Introducing Our 1980s Jazz Blog Project

This post is by Scott

January 1, 2022 will mark the kick-off of my second year-long jazz blog project.  This time, I'm partnering with a friend of mine, Dan Robey, and we will be exploring jazz recordings from the 1980s.  Unlike my 1970s Jazz Blog project in 2020, this is a duo project -- so I won't have to do all the heavy lifting myself.  For my 70s project, I selected 366 records: one for each day of the year.  That turned out to be too much work, and I couldn't keep up.  (It didn't help that COVID-19 hit in March, and my office workload went through the roof.)  As a consequence, many of the entries in my 1970s blog are "bare-bones" -- with little or no commentary.  

For this 1980s Jazz Blog project, Dan and I have selected fewer recordings.  The plan is for each of us to post three recordings per week over the course of 50 weeks.  If all goes according to plan, by the end of the year we'll have a total of 300 recordings in our survey (150 each). 

Dan and I have followed similar guidelines, much like the "rules" I devised for my 70s Jazz project:

• We've only selected albums, no compilations or box sets.
  
  
• The music must have been recorded between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989; the release date does not matter.
  
  
• Aside from a few exceptions, we've limited the number of albums that we selected to one per leader and one per co-leader.  For example, I selected one recording by David Liebman as a leader and one recording by the band Liebman co-leads, Quest.  (Please note that Dan and I often selected different recordings by the same leader and/or co-leader.)  

A few more notes on the selection process: Dan and I compiled our lists separately.  We wanted to explore and select our recordings independently; however, as noted above, many artists appear on both lists.  As we were finalizing our choices, we began to compare notes.  In a few cases, I deleted recordings when I saw that Dan would be covering them, freeing me up to add other recordings that I'd considered.  Dan did the same.  This allowed us to broaden the reach of our survey.  In the end, no recordings appeared on both of our lists.

Finally, please note the word Favorites, which again appears in our blog title.  Neither Dan nor I have approached this project intending to select the "best" or "most important" records.  Historical or musicological objectivity is not our goal.  Our choices reflect the particularities of our tastes, and personal enjoyment has been our only criteria.  Plus, if you factor in the fact that each of us has selected 150 recordings from the decade (unlike the 366 I chose last time), this project has an even more personal and subjective slant than my other blog, if only from a numbers point of view.

We hope you enjoy re-visiting our blog throughout the year and discover some new music along the way!