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42 albums · 1956–2024

The flute, from the concert hall and jazz to Ireland, India and the Andes

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

Jean-Pierre Rampal in a dinner jacket and white bow tie, smiling, holding his flute upright before him
Hariprasad Chaurasia seated on a stage at night, playing a long bamboo bansuri at a microphone, a tabla player on his rightAn astronaut with dark curly hair floating in a white module of the space station, holding a wooden flute
Jean-Pierre Rampal in his dressing room before a recital in Monterrey. Photo: Jesus Torres, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Hariprasad Chaurasia at the Rajarani Music Festival, Bhubaneswar, 2015. Photo: Krupasindhu Muduli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Catherine Coleman with Matt Molloy's flute in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station, Saint Patrick's Day 2011. Photo: NASA TV, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The flute has no reed: the player blows across a hole or against an edge, and the air in the tube sounds. The concert flute is made of metal, its keys laid out on the system Theobald Boehm worked out in Munich in the 1830s and 1840s; most other flutes are wood, bamboo or cane with finger holes. Its tone is clear and light, and breathy low down.

In the concert hall the list has Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Galway and Emmanuel Pahud. Herbie Mann, Hubert Laws and Bobbi Humphrey played the flute in jazz and funk, and Orquesta Aragón and Johnny Pacheco in the charanga of Cuba and New York. Matt Molloy plays the wooden flute of Irish music, Hariprasad Chaurasia the bansuri of Hindustani music, Uña Ramos the quena of the Andes and Goro Yamaguchi the shakuhachi of Japan.

The list has 42 records from 1956 to 2024; some are later collections, dated by the years the catalogues give them. The saxophone and the clarinet have lists of their own, and records where a flute plays in the orchestra or behind a singer are left out. About 38 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

What it sounds like

Debussy's Syrinx, for flute aloneSarah Bassingthwaite, flute, recorded at the University of Washington in 2006

Recording: Stephen Bangs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

By genre

Classical 14%Jazz 12%Folk & Country 6%Other 68%
  • Classical 14%
  • Jazz 12%
  • Folk & Country 6%
  • Other 68%

The genres named most: flute, jazz, classical, folk, indian, indian music.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 18 countries: United States 13, India 4, United Kingdom 4, France 3, Ireland 3 and 13 more. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Instruments first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.

29 albums · 1976–2024

The kora of Mali, the harp-lute of the jeli

· 1 min read

The kora is the harp-lute of the jeli, the griots of Mali, Guinea, Senegal and the Gambia: 21 strings over a large calabash covered in cowhide, played with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands.

World 89%Blues 3%Classical 3%Other 5%
  • World 89%
  • Blues 3%
  • Classical 3%
  • Other 5%

Read and see the list