Key Jazz Recordings
If you hear nothing else, hear these...

Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five / Seven "West End Blues" (1928)
Famous example of the most influential jazz trumpeter of all time.

Bessie Smith "St Louis Blues" (1925)
Also famous as an example of the style of "The Empress of the Blues"

Bix Beiderbecke "Singing the Blues" (1927)
The sound of a white trumpeter, inspired by Armstrong but stylistically very different.

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra "Creole Rhapsody" (1931); "Main Stem" (1942)
The premier jazz orchestra of all time. Examples here, first of early programme music and, secondly, swing with typical Ellington colouring.

Coleman Hawkins "Body and Soul" (1939)
The first harmonically advanced tenor saxophone solo.

Count Basie and his Orchestra "Blow Top"/"Tickle Toe" (1940)
Examples of big band swing, which the majority of subsequent big bands sought to emulate. Much less sophisticated than Ellington.

Charlie Parker and Miles Davis "Bird of Paradise" (1947)
Be-Bop is born; Parker was the true pioneer and mentor to all subsequent alto sax players.

Dizzy Gillespie "Salt Peanuts" (1953)
Dizzy Gillespie was the other true pioneer of Be-Bop; he was also a showman, as exemplified by this recording.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers " Nica Dream" (1956)
Bop was by now an established jazz form and this is an early example of a disciplined and still popular approach often referred to as Blue Note jazz, after the record label which featured it heavily.

Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" (1955 - 61)
Mature Miles, spare and lyrical; this album claims to be the best selling jazz album of all time.

Charles Mingus "Tijuano Moods" (1957)
Modern jazz expressed in a loose, sometimes wild, exciting way.

Ornette Coleman "The Shape of Jazz to Come" (1959)
At the time this was hugely controversial and characterised as "free jazz", with Coleman adopting an atonal solo style on top of an orthodox approach to rhythm.

John Coltrane "Naima" (1961)
Coltrane succeeded Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young who were the two most influential, ie copied, tenor saxophone stylists of the forties and fifties. Coltrane's influence can still be heard today in most young tenor sax players. Notable for formidable technique, power and lyricism.

Sonny Rollins "All the Things You Are" (1963)
Very similar attributes to those of Coltrane (see above); the main and important difference is in the way Rollins extends the tonal range of the tenor saxophone.

Archie Shepp "Prelude to a Kiss" (1965)
Also tremendously powerful and technically accomplished; main difference from Coltrane and Rollins is how Shepp has embraced "free jazz", i.e. dispensing with harmonic structures, orthodox tonality and time signatures.

Weather Report "Weather Report" (1971)
This is "fusion" territory, i.e. a mixture of jazz, blues, soul, rock with a heavy reliance on electronics. Probably never more than of minority interest, but still influential, especially for those whose first love was the rock end of the pop music spectrum.

Keith Jarrett "Koln Concert" (1975)
Jarrett was classically trained and, since this recording was made, has become, for many, the most influential jazz pianist of our time.