So you want to start listening to classic jazz. Where do you start? What is good and what isn't? Well, hopefully the following list will give you something to start a collection by. These albums are timeless. They never get old, but get better with age and every listen.

#5 (tie) Mingus Ah Hum - Charles Mingus

This album is everything a great album should be. Great cover. Great line-up (although Horace Parlan gets on my nerves). Great writing. Great engineering. "Open Letter to Duke" is one of my favorite tracks. It just smokes! Charles Mingus is one of the great musical composers in American history (albeit one of the most underrated). This is his best overall large group album!



#5 (tie) Ready For Freddie - Freddie Hubbard

This is Freddie Hubbard's best album! Every single tune kills it! ...and these tunes are among the most difficult to play! Arietis, Marie Antoinette, Crisis, Birdlike... all amazing! Wayne Shorter makes one of his earlier appearances. He actually sounds a lot like Trane on this record. Freddie's solos are trumpet genius highlighted by his work on Birdlike. Again, great line up and excellent engineering on this album. Many do not know it exists, yet it is a must have (especially for the trumpet technician). Simply put Freddie will hurt you with his hard swing and bebop articulation, as well as endless creative ideas!

#4 Soul Station - Hank Mobley

Along with Sonny Stitt and Dexter Gordon, Hank Mobley was surely one of the most underrated tenor saxophonist of his era. He rarely failed to make a great record. His sound is right out of the Lester Young discipleship. Round sound, beautifully rich tone. This is his best record of a bunch of good ones. This would be largely due to the fact that he had Wynton Kelly, Art Blakey and Paul Chambers on the session. Wynton Kelly offers up some of the best comping ever recorded! Art stays deep in the pocket the whole record and P.C.'s puts one a walking clinic. The use of 2 to 4 beats on this record is addictive. Hank's playing never ceases to be slick, creative and soulful all at the same time. He's simply everything a hard-bopper should be. This is a must own. A lot of people don't realize what a phenomenal record this is.

#3 Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins used to say "records are just advertisements to get people to come to the concerts". Well Sonny, I guess that makes you one good ad executive because Saxophone Colossus is one great album. Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins and Max Roach provide support. St Thomas is perhaps the most recognized part of the album, but Moritat (Mack the Knife) and You Don't Know What Love Is are also fantastic. In fact, like all the albums listed here, there really aren't any weak spots on this album. Sonny is inspired and you hear it through the vinyl. He is truly an improviser improviser. You get the sense that every idea he plays on this record is a new one. All are lyrical, creative, consistent, communative and inside. Yes, you can be creative and play inside. Listen for Sonny's second entrance in St. Thomas. The energy is off the charts. It's like witnessing a shuttle launch. Sonny explodes! (my favorite part of the record)


#2 Kind of Blue - Miles Davis

From the stand point of influence, this is probably the most important jazz (or any genre) album ever recorded. From the first note of Mile's solo in So What you get the sense that everything about jazz from that point forward is about to change. Born during the modern environment of Bebop, Miles introduces the idea back to jazz that what you don't play is every bit as powerful and significant as what you do play.
Two unique things stand out about the production of this record. First, the personal is outstanding: Jimmy Cobb, Paul Chambers, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, John Coltrane and a young pianist named Bill Evans. Second, the session was said to have taken place in such a way that, although the compositions were very simple, the guys hadn't played or seen any of them before. To top that off, all (except for flaminco sketches) are first takes and every solo is fresh and perfect.
Should everyone own this album? Absolutely. Is it the coolest record ever made? Probably.

#1 A Love Supreme - John Coltrane

There is simply not a whole lot to say about this album that has not already been said. I listened. I hated it. I listened to it more. I liked it. I kept listening, and fell in love with it. This record, to me, is simply the greatest work ever recorded. I can listen this album for the rest of my life and it will always get more interesting. How is that possible in this world? I don't know.
It begins with the sound. John Coltrane has the most sincere sound in the world. He conveys passion and sensitivity in a seamless manner. You can hear the cries of the helpless in his playing. ...the voice of a comforter in a broken world reaching out to help. This album is about the physical world affecting the spiritual universe in a meaningful way. Both aspects of the person intertwined. I cannot stop listening to this record. Three notes describe it all... A Love Supreme.