[Rclark]

 I blame that really bad, super corny vocal jazz you hear in corporate type establishments (aka everywhere - think Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation at that bar, despairing the entertainment). Usually some asexual female lead singer with lyrics and delivery so corny and lame you want to rip the speakers from the wall.

 I'm a rock/metal/classical/pop/hip hop kinda guy.

 So one night I decide to play the Ken Burns doc on Jazz(NETFLIX). It's 9 hours. By the end I am HOOKED and jonesing to listen to some REAL jazz.

 I buy Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" and "Kind of Blue" and John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and "Love Supreme" and Charlie Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" and "Oh Yeah" and Charlie Parker (some compilation, and another compilation). I also bought Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue".

 and proceed to go to town.

 I am hooked. I love the sound and I am blown away by what I am hearing.

 I have to say, initially my favorite, and still probably my favorite, is Giant Steps. I hear the foundations of metal drumming in there, that sense of sheer speed, Coltrane himself is sublime. Then I like Mingus. He's rouwdy, he's extremely well recorded, like in your room well recorded, and just so energetic and fun.

 Davis is sophisticated and smooth. Parker is a trip.

 I'm thinking of emptying my pocket on this stuff or perhaps waiting until I get a proper PC or Mac rig because I believe this will be the first good stuff I can find as HIREZ.

 But... I'm in. Never thought I'd say it, but man, I LOVE my jazz cd's I have so far. Matter of fact, they are all front and center, strewn about in front of my stereo.

[jimdgoulding]

I don't believe I've seen the Ken Burns program in it's entirety but what I have seen is very good.  Judging from your experience, it certainly seems like a good place to start.  Mingus is probably the most rascalist and volatile genius that I know of.  Welcome to The Jazz Circle and to the music.  A whole new and ever evolving world awaits you .

[FullRangeMan]

Good news.
Cars and bikes are nice hobbies, but they are some expensive and dangerous.
Audio/music is a perfect safe, no much expensive hobbie and untargeted by cops and radar fines.

[Jazzman53]

I blame that really bad, super corny vocal jazz you hear in corporate type establishments (aka everywhere - think Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation at that bar, despairing the entertainment). Usually some asexual female lead singer with lyrics and delivery so corny and lame you want to rip the speakers from the wall.

 I'm a rock/metal/classical/pop/hip hop kinda guy.

 So one night I decide to play the Ken Burns doc on Jazz(NETFLIX). It's 9 hours. By the end I am HOOKED and jonesing to listen to some REAL jazz.

 I buy Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" and "Kind of Blue" and John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and "Love Supreme" and Charlie Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" and "Oh Yeah" and Charlie Parker (some compilation, and another compilation). I also bought Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue".

 and proceed to go to town.

 I am hooked. I love the sound and I am blown away by what I am hearing.

 I have to say, initially my favorite, and still probably my favorite, is Giant Steps. I hear the foundations of metal drumming in there, that sense of sheer speed, Coltrane himself is sublime. Then I like Mingus. He's rouwdy, he's extremely well recorded, like in your room well recorded, and just so energetic and fun.

 Davis is sophisticated and smooth. Parker is a trip.

 I'm thinking of emptying my pocket on this stuff or perhaps waiting until I get a proper PC or Mac rig because I believe this will be the first good stuff I can find as HIREZ.

 But... I'm in. Never thought I'd say it, but man, I LOVE my jazz cd's I have so far. Matter of fact, they are all front and center, strewn about in front of my stereo.

Welcome to the real jazz!  You can't go wrong with Miles and Trane and Bird.. you might want to checkout sax man Joe Henderson and JJ Johnson on trombone.  I'm so into hard bop and cool that I hardly listen to anything recorded after 1963 but there are a few modern day boppers around-- like the Jodi Proznick Quartet's album, "Foundations" (superb).  Also, don't discount finding good jazz vocalists-- like Connie Evingson ("Fever" and "Let It Be Jazz") and anything by Diana Krall is gonna be worth a listen too.       

[Bill Baker]

I was the same way several years ago. While I still enjoy my classic rock, most of my listening is Jazz and Blues and has also taken over my record and CD collections.

[funkmonkey]

Very cool...  enjoy your ride!  Great stuff out there and an outstanding start.  Giant Steps was my first "real" Jazz disc back in my 2nd year of college, and it remains one of my favorites.  You might want to check out Miles Davis - Bitches Brew for a direct link between Rock and Jazz...  Thelonius Monk is another giant you should hear... Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Horace Silver  Long list of outstanding artists to explore, I'm still finding more about 25 years after my first...
Cheers

[Devil Doc]

You certainly picked some classics to listen too. It's unfortunate that today there are many great players but no great composers.

Doc.

[richidoo]

Rclark, Welcome to the insanity! I've been listening for 40 years and it just gets better. There's a huge new world for you to discover. Dive right in!
Rich

[lonewolfny42]

You can explore and discover here....

http://www.allmusic.com/explore/genre/d196

and here....

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/index.php

Have a great journey....

[Rclark]

Thanks guys, oh and no offense to fans of modern vocal jazz. Just my opinion 

Think I'll try some Duke Ellington next.

[Russell Dawkins]

Some trivia from the other side of the glass: the man who recorded Duke Ellington in the 1950's is still alive and active as a recording engineer - Bruce Swedien. He also recorded Michael Jackson's "Thriller", and much more.

http://inthestudiowithbruceswedien.com/index.html

[pardales]

Welcome. Enjoy the ride. Jazz is like a wonderous black hole that, once you set foot on the event horizon, will never let you go and just keeps pulling you in. It was 'Kind of Blue' that got me 10 years ago. Check out Bill Evans (Live at the Village Vanguard - Complete Remaster) and pretty much anything on the Blue Note label. Most of the RVG (Rudy Van Gelder) remasters on Blue Note sound really good. I'm partial to Jazz from the 50's and 60's.

 

[Art_Chicago]

Do not forget to check out Time out; the remastered version sounds great.

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Out-Dave-Brubeck/dp/B000002AGN/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308222410&sr=8-1

[Elizabeth]

Rclarks experience mirrors my own from when Ken Burns JAZZ first came out.
I had never been interested in Jazz at all for many years. The only Jazz LP I ever listened to was "Time Out".
To me Jazz was just bizarre noise.
Then i watched Ken Burns JAZZ. and was thunderstruck! Suddenly i understood what Jazz players were doing and became enthralled.
So I started getting into Jazz big time.
Now almost 1/3 of my recordings are Jazz 1,800 LPs and 700 CDs.
I wish I would have understood sooner!
But I would say perhaps I was just too immature musically to 'get' Jazz before my enlightenment about what Jazz does.

[etcarroll]

Thanks guys, oh and no offense to fans of modern vocal jazz. Just my opinion 

Think I'll try some Duke Ellington next.

Same experience here, as a 54 year old 'boomer' I grew up on rock, got into Fusion while in college and might have moved into true jazz then but got married instead, and that was that.

A year and a half back got divorced, put on Kind of Blue, and was off and running.

Duke at Newport is a great live presentation, and grab an Ella Fitzgerald release while you're at it, hear what a real woman sounds like.

[Rclark]

Yeah that's what I want, Live at Newport.

Anyone who hasn't seen that documentary really really needs to. It's incredible on so many levels.

[Mitsuman]

I blame that really bad, super corny vocal jazz you hear in corporate type establishments (aka everywhere - think Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation at that bar, despairing the entertainment). Usually some asexual female lead singer with lyrics and delivery so corny and lame you want to rip the speakers from the wall.

 I'm a rock/metal/classical/pop/hip hop kinda guy.

 So one night I decide to play the Ken Burns doc on Jazz(NETFLIX). It's 9 hours. By the end I am HOOKED and jonesing to listen to some REAL jazz.

 I buy Miles Davis "Birth of the Cool" and "Kind of Blue" and John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and "Love Supreme" and Charlie Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" and "Oh Yeah" and Charlie Parker (some compilation, and another compilation). I also bought Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue".

 and proceed to go to town.

 I am hooked. I love the sound and I am blown away by what I am hearing.

 I have to say, initially my favorite, and still probably my favorite, is Giant Steps. I hear the foundations of metal drumming in there, that sense of sheer speed, Coltrane himself is sublime. Then I like Mingus. He's rouwdy, he's extremely well recorded, like in your room well recorded, and just so energetic and fun.

 Davis is sophisticated and smooth. Parker is a trip.

 I'm thinking of emptying my pocket on this stuff or perhaps waiting until I get a proper PC or Mac rig because I believe this will be the first good stuff I can find as HIREZ.

 But... I'm in. Never thought I'd say it, but man, I LOVE my jazz cd's I have so far. Matter of fact, they are all front and center, strewn about in front of my stereo.

Now listen to it on vinyl if you want to really appreciate it. 

[Kinger]

Thanks for posting this movie recommendation.  I'd like to get more into jazz myself so I'm going to check it out on Netflix and see if it does the same for me.

[jeffh]

So one night I decide to play the Ken Burns doc on Jazz(NETFLIX). It's 9 hours. By the end I am HOOKED and jonesing to listen to some REAL jazz.

Unbelievable.  This is almost exactly what happened to me about 18 months ago.  We signed up for netflix and I started watching the same documentary.  I grew up listening to classic rock but have always liked all kinds of music, except country. I never really paid any attention to Jazz.  After watching the entire series, I was hooked.  Since then, probabaly 90% of my CD purchases have been Jazz form the 50's and early 60's. Some favorites are Dexter Gordan, Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, and Charlie Parker.  As you can see, the saxophone is what I like best.

[Jazzman53]

As someone already pointed out, most anything on the Blue Note label is gonna be good. 
One of my favorite Blue Note albums from the early 60's is Grant Green's  "Idle Moments".  There's an interesting story there too: 

Duke Pearson, who composed the title tune, later explained that it was intended to be about 7 minutes long but due to a mix up where the musicians played the main melody twice, creating confusion about whether one chorus was to be 16 or 32 measures, the first take ended up being almost 15 minutes long.  And that first take had a special magic that none of the 7-minute retakes could capture so it was decided to use the first take on the album-- and a marvelous tune it is -- on Joe Henderson's amazing solo, which has an agonizingly slow tempo played with a depth that will bring you to your knees, I'd swear you can hear individual molecules of air flowing over the reed
(amazing).  Although, the hard driving, yet cerebral, "Nomad" is still my favorite tune on this very special album. 

Grant Green- guitar
Joe Henderson - tenor sax
Bobby Hutcherson - vibes
Duke Pearson - piano
Al Harewood - drums
Bob Cranshaw - bass