An Introduction To The Best Jazz Albums and Best Jazz Songs Of All-Time

As a jazz drummer of much experience, I get asked fairly often about what the best jazz albums of all time are.

I remember asking one of my college professors this same question just a few years ago, and his prolific response was: "Send Me An Email."

You see, he didn't mean to be avoiding the issue, and it wasn't that he meant to say that he didn't have time for me right then, but more just that there are so many great jazz albums out there that he had to think about it for a few days.

And the issue of what the best jazz albums of all time really are is further compounded by the fact that jazz has so much history, and there are some albums that are better for certain types of listening.

For example, when you are just starting to learn how to play jazz, there are some albums that are better to listen to, and some albums that will make your head explode. And because of where I was at in my jazz career at the time, my professor wanted to make me a list of intermediate jazz albums.

The history of jazz music has spanned a little more than a century at this point, and has covered many genres, including:

New Orleans Jazz | Dixieland Jazz: Not quite ragtime, and not quite big band swing jazz, The earliest style of jazz music which featured a lot of rolling snare drum beats, with a steady bass drum usually on the "1" and the "3" of each measure. New Orleans Jazz has made quite a bit of a comeback in the last few years, thanks to the work of Wynton Marsalis and others, and the earlier style of Dixieland Jazz is best exemplified by the early works of Louis Armstrong, and Jelly Roll Morton.

Dixieland Jazz Recommended Listening: Joe "King" Oliver and Louis Armstrong- "Dippermouth Blues", "Riverside Blues", and "High Society Rag". Jelly Roll Morton- "King Porter Stomp".

Best Dixieland Jazz Albums and Best New Orleans Jazz Albums: Dixieland Jazz Albums and New Orleans Jazz Albums are very few in nature, so the "best" of them is really a composite- Ken Burns Jazz: The Story Of American Music.

Big Band Jazz | Swing Jazz: Big Band Jazz and Swing Jazz are interchangeable in most respects, except that the connotation for Swing Era Jazz usually refers to the Jazz era starting in the mid-1920s and lasting through the end of World War Two. The Swing Jazz Era was the most popular era for jazz, in fact during this time jazz music was the most popular form of music in the United States, and many dance halls were built specifically to host "Lindy Hops" and other weekend jazz dances which would go all the way through the night.

Swing Jazz Recommended Listening: The Glenn Miller Orchestra- "In The Mood", The Duke Ellington Orchestra- "Chelsea Bridge", and The Count Basie Orchestra- "April In Paris" and "One O'Clock Jump".

Best Swing Jazz Albums: Count Basie- April In Paris; Duke Ellington- Rockin' In Rhythm, and The Blanton-Webster Band.

Bebop Jazz: The next era in jazz music after swing jazz and big band jazz, Bebop Jazz only lasted for a few years as the primary jazz style, and generally overlapped a little bit with cool jazz. Bebop Jazz is still alive and kicking though, and was the primary jazz style that I studied and played in college. Bebop Jazz is characterized by exceedingly fast tempos, and highly interactive and improvised solos. Bebop Jazz musicians often used a very simple opening melody, with harmonically complex chord changes over which it was possible to develop logical and virtuosic solos.

Bebop Jazz Recommended Listening: Dizzy Gillespie- "Manteca", "Anthropology", and "Night In Tunisia"; Charlier Parker- "Slow Boat To China", Clifford Brown and Max Roach- "I'll Remember April", Thelonious Monk- "Evidence" and "Epistrophy".

Best Bebop Jazz Albums: Charlie Parker- Charlie Parker WIth Strings. Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt- Sonny Side Up; The Modern Jazz Quartet- Ben Webster and The Modern Jazz Quartet.

Cool Jazz: The next major jazz style to come after Bebop Jazz, Cool Jazz was inaugurated by a group of recordings which were organized as "Birth of the Cool" by Miles Davis. Although Cool Jazz Musicians, and all jazz musicians after the bebop jazz era, still performed long jazz solos, in Cool Jazz they tended to be over slower-tempo pieces and were much more introspective and reserved in nature.

Cool Jazz Recommended Listening: Miles Davis- "Jeru", "Move", "Boplicity", and "Rocker"; Bill Evans- "Waltz For Debby", "Spring Is Here", and "Nardis"; Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim- "Corocovado", "Desafinado", and "The Girl From Ipanema".

Best Cool Jazz Albums: Miles Davis- Birth of The Cool and Kind Of Blue. Oscar Peterson Trio With Milt Jackson- Very Tall.

Avant Garde Jazz | Free Jazz: Avant Garde Jazz and Free Jazz aren't really the same thing, however they are closely related. Avant Garde jazz technically still follows a prescribed rhythmic structure, but may stray from traditional chord changes (Thelonious Monk is a good example of a Bebop Jazz player who can also be considered Avant Garde), whereas Free Jazz can be completely devoid of both chord changes and logical rhythmic structures. Both Avant Garde Jazz and Free Jazz were developed during the Cool Jazz era, but didn't rise to "prominence" until the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, it was Free Jazz musicians who developed the closest associations with rock and roll musicians, and many Free Jazz musicians played at such famous events as the Woodstock Concert.

Free Jazz and Avant Garde Jazz Recommended Listening: Thelonious Monk- "Nutty", "Let's Cool One", and "In Walked Bud"; Eric Dolphy- "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise", "South Street Exit", and "Hat and Beard".

Best Free Jazz Albums: Booker Little- Booker Little and Friends; Charles Mingus- Mingus Ah Um; Charlie Haden And The Liberation Music Orchestra- The Montreal Tapes. (Most of these are actually Avant Garde Jazz Albums, however they feature elements of free jazz improvisation as well.)

Hard Bop Jazz and Soul Jazz: While at the same time some jazz musicians were seeking stranger and more complex harmonic structures, or even abandoning harmony completely, other jazz groups such as Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers (formerly Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers) were going back to the roots of jazz with a new style known as Hard Bop Jazz or Soul Jazz. Soul Jazz tended to use simple harmonic structures, lots of improvisation, and ultimately a hard-swinging groove reminiscent of the Big Band Era.

Hard Bop Jazz and Soul Jazz Recommended Listening: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers- "Moanin'", "The Drum Thunder Suite", and "Blues March".

Best Soul Jazz Albums: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers- Moanin'. Cannonball Adderley- Somethin' Else.

Fusion Jazz: Fusion Jazz is characterized by a tendency toward hard rock rhythms, electronic instruments, and sometimes even simpler harmonic structures. The Fusion Jazz influence is still found today in such styles as Groove Jazz, and has exerted some influence on the general rock and roll music community as well. In fact, it can be said that there are two sides to the "Fusion coin"- the Jazz side of fusion, which is best exemplified in the music of Weather Report and the later works of Miles Davis, and the Rock side of fusion, which is exemplified in the music of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Yes, and Jimi Hendrix.

Fusion Jazz Recommended Listening: Weather Report- "Birdland", Wayne Shorter- "Footprints", Miles Davis- "Bitches Brew"

Best Fusion Jazz Albums: Miles Davis- Bitches Brew, and Miles In The Sky.

Modern Jazz: Modern Jazz styles include Neo-classical jazz, Post Bop jazz, and (unfortunately) Smooth Jazz. Many of these styles draw much from both the Bebop Jazz and Soul Jazz traditions, and less so from the Cool Jazz and Free Jazz styles. However, there are many jazz groups out there who are dedicated to the proliferation of all jazz styles, and I've even skipped over styles like Acid Jazz, and Modal Jazz, mostly because they can also just be considered movements within the larger jazz genres being developed at the time.

Modern Jazz Recommended Listening: Wynton Marsalis- "Black Codes", "Blues", and "J Mood"; MSU Professors Of Jazz- "Friday The 13th", and "Bebop"; Scolohofo- "New Amsterdam"; Terence Blanchard- "Azania"; Ray Brown and Jimmy Rowles- "Honey Love"; Miroslav Vitous- "Faith Run".

Best Modern Jazz Albums: Wynton Marsalis- Black Codes, and J Mood; Rodney Whitaker- Yesterdays, Today and Tomorrow; Brad Mehldau- Largo.