Hey all.

Via Woody Allen's Manhattan I have gotten into Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin.

Could I get some recommendations for some similar jazz, or jazz I may like.

Thanks

1. Gershwin's compositions were not Jazz.


2. See one.


3. Now there have been a great many Jazz musicians who have covered Gershwin's Pop/Tin Pan Alley songs which in turn turned them into Jazz standards.

Ah, I thought I may have gotten that, that's what I meant by 'or jazz I may like' cause I wasn't certain whether it would truely be considered jazz.

What would rhapsody be catergorised as? Tin Pan Alley you say?

Well, any suggestions?

A jazz-influenced orchestral piece, or a "jazz concerto", which is the brief Gershwin was given for the piece. Yes, it sounds a lot like jazz to the untrained ear, but there's nowhere near enough improvisation going on in it to qualify as jazz.

Okay fair enough.

Now back to the real point of the thread. Any recommendations based on that?

I'd say the closest thing would be Duke Ellington.

I'll second that.

As for "jazz I may like", check out 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis. It's one of the most popular of all jazz albums, and is a great place to start. The standard advice on building a jazz collection is to start with 'Kind of Blue', then buy an album by each of the sidemen on it, then buy albums by the sidemen on those records. It's a good method and won't steer you far wrong.

You'd probably be interested in other "classical" composers who were inspired by or inspired jazz.

Claude Debussy was one of the first composers to treat all seventh chords as consonances. This practice became very idiomatic in jazz.

I hear Debussy's spirit the most in Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill, and Bill Evans.

Check out Maurice Ravel (piano concerto in G minor especially).

Dmitri Shostakovich

Ernst Krenek (might be pushing it with this one, though)

These composers are far more interesting than Gershwin ever was.

In terms of the Tin Pan Alley songbook, the works of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter were released during the inception of jazz. They were the pop tunes of the era that, based on their song structures, became the "standards" that we hear so often today.

Also, lots of broadway (up to the mid 50s most prominently) took its cues from Gershwin. That whole clangy New York vibe. Leonard Bernstein!

Check out the Buddy Rich Big Band West Side Story Suite. It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's bad ass.