Jazz for aficionados

Fabulous clips, Alex; thanks! Like some of the great arrangers like Oliver Nelson and Thad Jones whose skill and fame as orchestrators causes one to almost forget what wonderful instrumentalists they also were, Nat Cole’s stature as a pianist and stylist is sometimes overlooked because he was such a great singer. Fantastic piano player:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=caVBdHdnnYo

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-1PNCak8mAI

The great Ray Charles (another great piano player known mainly as a singer) talks about Nat Cole the piano player (at 7:10):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=716GbRD--IU

Does anyone else feel like John Abercrombie's last record title Up and Coming was a wryly humorous wink and wave goodbye. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Anyway great record. 

Very possibly. He was known, as you suggest, for his wry sense of humor. Great player and great loss. I’ll never forget the first time I heard his playing. I was a sophomore in high school (1975) and just starting to discover jazz and jazz saxophone in particular. In this case it was "fusion". My band director said to me "You got to hear this guy" and played me this record. It was Michael Brecker on Billy Cobham’s "Crosswinds". On that record the guitarist was John Abercrombie:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z2tNB-tQjiE

The tune that introduced me to Michael Brecker:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l-b_h8i9eWU

Interesting about human nature.  So many times we hold our own views so tightly that we are not open to appreciate those held by others.  I'm not beyond doing that myself.  That can be seen here within this post but in many other places as well.

I just stumbled across this link to a Patricia Barber performance at Newport.  I've been a fan of her music for more than 15 years.  If you're not familiar she plays piano and organ as well as vocals, and her quartet is always very tight.  She performs standards, her own compositions, and sometimes pop/rock songs, all with her own very personalized approach.

What struck me here was among the comments to this video someone bashed it, suggested listening to Bill Evans instead.  Now I greatly enjoy Evans, but I don't want to see a contemporary musician come on stage and simply emulate his playing.  I'm paying attention to this other artist because I want something different.  If I'm in the mood for a taste of Evans then I'll pull out one of his recordings -- no substitutes.  (Although I will admit that Barber's posture sometimes looks about the same as Evans' often did!)

This Newport performance runs nearly an hour.  If you're curious to see what they do with a pop/rock tune but don't have time for the whole thing, just jump to about the 44 minute mark for "Norwegian Wood".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7JtThZN_SY

Hello all. Long time lurker, first time poster. I'm trying to improve the soundstage depth performance of my system and would like to have a few great jazz recordings which are known to display significant depth. By having these in my collection I will have a more reliable measuring stick in the future when I make changes to the system or room.

I've not been a jazz aficionado in the past but I'm listening more and more and developing a love for it, hence my desire to start with jazz as my primary reference. I'm assuming in many cases that vinyl will be the preferred route but if a cd or even Tidal is known to work well please spell that out for me. The one time I've heard good depth in a system it was a much nicer system and room than mine and the record was Louis Armstrong doing St. James Infirmary. I believe at the time a good copy of the record was about $150 which was a bit pricy for me. I don't have many options to hear other systems so I'm on my own for the most part. Any help is much appreciated.