Collecting guides

The Best Jazz Albums… 10 Records Worth Owning

Published 7 October 2026

Ten of the best jazz albums, chosen so their credits lead into each other, and for each one the edition to look for and what to check before you buy a copy.

Turn over a jazz record from the late 1950s and the back is mostly small print. Who played what, where it was recorded, who engineered it, who produced it. It looks like housekeeping. It is the most useful thing on the sleeve.

The credits on the back are a map to the next record. Follow one name out of one album and it walks you into another, usually within the same few years and often within the same room. These ten were chosen so that happens: most of them share a player, a studio or a producer with at least one other on the list. Buy two or three, read the back, and the rest of the shelf starts suggesting itself.

Any list of the best jazz albums is an argument rather than a verdict, and this one keeps to its edges. It is small-group jazz and singing, mostly from 1956 to 1965. Big bands, free jazz, fusion and everything since deserve their own shelves, and the same trick — read the credits, follow a name — works there too.

Three rooms and one sextet

Before the picks, the pattern they make.

Five of the ten were recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio for Blue Note, first at the Hackensack, New Jersey, home he shared with his parents, and then in the studio he opened in Englewood Cliffs in July 1959. Two were made at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York in the same year, 1959. The rest come from a Hollywood studio, a New York one owned by its engineer, and a Greenwich Village club on a Sunday.

And one album sits in the middle. Players from Kind of Blue turn up again on three other records here, and four of the five musicians on a fourth had just passed through Davis’s quintet. You do not need to know that to enjoy any of them. It is simply how the shelf holds together.

1. Miles Davis — Kind of Blue

Few jazz records have reached more homes: in the United States alone it has been certified five times platinum. Miles Davis was a trumpeter and bandleader who kept changing what jazz could sound like, and here he gathered six players for two days in 1959 to try something looser and calmer than the fast, busy jazz of the time. The result is slow, spacious and easy to put on, even if you think jazz isn’t for you. Critics often call it the greatest jazz album ever made, and it’s first on this list because almost everything after it leads back here.

Recorded on 2 March and 22 April 1959 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, with Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. Wynton Kelly replaces Evans on one track, “Freddie Freeloader”; Adderley sits out “Blue in Green”. Keep that line-up in mind — much of the list branches from it.

The edition fact worth knowing: the three-track machine used for the stereo recording ran slightly slow, so side one of the original stereo release plays a little sharp. The 1992 stereo remaster corrected it. The mono edition, Columbia CL 1355, came from a different machine and was never affected. The credits have a wrinkle too. The original producer was Irving Townsend, but the 1987 CD credited Teo Macero alone, in error. Our guide to original, reissue and remaster explains why “remastered” is a date rather than a verdict; here, for once, the date fixes something measurable.

2. John Coltrane — Blue Train

John Coltrane played the saxophone, and he became one of the most important musicians jazz ever had. He also plays on Kind of Blue. Blue Train comes from two years earlier and is one of the friendliest ways into his music: bluesy, direct, with a main theme you’ll be humming the next day. As the critic Colin Larkin put it, Coltrane “may have made more important albums, but none swung as effectively as this one.”

Recorded on 15 September 1957 in Hackensack and released in January 1958. It is Coltrane’s only session as a leader for Blue Note, and Paul Chambers, from the Kind of Blue line-up, is on bass. The trumpeter is Lee Morgan, which matters for the next record.

Van Gelder’s mastering mark appears in the runout, the smooth area between the music grooves and label. It started as hand-written initials, “RVG”, became a machine stamp from around 1958, and turned into a stamped “VAN GELDER” from 1961 or 1962. The mark identifies his mastering, not the recording engineer, stamper manufacturer or pressing date. Van Gelder’s stampers stayed in use into the Liberty and United Artists years. Read it alongside the label and the catalogue number, as our guide to what matrix numbers can and can’t tell you sets out. Later editions of Blue Train have added alternate takes, most recently in the 2022 Complete Masters.

3. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers — Moanin’

Art Blakey was a drummer who led a band called the Jazz Messengers, a kind of school where young players learned their trade. This record is the clearest example of the style they played, a punchy, soulful jazz rooted in church music and the blues. Listen to the first few seconds of the title track: the piano calls out a phrase, and the horns answer it, the way a congregation answers a preacher.

Recorded on 30 October 1958, again in Hackensack, as Blue Note BLP 4003. Lee Morgan is on trumpet, with Benny Golson on tenor, Bobby Timmons on piano, Jymie Merritt on bass and Blakey on drums.

The album was originally self-titled. It became known as Moanin’ after Timmons’s opening track, which is worth knowing when you search for it or read a listing. The 1999 CD reissue adds an alternate take of the title piece and a short exchange between Morgan and Van Gelder, so check whether you want the album as sequenced or the session with extras.

4. Cannonball Adderley — Somethin’ Else

Cannonball Adderley was an alto saxophonist with a big, joyful sound, and the other saxophonist on Kind of Blue. On his own album here, Miles Davis joins him on trumpet and quietly takes the lead. It opens with “Autumn Leaves”, a song you may know, played slowly and tenderly, and the whole record has the ease of a late evening. It’s a gentle place to hear two of the Kind of Blue players up close.

Recorded on 9 March 1958 in Hackensack, Blue Note BLP 1595. Adderley leads, but Miles Davis plays trumpet. The title tune is Davis’s composition, and the liner notes credit him with selecting most of the programme. Davis takes a supporting role here, an unusual appearance on another leader’s album at this point in his career. Hank Jones plays piano, Sam Jones bass, and Art Blakey — from the previous record — drums.

The 1986 US and Japanese CD editions add a track called “Alison’s Uncle”. It is Hank Jones’s “Bangoon” under another name, and later reissues list it as “Bangoon (aka Alison’s Uncle)”. Two titles, one tune: a small lesson in why a track list is not proof of what’s on the disc.

5. Herbie Hancock — Maiden Voyage

Herbie Hancock is a pianist who played in Miles Davis’s band in the 1960s. He made this album to sound like the sea: the song titles are about the ocean, and the music moves in slow swells, with plenty of space between the notes. If Kind of Blue made you curious about where that calm, open sound went next, this is one answer.

Recorded on 17 March 1965 at Englewood Cliffs, issued as BLP 4195 in mono and BST 84195 in stereo. Freddie Hubbard plays trumpet, George Coleman tenor, Ron Carter bass and Tony Williams drums. Hancock, Coleman, Carter and Williams had all recently played in Miles Davis’s quintet, which is why the line connects back to the first record even without a shared date.

From 1965, an early copy would normally carry the stamped “VAN GELDER” rather than “RVG”, but the dating of those marks is only approximate. For an early pressing, compare the labels and complete runouts with a documented release from the same country.

6. Grant Green — Idle Moments

Grant Green played jazz on the electric guitar. This is a record for very late at night. Its title piece is a slow, quiet ballad. The music guide AllMusic calls it “the essential first Green purchase”.

Recorded on 4 and 15 November 1963 at Englewood Cliffs, Blue Note BST 84154, with Joe Henderson on tenor, Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Duke Pearson on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Al Harewood on drums.

The title track runs to nearly fifteen minutes because of confusion over whether a chorus was 16 or 32 bars. Alfred Lion, the producer, wanted a retake to fit, but no later take had the same feel, so the long one stayed. To make room, “Jean De Fleur” and “Django” were re-recorded in shorter versions. The LP carries the short takes; some CD reissues add the extended ones as bonus tracks. Same album title, two different sets of performances, depending on which edition you pick up.

7. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong — Ella and Louis

If instrumental jazz feels hard going, start with voices. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong are two of the best-loved singers jazz has produced, and here they sing well-known ballads together, slowly, with a small band behind them. Her voice is smooth and precise and his is gravelly and warm, and the contrast is half the pleasure. It’s the record on this list to play for someone who says they don’t like jazz.

Recorded on 16 August 1956 at Capitol’s Hollywood studio, produced by Norman Granz, and issued as Verve MGV 4003. The backing band is the Oscar Peterson Quartet: Peterson, Herb Ellis on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and Buddy Rich on drums.

It was the first of three albums the pair made for Verve, followed by Ella and Louis Again in 1957 and Porgy and Bess in 1959. All three were later gathered in The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve. That is exactly why the title needs care in a listing: an “Ella and Louis” with the wrong track count may be one of the others, or a compilation drawing on all three.

8. Stan Getz and João Gilberto — Getz/Gilberto

This is the record that carried Brazilian bossa nova around the world. The American saxophonist Stan Getz recorded it with the Brazilian singer and guitarist João Gilberto, and “The Girl from Ipanema” is on it, a song you’ve very likely heard even if you’ve never owned the album. It’s soft, sunny and easy to love, and it became one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time.

Recorded on 18 and 19 March 1963 at A&R Recording in New York, engineered by Phil Ramone, who owned the studio, and produced by Creed Taylor for Verve. Antônio Carlos Jobim plays piano, Sebastião Neto bass and Milton Banana drums; Astrud Gilberto sings on two tracks.

Two credits facts are useful here. Reissues list Tommy Williams as the bassist, though he did not play at the sessions. And “The Girl from Ipanema” exists in two shapes: the album version runs about 5:24 and includes João Gilberto’s Portuguese verse, while the single was cut to about 2:44 without it. The album won Album of the Year at the 1965 Grammys. The 2014 Verve CD B0020749-02 includes both the stereo and mono albums plus the single versions of “The Girl from Ipanema” and its B-side, “Corcovado”, which is one way to have both versions without hunting for them.

9. Bill Evans Trio — Waltz for Debby

Bill Evans was the pianist on most of Kind of Blue. Here he plays with just bass and drums, live in a small New York club, and you can hear the room: glasses, murmurs, three musicians listening closely to one another. It’s quiet, intimate music, and a good way to learn how a jazz trio works, as a conversation rather than a soloist with backing.

Recorded live at the Village Vanguard on 25 June 1961 and released by Riverside, produced by Orrin Keepnews. Bill Evans, from the Kind of Blue sessions, plays with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums.

LaFaro died in a car accident on 6 July 1961. The same day’s recordings also produced Sunday at the Village Vanguard, so the two albums are halves of one day rather than separate records. CD editions add outtakes, and the whole day came out in 2005 as The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961. If you want the album as first released, check that the running order hasn’t been interleaved with alternates.

10. The Dave Brubeck Quartet — Time Out

Dave Brubeck was a pianist whose band liked to play in unusual rhythms, counting in fives and nines instead of the usual fours. That sounds difficult, but it never feels it: “Take Five”, the famous tune here, became the first jazz single to sell over a million copies. It’s the last record on the list because it shows that jazz can be adventurous and catchy at once.

Recorded on 25 June, 1 July and 18 August 1959 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio — the same room, the same year, as Kind of Blue — and produced by Teo Macero. Brubeck plays piano with Paul Desmond on alto, Eugene Wright on bass and Joe Morello on drums.

Desmond wrote “Take Five”, in 5/4; Brubeck wrote everything else. “Blue Rondo à la Turk” opens in 9/8, mostly grouped 2+2+2+3, before the solos settle into 4/4. It became the first jazz album to sell a million copies, so you are unlikely to be short of used copies to choose between; compare condition, not rarity. Legacy remastered it in 1997, and the 2009 fiftieth-anniversary Legacy Edition added a CD of concert recordings and a DVD — more than you need if you want the album alone.

Bonus: Samara Joy — Linger Awhile

Everything above was recorded more than sixty years ago, so here is someone making jazz now. Samara Joy is a singer from the Bronx, born in 1999, who studied jazz at college as an Ella Fitzgerald Scholar, and you can hear the line straight back to Ella and Louis. Linger Awhile is a set of old songs, some famous, like “‘Round Midnight”, some less familiar, sung in a warm, rich voice with a small band.

Verve released it on 16 September 2022, produced by Matt Pierson, with Pasquale Grasso on guitar, Ben Paterson on piano, David Wong on bass and Kenny Washington on drums. It won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and at the same ceremony in 2023 Joy was named Best New Artist.

Buying the copy

None of these needs an early pressing to be heard properly. What each one needs is the right programme — the tracks, takes and running order you actually want — in a condition that doesn’t get in the way.

So before you buy, compare three things with the listing: the track count against the original release, whether bonus or alternate takes are added at the end or mixed in, and the credits against a reliable source. Condition comes next, and our guide to buying used CDs covers what to check on the disc, booklet and edition when the copy is a CD.

If you do want an older vinyl copy, the Blue Note records give you more to work with than most: catalogue number, label design and the Van Gelder mark should agree with each other, and identifying a vinyl pressing walks through how those clues corroborate. For new vinyl, Blue Note’s Classic Vinyl reissue series states its chain plainly: mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, all-analogue, pressed at 180g at Optimal in Germany. That is a documented process for a listening copy, not a claim that it beats every other edition.

Where it goes next

Take the one record here that you keep playing, turn it over and pick a name you don’t recognise yet. Look up what else that person played on in the same two or three years. That is the whole method, and it tends to produce better next purchases than a longer list would.

When the shelf starts filling up, Record by Record can keep the edition details for each copy, so the next listing is checked against the one you already own.