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54 albums · 1925–2022

Jazz, from New Orleans and swing to bebop, modal jazz, fusion and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

A clarinettist and a trombonist in white shirts and dark ties playing in a courtyard, people listening and taking pictures behind them
Charlie Parker on alto saxophone and Miles Davis on trumpet in a small club, Tommy Potter with the double bass behind them and Duke Jordan at the pianoKamasi Washington playing the tenor saxophone on stage beside a trombonist in a blue cap
The Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans, 2008. Photo: holga_new_orleans, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Tommy Potter, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Duke Jordan at the Three Deuces in New York, about 1947. Photo: William P. Gottlieb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · Kamasi Washington and his band at the Jazzaldia festival in San Sebastián, 2017. Photo: Esaenzdetejada, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Jazz grew up in New Orleans at the start of the twentieth century, out of the blues, ragtime and the city's brass bands. In the 1920s the records of Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong took it to Chicago and New York, and in the swing era of the thirties the big bands of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Count Basie played it for dancers.

Bebop came in the forties with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, then cool jazz and the hard bop of Art Blakey and Horace Silver. Miles Davis and John Coltrane took up modal jazz, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor played free jazz, and Bitches Brew and Weather Report brought in the electric instruments of rock and funk. The German label ECM gave Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek a sound of their own, and today Kamasi Washington, Sons of Kemet and Makaya McCraven play it in Los Angeles, London and Chicago.

The list has 54 records from 1925 to 2022. It leaves out the singers beyond a few, the big bands beyond Ellington, Basie and Goodman, Latin jazz beyond Getz/Gilberto and most of the jazz of Europe, Africa and Japan, which would each need a list of their own. About 46 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Jazz 81%World 10%Soul & R&B 2%Other 7%
  • Jazz 81%
  • World 10%
  • Soul & R&B 2%
  • Other 7%

The genres named most: jazz, hard bop, saxophone, avant-garde jazz, piano, cool jazz.

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 5 countries: United States 47, France 2, Norway 1, Sweden 1, United Kingdom 1. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1920s

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

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