Contemporary Jazz
 

Alright, so I'm pretty well clued into most of the jazz greats from the 40s, 50s and 60s - Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. - but I'm looking for some good contemporary jazz. I'm not talking musicians that simply cover the standards or cheesy smooth jazz. I want to hear some good modern day jazz musicians playing original compositions.

Any suggestions?

You like Medeski Martin and Wood? They are great.

I play bass in the school jazz band. Lots of fun but i dont if the stuff we play is old classic or new cheesy stuff.

i played on the top jazz band my first couple of years and we played all sorts of weird avant guarde stuff that was pretty sweet and the family guy theme. but anyways, check out bad plus. great pop jazz band that's quite interesting

I agree....check out Bad Plus.

how about john zorn's stuff?
mats gustafsson
derek bailey, who recently passed away
peter brötzmann

can't think of more right now

http://www.bridgetkearney.com/13286.html

this is a girl who went to my high school. i would check out the sax attack cover of the violent femmes. sax attack won the best high school jazz group of the year and the sax player won a grammy the next year. it's all great stuff

and after that shameless promotion my favorite contemporary jazzers:soulive, critters buggin, sex mob, kenny garret, delfeayo marsalis,

Soulive.....those guys are pretty tight.

that's one the bands i'm most excited to see at bonnaroo. they bring the house down

Try "Five Corners Quintet" if you can dig that sort of thing. They're most definitely contemporary.

Also, try anything off the ECM label. It's a very esoteric label, but if you like one recording off it, then you've probably just found heaven.

I'm a fan of saxophonist and composer Chris Potter (http://www.chrispottermusic.com/).

He says
“My aesthetic is based in Bird and Lester Young and Sonny [Rollins]. I want my music to have that emotional impact. What I learned from them in terms of phrasing, sound, approach to rhythm will never be outdated. I would like to basically use the same aesthetic sensibility with more contemporary harmonic and rhythmic concepts, being influenced by classical, world music, funk, rock, rap, country, whatever...digesting new ideas, new influences to keep the freshness alive.”

Sweet, thank you. You know, song suggestions would also be helpful, seeing as I'm stuck with dial-up and need to choose what I download wisely.

I saw a documentary at 3 in the morning last summer focusing on contemporary jazz. There was an amazing american band on there that i wish i'd writen the name down of. I think they had drums, piano and sax and played really dirty sounding punky music, kind of like morphine only 50 times faster, sound familiar to anyone? think they might have been from nyc

soweto kinch can be quite good but sometimes the jazz hip hop hybrid doesnt quite work

MMW
soulive
michael wolff & impure thoughts (includes badal roy, miles davis' tabla player & the drummer from the headhunters)

drummer from headhunters? a definate for me

Perhaps Sex Mob?