who is the hippest jazz player in the universe?

**jasonc** · 05-29-2016, 10:23 PM

Can't really argue with the vote for Wynton Kelly. However.....Dexter. Gordon. Hip as the day is long.

**AndyV** · 05-29-2016, 10:23 PM

"anyway - come up with a player who might realistically be considered to play more hip more of the time than wanton"

Bill Evans.

**unknownguitarplayer** · 05-29-2016, 11:39 PM

The universe is a tough room to work, but I'd give this guy at least honorable mention. They built a record empire around him and hardly anyone knew his name while it was happening. The tunes weren't jazz, but he sure as hell was. How hip is that?

(back in the guitar lane: check out the tremolo picking at 2:41 by Joe Messina)

**HighSpeedSpoon** · 05-30-2016, 01:26 AM

Originally Posted by jasonc

Can't really argue with the vote for Wynton Kelly. However.....Dexter. Gordon. Hip as the day is long.

Dexter was as hip as they come IMO. Same for Stan Getz. Both Stan and Dexter have exceptionally distinct, individual voices. They swung as well as anyone (e.g., Stan with Woody Herman and Dex with Lionel Hampton), and each in his own very unique way was unbelievably inventive and melodic.

I doubt we could ever agree on "hipness" anyway; up to a point perhaps, but not completely. Different things matter to us, we don't listen the same way or for exactly the same things, and we're just not wired up identically.

PS I agree with Nick about Blue 7, although Sonny's book is huge, so it can be hard to pick.

destinytot · 05-30-2016, 02:45 AM

OK. Calls for some time travel - and my favourite song. Charles Lavere was hip.

**christianm77** · 05-30-2016, 07:02 AM

This early Dexter came up at a cocktail place I was playing at - we Shazamed it because I had no idea who it was. Early Dexter right on the swing/bop cusp. Check out the articulation is in his playing, a little more legato, a little more Lester, but you can hear the Dexterness waiting to come out, that fat tone.

Very swing vocabulary. Contrast with Bud's solo.

The tune itself sounds like it's based on a line from Lester's Shoe Shine Boy, no?

Very hip, in any case.

**jbucklin** · 05-30-2016, 07:19 AM

I thought of him as well. In spite of his enormous popularity, he still remains, among others, the ultimate musician's musician and certainly embodies everything that is hip. Good call.

Originally Posted by Greentone

This may seem weird, but for a long time the Chairman of the Board was pretty darned hip. From the 40s to the 50s into the 60s and a bit beyond, Sinatra drove trends in music, film, literature, you name it. He was the whole package. The guy could sing and he knew his music inside/out. From all accounts he wasn't just some ear singer who needed his note at the beginning of each tune. Like Ella, Sarah, etc., the guy could get it done--both in the studio and on the road. The Beatles and Presley were derivative phenomena, in terms of pandemonium. They inherited their cyclonic treatment from fans, industry and the media directly from Sinatra. And, listen to the way he does material like "I thought about you." He has it down.

destinytot · 05-30-2016, 07:21 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Ha that's a great song! Lyrics are great...

Yeah - heard it thanks to (my hero) Marty Grosz (whom I I wouldn't call hip but charming and clever). I read a lot into the circumstances of that 1935 recording, and I find it heartwarming in a way that (for me) is hip.

.

**mercosound** · 05-30-2016, 07:44 AM

Some really great candidates for hippest, but I'd like to nominate Oscar Brown Jr.

**Groyniad** · 05-30-2016, 05:43 PM

really you're talking an endless refining and redefining and reinterpreting of what hip is - what hip sounds like

jimmy smith's the sermon was one of my first records - i heard that long blues on side 1 at some party when i was maybe 21

it made the world a much much hipper place than it had been before

**yebdox** · 05-31-2016, 10:06 AM

For across the board, multi-directional groove, sensitivity, in the pocket creativity and taste, I nominate the one and only:

Mr. Herbie Hancock.

Miles, crazy side man gigs (including studio dates with Wes and Benson), VSOP, funk, dance, work with Metheny and Brecker in Dejohnette's band, collaborating with Joni Mitchell on the fabulous The River album, collaborating with Dexter on Round a Midnight.... Etc.

I love Wes and Benson, and appreciate all the great innovators like Diz, Miles, Lester, Dolphy, Monk, but for sheer hipness across a lifetime of collaboration, I would have to say Herbie.

**Robertkoa** · 07-01-2016, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by TruthHertz

An often overlooked and much maligned saxophone player. I think he's kinda hip and groovy though.

He plays music I can recognize, and I know he doesn't play guitar (at least I don't think he does, he may have many unrecognized talents) but he does play soprano sax, which I think John Coltrane played too. Not many players can make that claim.

David

Plus NO guitar player uses 'circular breathing ' to sustain notes .
If I learn this...will I be 'hip'?

Now to demonstrate my earlier point about my concept or misconception or just be a smart ___-

I nominate Pat Metheny - I read recently he has 20 Grammys and has gotten rich playing his own Style of Jazz and I assume even non Jazz fans come to see him often..

He has achieved what most Guitar Players dream of...but didn't make the ' List'.

Too successful too universal too much 'pop appeal'.

I get that its part of being 'hip' to be only known to the 'clique'.

Miles and Coltrane almost did both..
Benson...

**David B** · 07-01-2016, 04:27 PM

**gggomez** · 07-01-2016, 06:07 PM

Herbie is so hip he does not even walk or run, listen to him he just floats. He writes pop, pop jazz, invents new music, plays the blues and you can even hear stride piano in there. Man he is just Drift'n round the planet, probably goes off to visit his buddies in other galaxies now and then, such a Chameleon yet instantly recognisable.

Sent from my D6503 using Tapatalk

**Robertkoa** · 07-01-2016, 10:12 PM

Yes . That's true and Herbie is a very funky Master Jazzer.

He also looks amazingly youthful for his age...John McLaughlin is like that too...
good genetics but all the Meditation and other Spiritual things really work for some people.

**mr. beaumont** · 07-01-2016, 10:47 PM

It's Herbie. I listened to Flood tonight. It's so Herbie.

**yebdox** · 07-01-2016, 11:12 PM

Glad you guys agree with me. There is no other who crosses so many boundaries so successfully.

Dig the solos here - Benson is over the top, then Herbie floats. I could listen to this track all day (and the original music is pretty awesome, too.)

And then, there's this, which is completely different, and puts me somewhere else:

Enjoy.

**princeplanet** · 07-04-2016, 08:11 AM

Lotsa love for Smokin at the Half Note, which really sets the bar high for "Hip"- the loose, off the hip, self assured playfulness, the quirky risk taking, the masterful control of tension which becomes almost unbearable at times and always resolves in shockingly unexpected ways that make you smile, even laugh out loud, or just swoon...

That's the kinda "Hip" I'm always looking for and of course there are hundreds of players we've all heard that can deliver it. But in my listening there are probably only less than twenty players in the history of all Jazz that I'd say were consistently "hip" in that brilliant, effortless way, and right at the top, alongside Bird, Rollins and Wes is someone that "discovered" Wes.

This, my friends, is impossibly hip...

**plasticpigeon** · 07-04-2016, 09:59 AM

How about Roy Ayers?

**Bobalou** · 07-05-2016, 02:29 AM

Definitely NOT this guy:

who is the hippest jazz player in the universe?-6a00d83451720369e20147e1113c1d970b-600wi-jpg

A mediocre (flamenco)?? guitar player with a Spanish stage name but who isn't really Spanish. Who hawked cheap guitars on QVC. And has a Zoro fetish???? lol Definitely NOT!!!

Seriously tho I say Herbie Hancock. Hep cat for sure and the way his piano lines float but are still right in the groove, amazing.