Jazz standards

themanthatwalks

SO I enjoy Jazz! CAn play the chords, But I don't know any other jazz people personally with whom I can just sit and jam. So I thought, Hey I can get some jazz standards and start there, but the problem is I dont know any of the songs so that helps me not.. DOES SOMEONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND THE SONGS OR A GOOD CD THAT I CAN BUY TO START WITH...

Squonk

A very broad subject as there are many different Genre's of Jazz.
The more melodic form would be what they used to call "Jazz Fusion" which kind of surfaced in the 70's and 80's.
Good artist's to listen to would be Lee Ritenour, Larry Carlton , Earl Klugh, Early George Benson and so on.
These artists would probably irk some of the more Jazz Purists as they would describe it as "Pop" and put them in the category of Kenny G!

Some good albums that I have come accross.

Earl Klugh & George Benson - Collaboration
Lee Ritenour - Alive in LA, Larry and Lee, Wes Bound (his dedication to Wes Montgomery, an early Jazz Great)
Larry Carlton - there are plenty but try "the very best of Larry Carlton"
Martin Taylor - Generally plays on his own and does some Jazz standards, try the album "Artistry"
There are so many, "The YellowJackets"
Also look for the "GRP" label started by Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen, plenty of good artists to listen too.

I am sure some of the others will help you with the more traditional and hard core Jazz.

themanthatwalks

thanx plenty

Karel-Mars

Jazz is the teacher, funk is the preacher!

A lot of people swear by the Real Book as a must have for jazz musos.

http://www.realbookpack.com/

For listening: Louis Armstrong/Billie Holiday/Coleman Hawkins/Lester Young/Charlie Parker does a lot of standards.

Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock are also great standard contributors.

For jazz electric guitar it starts with Charlie Christian - he played in Benny Goodman's band and they did mostly standards. From there you get Wes Montgomery.