar’s cover of Nina Simone’s version of “Ne Me Quitte Pas” here!
Some great jazz documentaries we discussed:
Everyone needs to watch Treme, one of the best shows in the history of television!
THE jazz book to read: The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia (3rd edition)
Also, if you are interested in music and music history of any kind (including amazing music recommendations), then check out Ted Gioia’s wonderful Substack, The Honest Broker. (Highly recommended!)
Ryan Elston also compiled an enormous, epic playlist (22 hours!) featuring all of Ted Gioia’s “Listening Recommendations” from the book:
Ryan and Ryan’s Favorite Jazz Musicians:
Caveat: The following are only *some of* our favorite jazz musicians, simply an off-the-cuff, rapid-fire list of a few of our personal favorites, certainly not “the best of all time” and certainly not ranked . . . and each of these lists could easily be 20 times as long!
Our Favorite Female Jazz Vocalists:
Our Favorite Male Jazz Vocalists:
Our Favorite Jazz Pianists:
McCoy Tyner (Check out Ryan Elston’s essay about Tyner here.)
Our Favorite Jazz Trumpeters:
Our Favorite Jazz Saxophonists:
Our Favorite Jazz Bassists:
Our Favorite Jazz Drummers:
Our Favorite Jazz Bandleaders (not including anyone already mentioned above, many of whom, like Art Blakey, were also great bandleaders):
Duke Ellington (with Billy Strayhorn)
Sun Ra (and Marshall Allen)
Our Favorite Underappreciated Women of Jazz:
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm (including Clora Bryant, Tiny Davis and many others)
Listen to episodes of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio show here.
Fantastic book telling the story of Hazel Scott and other women trailblazers who invented television as we know it, including Irna Phillips, Gertrude Berg and Betty White:
More Recommended Jazz Reading (Start with Ted Gioia!):
All of these books (and most of the books we’ve ever linked to on our Substack) can be purchased via our Epicurean Vagabonds storefront at Bookshop.org! If you purchase books from Bookshop.org via our links (or *any* books - even ones we haven’t mentioned - after visiting our storefront here), we will receive 10% of your purchase! And another matching 10% of your purchase will go directly to support independent brick-and-mortar bookstores! Let’s keep bookstores alive!
Epicurean Vagabonds at Bookshop.org
All That Jazz: Our Recommended Books About Jazz
And here’s one more R&R jazz playlist for the road:
Enjoy! Tell us about the jazz artists and albums you love in the comments!
The Conversation is an education that motivates one to research further. Thank you for all the links. Also, your playlists are a gift to your subscribers.