Interconnectivity

I suppose what has had me going all this time is the obvious and extensive interconnectedness of the jazz world. While I don't consider it particularly unusual that record companies would release the exact same recording under two (or more) different names, I am aggravated by how hard it is to find out that information. Yes, one could, I suppose, go through the playlist of every CD one is considering purchasing to see if it matches the playlist of a CD one already owns. That would be a start. And while I can't really imagine a scenario where two CD's would have a playlist of, say, five songs exactly the same name but different versions, I have seen CD's that have different playlists (slightly) but which are, in fact, the same recording. Confusing.

I think that is what makes the jazz world so unique. I mean, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna and Hall and Oates might team up to make a recording of a song or two, wherever and whenever there' s a dollar to be had or a benefit to attach one's image to, but you'll never hear Madonna sing on a Bruce Springsteem album and you'll never hear Eric Clapton playing guitar for Green Day, or something like that. But you will hear Clifford Brown playing for Helen Merrill. And Sarah Vaughn. And Art Blakey. And Jay Jay Johnson. And, and, and... Certain guys were everywhere. One could be forgiven for thinking that in the golden heyday of jazz, say the 1950's and 1960's, there were only about 150 people playing jazz music. I mean, seriously. This is probably why I missed the jazz boat. "Do you like Miles Davis, man?" "No, I don't dig that stuff, man." Well, guess what? Miles Davis made, like, a thousand albums a month back then, so if you throw him out of consideration, you've just thrown out a major portion of the music being made at that time. That, at least partially, is what happened to me, I guess. Anyway.

Since I've purchased 16 CD's in just the past three weeks (it will be a while before I get any more now, unless a big discount on something in my wishlist shows up on Amazon.com or e-bay), I've got them all piled in one place where I've been reading about them in my recordings guide, reading through the liner notes, and of course, listening to them. And it was last night as a bunch of Blue Note recordings came together that I noticed they had a lot of the same artists' names on them. Watch me as I go full circle here:

-McCoy Tyner plays piano on John Coltrane's Love Supreme along with Elvin Jones
-Elvin Jones plays drums on Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil with Herbie Hancock on piano
-On Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage, Ron Carter plays bass
-Ron Carter also plays bass on Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil, with Freddie Hubbard on trumpet
-Freddie Hubbard also plays trumpet on Herbie's Maiden Voyage (ooh, that's one circle right there)

... and okay, I made my point. But I could go on and on if I wanted to do some research. (And some day I will.)

Again, I'm not saying any of this is bad or good or whatever. And now that I understand it and have had an opportunity to explore it somewhat, I think the chances of my continuing to duplicate CD purchases is pretty slim, unless I do so intentionally to get a different, or better, version of something I know I like. (Helen Merrill comes to mind.) Someday, when I have the time and the technology, I'm going to construct a massive timeline or "connectivity map" that conveniently illustrates all this interconnectedness, making it easier for the jazz fan to understand who goes where and what are the likely locations for having overlap in a CD collection, due to all these musicians playing and singing on each other's recordings. Today, I merely note it for convenience and future subject matter consideration (and reader comments?).