A Summary of Recommended Songs for Jazz Beginners (A Collection of Masterpieces Without Complex Improvisation) [Piano Only / With Vocals]
Subtitle: A Map of Jazz and Other Music Recommended by Mayokonne
You're interested in jazz, and when you hear it playing on the radio or elsewhere, you think, 'This is nice, I'd love to play this at home or while driving,' but then when you actually buy the CD, around the middle of the song...
an incredibly eccentric and incomprehensible improvisation goes on forever, and you can't keep up and get bored...
Have you ever had that experience?
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Influenced by my parents, aunts, and uncles who loved jazz,
I, Mayokonne, grew up listening to jazz since I was a fetus.
However, even though I am that Mayokonne, I'm actually not very fond of the endless, eccentric improvisations that many jazz fans revere as 'good'.
That is why this list does not contain the kind of transcendental improvisations performed to applause in jazz clubs,
but rather songs that can be enjoyed even by those who are basically uninterested in jazz,
songs with little improvisation that flow smoothly like background music in a stylish cafe,
yet are filled with the
sensual and lyricalcharm unique to jazz,and have a good tempo that
won't let you get bored.These are carefully selected songs.
And it's not that I chose these because they are inoffensive for jazz beginners; these are all masterpieces that I, a jazz-loving Mayokonne, have truly loved and listened to for many years without ever getting tired of them.
If you play songs like these while driving at dusk, I think even a girlfriend who has never listened to jazz before will be enchanted and feel the right atmosphere.
With Vocals and
Instrumental Only are separated, so
I think it will be easy to find your preferred style.
Please give it a try lol
Also, in this article,
besides jazz,
I also introduce
masterpiece cafe-style, refined classical music like Pablo Casals' Bach,
as well as some low-key music,
R&B, POPS, rap, and some rebellious-style songs.
The direction is just too chaotic, isn't it?
Especially to prevent a 'major accident' where someone who hears Pablo Casals and thinks, 'Oh, I like this, maybe my musical taste is similar to this Mayokonne person,' accidentally clicks on Kierumakyu,a major accident that shouldn't happen,
I have clearly categorized the genres in this article. Please look at the table of contents below and proceed to where you want to go.
Jazz (Instrumental Only)
◆Keiko's Samba - Walter Bishop Jr.
◆Duke Jordan - No Problem - Blues from Les Liaisons Dangereuses
◆JAZZ Yusef Lateef / Spartacus - Love Theme
◆Massimo Farao Trio - Album 'Luisa'
◆In a Sentimental Mood / Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
◆Reikan Kobayashi - Spain - Shakuhachi JAZZ
Jazz (With Vocals)
◆Maya Hatch - How Deep Is the Ocean
◆Fly Me to the Moon - Julie London
Bonus: Classical
Wait, I haven't introduced a single classical song yet...
◆Pablo Casals - Unaccompanied Cello Suites
◆Jascha Heifetz - Chaconne
◆Handel
◆Vivaldi
Bonus: POPS, R&B, etc.
Please be aware that things get quite chaotic from here on.
(Even though jazz is supposed to be the main focus, this section ended up being strangely well-stocked because I included it as a topic in the article lol. When driving with your girlfriend, wouldn't it be good to mix in some clean-sounding songs like 'At Your Best' here, rather than just jazz? Just don't play Kieru Makyu...)
◆At Your Best (You Are Love) · Aaliyah
◆Bach no Senritsu wo Yoru ni Kiita Sei Desu / Sakanaction
◆Maharajan/eden(For the end of a bittersweet summer)
◆Maharajan/Saila☆Muntaro(For stylish rebels)
◆TOKYO HEALTH CLUB "H na GAL"(For summer rebel rappers)
◆Joe / Come Get to This (I wonder why this guy looks so perfectly like the Pepsi Man... Since the silhouette is identical, I can't help but think he might be the person inside the Pepsi Man suit... while listening to this Marvin Gaye masterpiece. Actually, this voice is seriously close to the original song.)
◆E-Dee Between the sheets (A masterpiece in a summer reggae style. I want to listen to this at dusk at the end of summer.)
◆Aaliyah Rock The Boat (R&B. Oh, I just love this person's voice! That's all there is to it!)
◆Donny Hathaway/Someday we’ll be free(It sounds more like pop than R&B, and it's a beautiful voice that really doesn't match his face, so please listen to it without being intimidated by the middle-aged man on the cover.)
◆Earth, Wind & Fire "You Want My Love" ft. Lucky Daye R&B (For handsome summer pineapples)
◆Smokin Out The Window - Silk Sonic & Bruno MarsR&B (For those who can barely tolerate their boyfriend wearing Seibu Keisatsu-style sunglasses)
◆DIXON (Darius Scott) "Kream"(For those who are okay with reading crazy stories about whipped cream play and lotion baths)
◆Serge Gainsbourg gloomy sunday (Album: Prisoner) Chan... son? Huh? Chanson is this? (For those who don't mind listening to a song by a French rebel old man who became a textbook example for how to practice moaning sounds)
◆Joe The Love Scene R&B (For those who don't mind reading a message from a foolish pick-up artist who was lectured by a mature woman he'd only met via email, saying, 'Listen, to impress a woman, a man has to moan loudly too!', and who naively accepted it, writing back, 'Here is my usual way of moaning')
◆Band Ningen Isu/Akuma to Seppun(It's a song about getting a kiss♡ from a devil. Seriously.)
◆Eikichi Yazawa - Tokyo Genre: Yankee (For those who can listen to the songs of the Yankee legend, Eikichi Yazawa, while reading the original Buddhist text Sutta Nipata and Hajime Nakamura's serious commentary without losing their sanity. For some reason, listening to Eikichi gives me the courage to do my tax returns and work, thinking 'Yes, let's earn money.' It's mysterious. Thank you, Eikichi.)
◆You Can Remake It As You Like / Kenji Ohtsuki(Kenji Ohtsuki is truly a kind person to allow even unauthorized remakes.)
◆R. Kelly / Sex Me(If you only listen to the sound, it's a really good song, but this guy's lyrics and titles are all seriously 'the absolute worst'! It's really trashy, and there are tons of terrible rumors. He might be considered handsome by society, but his face is physiologically repulsive to me... I kept thinking, 'Is this guy... really okay in the head?' while listening to his incredibly soulful songs, which were just so, so wonderful. I've loved them since high school, and then, what do you know, R. Kelly committed crimes that would make Johnny Kitagawa blush and was thrown in the slammer for 33 years... I, I, I, I see... yeah... make sure you pay for your crimes...)
【Postscript: About how recent all-you-can-listen services are... amazing...】
By the way, almost all the songs I, Mayokonne, have recommended on note so far can be listened to without extra charges just by subscribing to Amazon Prime. If you are a Prime member—in other words, if you are already using the next-day delivery service (does my area have an Amazon warehouse nearby? Sometimes it arrives in as little as 5 hours) for 600 yen a month (5,900 yen a year) for Amazon shopping, then almost all Western music, classical, and jazz are free. You won't be forced to wait while watching ads you don't want to see, like on YouTube.
(However, there is one drawback. Gen Hoshino and other 'Japanese music' that are 'popular artists' and 'latest hit numbers' are often not available on Prime's all-you-can-listen! There are also many songs by Eikichi Yazawa that you can't listen to... so if your goal is to listen to Japanese hit numbers with all-you-can-listen without extra charges, then Amazon Prime Music, or rather, all-you-can-listen services in general, are something you should avoid!)(In other words, even if you subscribe to an all-you-can-listen service, for Japanese music, popular artists, and latest hits, it's ultimately no different from buying a CD with extra charges. However, if you listen to things 'other than' the latest Japanese hits, there is a way to subscribe to Amazon Prime and download everything from there.)(Also, with download-type all-you-can-listen services, there have been risks in the past like with Denki Groove, where 'if you were listening to them on an all-you-can-listen service, the artist got busted for drugs, resulting in self-imposed regulations? And suddenly you couldn't listen to them anymore.' It was a weird risk (for about a year, whether it was Amazon Prime Music or Apple Music, I couldn't listen to Denki Groove on any download-based streaming service, and I was incredibly pissed off. I had no choice but to buy used CDs, and then recently they resumed distribution, so I don't need the CDs anymore. What is that? Hmph.) So, please keep in mind that 'there is a possibility that download-based all-you-can-listen services for artists who might get caught by the police in the future could become unavailable' just in case.)
But for fans of Western music, jazz, classical, or even if you like niche Japanese music, if you have Amazon Prime, you don't need to buy CDs at all! It's a shocking lineup.
What's that? You want to listen where there's no Wi-Fi? Yes, yes, it's fine, you just need to download it to your smartphone...
What's that? You want to listen while driving? Yes, yes, yes, yes, I understand, that's fine too! Just download it to your smartphone or iPhone in advance and connect it to your car's speakers with an 'AUX cable', and you can listen as much as you want on your car's cool speakers without wasting data. (There are ways to transmit wirelessly, but the sound quality is not as good.)
If you join Prime for a few hundred yen a month, you can also use Prime Video at no extra cost. Prime Video even has all the super famous anime like Demon Slayer, Spy x Family, Golden Kamuy, and Uncle from Another World. (The only drawback is that there is a time lag of about a week for the latest works... but if you can compromise on that, it's a wonderful lineup that makes you feel like 'TV is no longer necessary'.)
In other words, if you are interested in any two of these: ① next-day delivery, ② all-you-can-listen Western/classical music, ③ all-you-can-watch anime, then Prime is the cheapest option.
The End
Table of Contents: Mayokonne's Intellectual Book Reviews
Mayokonne's Self-Introduction & Selected Articles