The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time
Because of its long, storied history, jazz has existed in recorded form longer than the format, or even concept of the album has, which certainly complicates making a list of the 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time. There were many incredible, influential, and vital jazz musicians who never released a single album--many, if not most of those who created and shaped the genre in its early days are included in that group. However, this is a list of the greatest jazz albums of all time, not the most influential or innovative jazz musicians of all time. Here are the rules we used to compile our list:
• Legitimate album releases only: no collections, compilations, singles, or EPs.
• Reissues, even those with tacked-on bonus tracks, qualify for inclusion.
• While we typically only allow one album per artist, due to the
collaborative nature of jazz as an art form, and the drastically
different styles played by single artists within one career, we will
allow multiple albums by the same artists.
Don't agree with our list? Think we hit the right note? Let us know in the comments below.
Also, visit our 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time page to see some artists we love who didn't fit the criteria, but whose importance can't be underestimated.
1. Ornette Coleman - The Shape of Jazz to Come
2. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
3. Charlie Parker / Dizzie Gillespie - Bird & Diz
4. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
5. Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong - Ella and Louis
6. Getz/Gilberto - Getz/Gilberto
7. Erroll Garner - Concert by the Sea
8. Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
9. Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil
10. Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser
11. Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert
12. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Moanin'
13. Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings
14. John Coltrane - Blue Train
15. Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch
16. Art Tatum - Piano Starts Here
17. Dexter Gordon - Go!
18. Count Basie - Count Basie at Newport
19. Alice Coltrane - Journey In Satchidananda
20. Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
21. Bill Evans - Everybody Digs Bill Evans
22. Duke Ellington - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
23. Naked City - Naked City
24. Louis Armstrong - Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy
25. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane - At Carnegie Hall
26. Clifford Brown & Max Roach - Clifford Brown & Max Roach
27. Dizzy Gillespie - Afro
28. Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain
29. Pharoah Sanders - Karma
30. Abbey Lincoln - Staright Ahead
31. Charlie Parker - Charlie Parker With Strings
32. Cannonball Adderley Quintet - Somethin' Else
33. Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin
34. Coleman Hawkins - Body & Soul
35. Art Blakey - A Night in Tunisia
36. Stephane Grappelli - Afternoon in Paris
37. Andrew Hill - Compulsion
38. Thelonius Monk - Monk's Dream
39. The Bad Plus - Suspicious Activity?
40. Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
41. Herbie Hancock - Takin' Off
42. Benny Goodman - The Famous Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert 1938
43. Oscar Peterson - The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival
44. Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
45. Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington - The Great Summit
46. George Gershwin - Gershwin Plays Rhapsody in Blue
47. Grant Green - Idle Moments
48. Sun Ra - Secrets of the Sun
49. Patricia Barber - Mythologies
50. Charles Mingus - Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
51. Duke Ellington - Such Sweet Thunder
52. Carmen McRae - The Great American Songbook
53. Blossom Dearie - Once Upon a Summertime
54. Cecil Taylor - Unit Structures
55. Lionel Hampton & Stan Getz - Hamp & Getz
56. Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley - Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley
57. David Axelrod - Song Of Innocence
58. Weather Report - Heavy Weather
59. Albert Ayler - Slugs' Saloon
60. Branford Marsalis - Trio Jeepy
61. Roland Kirk - We Free Kings
62. Shirley Horn - Travelin' Light
63. Sonny Rollins - A Night at the Village Vanguard
64. Diana Krall - Live In Paris
65. Clifford Brown - Clifford Brown with Strings
66. Milt Jackson - Bags & Trane
67. Kenny Burrell - Midnight Blue
68. Etta Jones - Don't Go To Strangers
69. Herb Ellis - Ellis in Wonderland
70. Vince Guaraldi Trio - Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus
71. Rosemary Clooney - Blue Rose
72. Art Pepper - Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section
73. Helen Merrill - Helen Merrill
74. Oliver Nelson - The Blues and the Abstract Truth
75. Stanley Clarke - School Days
76. Brad Mehldau - Elegiac Cycle
77. Joshua Redman - Wish
78. Jason Moran - Artist in Residence
79. Ahmad Jamal - Ahmad's Blues
80. Moondog - Sax Pax for a Sax
81. Wynton Marsalis - Black Codes (From The Underground)
82. Duke Pearson - The Right Touch
83. Astrud Gilberto - The Astrud Gilberto Album
84. Chick Corea - Return To Forever
85. Bill Frisell - Blues Dream
86. Sarah Vaughn / Lester Young - One Night Stand - The Town Hall Concert 1947
87. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights
88. Art Ensemble of Chicago - Full Force
89. Bela Fleck & The Flecktones - Bela Fleck & The Flecktones
90. Jimmy Scott - Mood Indigo
91. Elis Regina - Elis & Tom
92. Pat Metheny Group - Offramp
93. Stan Getz - Stan Getz and the Oscar Peterson Trio
94. Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet - Husky
95. Cuong Vu - Come Play with Me
96. Anthony Braxton - Five Compositions (quartet)
97. Madeline Peyroux - Careless Love
98. Jaco Pastorius - Jaco Pastorius
99. Max Roach - M'Boom
100. Robert Glasper - In My Element
--Alan Wiley
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Swami Moe on March 03, 2010 at 06:14 PM
Here are some great releases that didn't make the list that are worthy of mention.
Chick Corea & Return to Forever - Light as a Feather
Wayne Shorter - Native Dancer
Les McCann & Eddie Harris - Swiss Movement
Billy Cobham - Crosswinds
George Benson - The George Benson Cookbook
nick on January 15, 2010 at 02:41 PM
haters down there need to stop their smokin,' this is a fine list for newbies looking into jazz. jesus guys calm down.
Carl Stringer on October 04, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Good LORD.....What are you smoking?
Go to your room.
Mark Zipoli on May 05, 2009 at 10:04 AM
This is an outrage! What kind of standards of art do you people live by, you who draw up these lists? You put people whose whole body of work relies on imitating the masters who came before them, yet you leave off the masters?! Diana Krall, a jazz master? It's like saying the Czech Republic is a real country. You list, I shudder to write, Charles Mingus twice but there is no Bill Evans, no Billie Holiday, no Ben Webster. I think the need, on your end, of having to be ultra hip and innovative to the point of lacking depth in the very art world in which you want a perverse acceptance, causes you to short circuit. Drink more coffee, stop thinking that you're intelligent prior to escaping from the womb, and listen to Johnny Hodges, Wes Montgomery, Lee Konitz, and above all Milt Jackson. You truly have so much to learn.
Alex on May 04, 2009 at 04:18 PM
No Headhunters or Birth of the Cool? This is teh suck.
M. Strader on May 04, 2009 at 02:07 PM
This list is pathetic. No Jimmy Smith or Wes Montgomery! That is impossible. Ornette Coleman's album was great but to say it was better or more influential than A love supreme or Kind of Blue!!!!!! You obviously never studied jazz. No musician would ever agree with this ranking.
Where is Herbie Hancock' Maiden Voyage or Head Hunters? Bill Evans Sunday at the Village Vanguard? Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life? Damn you need to go back and listen!!!!
Finally, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure is his only real masterpiece so why Compulsion? This brings me to my next comment. It seems the critics here were more interested in adding names to the list then actually being accurate about the albums. Read the above comments for more info..
Get some help next before you crap on so many wonderful musicians by putting together a ridiculously flawed list.
Renee on May 04, 2009 at 07:58 AM
What about Elek Bacsik, he was fantastic!
theholygoof on May 04, 2009 at 06:02 AM
Really, Amazon? Really? No "Saxophone Colossus?" No "The Real McCoy?" Oh, the humanity!!
Catman Dudu on May 03, 2009 at 06:45 AM
Any list with only a hundred great jazz recordings is bound to cause the sweeping comments of jazz aficionados with their own agendas. May I suggest a list of "One Million Great Jazz Albums" that could possibly - and I emphasize possibly - satisfy all?
But yes, a Tijuana Brass recording and no "Giant Steps?" Oh my...
jgonzz on May 02, 2009 at 08:08 PM
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. No Lush Life?
Hugh on May 02, 2009 at 02:24 PM
It's tough to come up with a top 100 but to put in my .02cw, as previously stated here are some glaring omissions 1) Wes has got to be on it, 2)Giant Steps, 3)MJQ and 4)Freddie Hubbard to name a few.
Ed on May 02, 2009 at 10:14 AM
Obviously any list of top 100 is subjective and will omit many worthy entries. Nonetheless it's a great overview - if it were based on merit alone I would probably include more than a few of Miles, Herbie and others.
A few other worthy of mention - they are all great albums:
Oliver Nelson - Blues and the Abstract Truth
Freddie Hubbard - Ready for Freddie
Marcus Miller - The Sun Don't Lie
Clark Terry with Thelonious Monk - In Orbit
Michael Brecker - Michael Brecker
Mahavishnu Orchestra- Birds of Fire
agimarc on May 02, 2009 at 08:07 AM
Don Ellis - Tears of Joy
Michael Laprarie on May 01, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Jazz is obviously a difficult music to quantify. Perhaps only classical is more difficult -- how do you pick the greatest performance of, say, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, or for that matter how do you judge recordings that consist primarily of the same repertoire being recorded over and over again, note-for-note, only by different artists?
Anyway, quantifying jazz is difficult to do with regard to overall record sales, since such a process would rank Norah Jones above Hank Jones, or virtually any other jazz piano player for that matter. Perhaps a better way to quantify jazz is through influence; that is, how many performances have remained within the realm of the music as standards, or how many classic solos have become essential influences for copying-learning-absorption by successive generations of musicians?
Perhaps this is a better method, but your list makes judging by influence difficult since it is centered around "albums" instead of performances. Arguably the period where jazz had the greatest influence over pop music was 1925 - 1955, and nearly all of the jazz recorded during that time frame was recorded in the form of 78 rpm singles, not "albums." Only a handful (five or ten, perhaps?) of artists who were active before 1950 are represented on your list, yet their recordings -- Coleman Hawkins' "Body and Soul" (1939), Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer's "Singin' the Blues" (1927), and Count Basie and Lester Young's "Lady Be Good" (1936) just to name a few -- were enormously influential to following generations of jazz musicians. Likewise, most of the essential recordings of Charlie Parker (Ko-Ko, Ornithology, Parker's Mood, Yardbird Suite, Cool Blues, Relaxin' At Camarillo, Donna Lee, etc.) were all conceived and issued as singles.
As a previous commenter noted, the first half of your list is a good effort, and certainly anyone interested in jazz should own (or at least have heard) those albums. But without a way to include influential singles, it is woefully inadequate.
alan carrier on May 01, 2009 at 07:56 PM
Miles Davis-Bitches Brew with John Mcglaughlin on guitar ,,, shoulda been Hendrix, but he passed on too soon...
Hucbald on May 01, 2009 at 07:34 PM
LOL @ #31 Charlie Parker with Strings
I think Jazz at Massey Hall should have been #1, and no top 100 list is right without Hot Club of France. No Oscar Peterson or Joe Pass, but Herb Alpert? No Pete Fountain, but Diana Krall? I could go on (BM Berklee, MM Texas State).
Respawn on May 01, 2009 at 06:53 PM
Well, I don't know that I'd be QUITE as "in your face" as some of the commenters, but I kinda have to agree that any list that includes Herb Alpert forces me to question your judgment. And you don't have any Django Reinhardt? You include a few Ellington, but not "Live at the Blue Note"?? I agree, MJQ has to be represented. How about we change the title to "100 Jazz Albums I (Alan Wiley) Really, Really Like," and then the rest of us can just add our suggestions. To presume to list the "100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time" fairly reeks of hubris - and to fall so far short reeks of epic fail. I would agree that about half of these belong on a "100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time" list - but fully a quarter of them are laughable in that category.
Gutsy try, though.
Brown Line on May 01, 2009 at 04:43 PM
Let's see: No Artie Shaw. No Chick Webb. No Woody Herman. No Bix. No MJQ. No Django Reinhardt or Stephane Grappelli. Instead we have Herb Alpert and Weather Report.
This list isn't even worth mocking.
eli on May 01, 2009 at 04:10 PM
Shape of Jazz to Come is a great first choice.
Kinda Blue second.
Giant Steps has to show somewhere.
I would have to put Keith Jarrett in the top 10.
And I would have to move Brubeck up too.
DK on May 01, 2009 at 03:23 PM
I guess not a complete failure of a list, but kind of random. it starts getting silly about half way through....like you started out trying to be serious and then just started pulling stuff out of your rear.
glaring omissions off the top of my head...Giant Steps (!!!), Birth of the Cool, Point of Departure (Andrew Hill), Unity (Larry Young). Such Sweet Thunder and two summit albums the best you can do for Ellington?
billb on May 01, 2009 at 03:21 PM
Phil Woods "Live at the Showboat"
dick on May 01, 2009 at 03:13 PM
It is obvious that this was compiled by a Boomer. The veterans who made jazz respectable are for the most part missing. There are a whole lot of early jazz players who deserve to be here before a lot of these jumped up pop artists. What about the foreign jazz artists. There are some really good Scandinavian players (check the ECM label) and any list that does not have Nina Simone on it is missing. How about John Dankworth and Cleo Laine.
Renato B. on May 01, 2009 at 02:59 PM
Putting The Shape of Jazz to Come above A Love Supreme and Kind of Blue? I think you should be a bit more objective than that. I'm not saying it's not an important album, but I think the impact of the other two I mentioned puts them on a higher level than Ornette.
Tman on May 01, 2009 at 02:40 PM
I'm with the other commenters in noting that this list is sadly inadequate if it's lacking at least ONE album from either Wes Montgomery or Jimmy Smith.
Really? Not one? From two of the best to ever play their respective instruments?
I like Art Blakey as much as the next guy, but if he gets two, Wes has to have at least ONE.
Dan Holway on May 01, 2009 at 02:09 PM
No Mingus "Ah Um"? That's just silliness.
Tom Strahle on May 01, 2009 at 02:05 PM
Great list. Though the record that got me into jazz, George Benson's "Breezin'", didn't make the list, it's a good thing because that record single-handedly launched the "smooth jazz" format. "You mean I can play jazz and make money too?!?!", thus spawning thousands of imitators. Personally think original jazz creation almost completely stopped around the mid-seventies, largely because of such successes at the time. The dates of the recordings on your list bears this out, most pre-date 1976 (the year jazz almost died). Missing from the list: Wes Montgomery, Bix and Jimmy Smith.
Richard on May 01, 2009 at 02:02 PM
You might retitle this the 100 Greatest Jazz Albums hardly anyone bought and nobody really listens to. Jazz became a cult thing in the late 1960's. Most of the artists became college professor. The music migrated to public radio with mostly cult followers.
Uburoisc on May 01, 2009 at 01:43 PM
Madeline Peyroux? I like her well enough, but not a chance. Clifford and Sara together belong up there, and Teddy Wilson must be there in his own right, it's a rule. And has anybody ever heard of Wes Montgomery? Not a bad list for someone to get started, however. If I went out and about, and heard those 100 recordings in malls and bars and supermarkets, American would be a much better place for it.
Swingingruvin on May 01, 2009 at 01:38 PM
Nah, this list is one-dimensional and overly focuses on the early years of jazz, where so many opium-induced composers were all going for the same limitless valhalla, and they got away with murder on the deep tracks but the modernista academic jazz fan can't bear to admit to that. Art Blakey on is on there? Seriously? The man had one dynamic and one dynamic only: Loud noise. Half this list should be rethought, and replaced by where things have gone in the last 25 years. Jazz afficianados are in a total eggheaded rut.
dan on May 01, 2009 at 01:05 PM
Thanks for the great list! I am a guy who is familiar with a good amount of Jazz (I have heard at least a little bit of most people here), but was looking for a list like this to get a bit more into it. These kinds of lists are great for people like me.
Tom on May 01, 2009 at 12:57 PM
The Roland Kirk choice is questionable. "Rip, Rig and Panic" would have been a better pick as would several others. The Sun Ra choice is bizarre. Granted he's a very difficult artist for whom to choose a representative and "best" example, and he certainly belongs on the list, but "Secrets of the Sun" just ain't it. Far better would be "Nothing Is". No Coleman Hawkins, no Django Reinhardt, no Lester Young as a leader? OK first draft, this list needs more work.
salaryman on May 01, 2009 at 12:52 PM
Herb Alpert? Madeline Peyroux? And where's "Giant Steps?"
Alan W on May 01, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Weather Report? Was that really a jazz group?
Chet Baker but no Gerry Mulligan? And what about Jimmy Smith's "Dot Com Blues"?
I agree with "Return to Forever" but then you need to include Joe Farrell's "Moongerms".
On the whole an excellent list but in the end, there's going to be a certain arbitrariness to the exercise. As a canon of Great Jazz it works.
blizzardo on May 01, 2009 at 12:37 PM
I agree that Jimmy Smith is glaringly absent. So is the Modern Jazz Quartet. And Mingus has better albums than the ones mentioned here.
PeteDrum on May 01, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Bix Lives (anyway)
ghogan on May 01, 2009 at 12:18 PM
At one time in my life I owned most of these albums along with a
Garrard turn table, McIntosh amp, etc. The ex got all of them. I can't believe Jimmy Smith isn't in this list, two albums by Miles Davis? Sketches of Spain, yes, but most others while good don't measure up. Ahmad Jamal's "At the Pershing" was a better album imho. Coltrane was,to me, a musicians musician and for a listener he was better playing with someone, rather than as a soloist. JJ Johnson and Kai Winding not on here...their "J and K" album was unbelievable. Seems like a list that contained only those who played at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1962 would hit all the high spots. Herbie Mann at the Village Gate not on there? You could put all of Art Blakey's albums in this list.
Don't take my comments too serious...I like all of the albums listed, any list purported to be the "best" is subject to the reviewers response to the first time an artist was heard. I saw Ella at Birdland and she will always be at the top of any list for me.
Pixelkiller on May 01, 2009 at 12:12 PM
I looked the list over twice and maybe I missed it, but Kid Ory ain't on it. What gives?
John on May 01, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Much as I enjoy Herb Alpert, any list of jazz albums that include him can't be taken seriously.
I'd put Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth way ahead of Ornette Coleman's Shape of Jazz to Come, which, interesting as it is, turned out to be a stillborn project.