Nineties Jazz

For the last week, over at the always excellent Destination: Out!, Chilly Jay Chill and Prof. Drew LeDrew have been presenting the best jazz albums of the 1990s, as voted on by other jazz writers and musicians and bloggers (here is the fourth post in the series, which includes links to the first three). Which is a good excuse to give a list of my own favorites from the period here (in more or less alphabetical order):

1. Paul Bley/Evan Parker/Barre Phillips - Time Will Tell (ECM, 1994)
2. Paul Bley/Evan Parker/Barre Phillips - Sankt Gerold Variations (ECM, 1996)
3. Peter Brotzmann/Die Like A Dog Quartet - Little Birds Have Fast Hearts No. 1 (FMP, 1997)
4. Peter Brotzmann/Die Like A Dog Quartet - Little Birds Have Fast Hearts No. 2 (FMP, 1997)
5. Peter Brotzmann, et al. - The Chicago Octet/Tentet (Okkadisk, 1998)
6. Dave Douglas/Tiny Bell Trio - Constellations (hatOLOGY, 1995)
7. Charles Gayle/William Parker/Rashied Ali - Touchin' On Trane (FMP, 1991)
8. Mats Gustafsson - Windows: The Music of Steve Lacy (Blue Chopsticks, 1999)
9. Frank Lowe Trio - Bodies & Soul (CIMP, 1995)
10. Joe McPhee Quartet - Legend Street One (CIMP, 1996)
11. Joe McPhee - As Serious As Your Life (hatOLOGY, 1996)
12. William Parker/In Order To Survive - The Peach Orchard (AUM Fidelity, 1998)
13. Mark Whitecage Quartet - Caged No More (CIMP, 1996)
14. David S. Ware Quartet - Wisdom of Uncertainty (AUM Fidelity, 1996)
15. David S. Ware Quartet - Flight of I (DIW, 1991)

I was excited by this music during years 1999 to 2003, when I had the funds to explore (I definitely bought more records than I could process), but my scope was relatively limited all the same--mostly focused on New York (with William Parker at the center; Parker is a key figure on six of these recordings) and Chicago (revolving around Ken Vandermark) and Peter Brotzmann-related projects. I wanted to hear what everything sounded like, and, as far as I knew, there were no jazz mp3 blogs to help. Still, I did ok. This is all excellent music.