POV jazz titans

thread because I have been spending early autumn listening to Monk & Ellington a lot

mine would be Coltrane, Ellington, Monk, and it's right after three where this gets hard because you start doing the math on who you're gonna have to leave out to get the next two in but I gotta go Billie & then Bill Evans, and whether Evans counts as a "titan" is a tough call imo but I love me some west coast jazz & piano is where my heart lies and Evans's voicings & technique is just impeccable to my ear

if Evans is excluded from titan status then f.u. but I will sub Mingus in that case

wow.

off the cuff...

monk, miles, ella, ornette, satchmo

reluctantly ... Armstrong, Ellington, Davis, Monk, Coltrane

but the question is making me feel how urgent and key non-titans are to jazz

right? I mean the way I thought of this was I was listening to some Monk and I was like "gotta be all-time top five, what a badass" and then I thought "ok, well who else" and the sort of "wait but what about" rushing-in of names & faces that goes on as your 5 list gets fuller...kinda cool to think about

this is hard. maybe miles d., coltrane, ellington, mingus, evans.

billie holiday - voice
miles davis - trumpet
john coltrane - tenor/soprano sax
ornette coleman - alto sax
cecil taylor - piano

and, to round out my group:

charles mingus - bass
elvin jones - drums

coltrane, coltrane, coltrane, coltrane and coltrane

Coltrane, Ellington, Monk, Miles, Armstrong
totally canonical (boring?) but each of those guys are gifts that keep on giving.

tho Ellington towers over all of 'em imo

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31r0DMBKuIL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
listening to this random comp right now -- a collection of covers/collabs. it's even got steel dan on it.

steely dan that is.

Armstrong
Monk
Ornette
Miles
having trouble choosing my fifth - can Philly Joe Jones count?
if not, then Duke

Off the top of my head:

Alice Coltrane
Duke Ellington
Herbie Hancock
Sonny Rollins
Sarah Vaughan

(I'm not sure if Alice counts as a "titan", but she's been pretty much my favourite jazz artist for the last few years, so I couldn't leave her out.)

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

Miles
Sun Ra
Mingus
Sanders
Hancock

which coltrane are you all referring to? I'd put both Alice & John in my POV

Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus

lol

Coltrane, Ellington, Monk, Miles, Armstrong
totally canonical (boring?) but each of those guys are gifts that keep on giving.

Swap Coltrane for Billie Holiday and that's my list. I respect Coltrane's contribution to jazz but rarely want to listen to his music.

Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Nina Simone
Pharoah Sanders
Herbie Hancock

Can't live without any of them. Maybe if we could choose ten, things would get a little more interesting. For instance, my next five would be:

Archie Shepp
Ella Fitzgerald
Donald Byrd
Freddie Hubbard
Eddie Henderson (Titan status questionable but I love the dude)

Nat King Cole
Miles
John Coltrane
Ella Fitzgerald
Wayne Shorter

man ella is getting way shafted here. maybe vocalists should be in a separate category. she's, like, one of the most important singers in the history of recorded music.

(ok, wrote that before i noticed the two most recent posts.)

nat king cole totally shafted itt imo

maybe. the trio stuff is pretty unbeatable.

duke
bird
monk
miles
trane

apologies to satchmo ornette & art blakey

duke
monk
miles
mingus
django

three obvious ones:
trane
mingus
miles
and then it gets trickier. hancock, ornette, maybe sanders are all possibilities. i've never really tried duke...

is m coleman the first person to pick charlie parker? blimey

wld love to hear from the ppl who are picking herbie what they think of the last thirty years of his career

try duke. really. Never No Lament box a good place to start.

wld love to hear from the ppl who are picking herbie what they think of the last thirty years of his career

He's made some good albums (Future Shock, Perfect Machine, Dis Is Da Drum, Future 2 Future), but most of them aren't strictly jazz. Mr. Hands from 1980 is probably his last great jazz LP, though New Standard and the Joni Mitchell album have their moments too.