#blue train

Blue Train · John Coltrane

Blue Train ℗ 2012

Capitol Records, LLC Released on: 1957-11-01 Composer Lyricist:

A different day that still echo's some places.

Top 10 Favorite Jazz Albums (And Why I Love The Genre)

If someone came up to me and asked me what my favorite genre is right now, I’d easily say jazz; it’s no contest at this point, but if you asked me that maybe five or six years ago, I would have said something totally different. Now don’t get me wrong, I still love all kinds of music, but I’ve become less enthralled with a few kinds of music that I’ve loved for years, namely rock and metal. I still love a lot within those genres, as I have a vast collection of CDs and vinyl that would certainly attest to that, but I’ve found myself gravitating towards a few key genres over the years. The big one is jazz, and I wanted to talk about my love for the genre, as well as highlight my top 10 favorite jazz albums, regardless of the style. There are plenty of different sub genres, kind of like how there are a lot of sub genres of rock, metal, and many more styles of music. I still like rock, metal, pop, and a few other styles, but I’ve become a huge jazz fan.

It’s funny, because jazz is a style that I never wanted to get into; I never liked instrumental music for the longest time, but I do now. I always loved music with lyrics, since I always valued lyrics over anything else (as a former lyricist that wrote a lot back in the day, that’s why), but I realized that music can say so much without lyrics. The musicians, instrumentation, and the musicianship can say quite a lot, and you can feel so much in many different performances. While not all of my favorite jazz albums are instrumental, as there plenty of vocal jazz records I love, you can still feel plenty of emotion in those albums. I think a lot of people love the genre because it’s “real music,” which is also why people love a lot of classic rock and metal, but that’s not why I love it. I like a lot of electronically-made music, and I’ve been getting into jazz-funk that incorporates synths, but there is something to be said about the authenticity of those genres and eras that people like.

I think that’s the main argument people have, but I do love how jazz music has plenty of talented, prolific, and influential musicians that have crept into many other genres, like hip-hop, rock, and heavy metal. Its influence is still felt among certain scenes and genres, but you wouldn’t necessarily know if you aren’t a fan, because jazz music isn’t as popular as it was between 60 and 70 years ago. During the mid 1950s to early 1960s, it was huge, but with rock, metal, soul, R&B, disco, new wave, and hip-hop all coming around, among many more genres, it fell out of favor. Hell, the 1970s brought jazz fusion and smooth jazz, which is the boring and derivative version to many people, but jazz itself isn’t as popular as it once was.

There are hundreds of records that are considered jazz classics, but I haven’t heard them all. These are also my favorite albums, so if your favorite jazz record isn’t here, there are two reasons for that — I haven’t heard it, or I don’t love it enough to put it on the list. These are just my favorites, especially ones I’ve heard throughout my journey. There also may be multiple albums from the same artists here, as many of these artists have multiple great albums, as supposed to one or two. I don’t want to have the same few artists, even if it is warranted, but I’ll try to keep it at one or two albums, unless an artist is truly warranted. I’m also going to try to have multiple eras represented here, because jazz never went away after its initial popularity died in the 1970s. Some of these albums will also appear on my gateway albums list that I’ll be posting in tandem with this piece, but if the lists overlap a bit, there’s a reason for that. Before we get into the actual list, I kind of wanted to throw in a few honorable mentions, starting with…

Seth MacFarlane - Blue Skies (2022)

When I tell people that the creator of Family Guy (who’s also the voice of Peter, Brian, Stewie, Quagmire, and many more characters) is a jazz singer, they usually don’t believe me. Sometimes I think Seth MacFarlane wanted to be a jazz singer, so he became a writer, actor, and animator so he could launch his music career. Blue Skies was the first album of his I heard a few years back, but it’s such a fun, lighthearted, and catchy vocal jazz album that reminds me of Sinatra at his best.

Jimmy Smith - The Cat (1964)

An instrument that people don’t often think of when it comes to jazz is the organ, but I’ll never forget when I found a copy of organist Jimmy Smith’s 1964 LP, The Cat, for $1.99 at Half Price Books, and it ended up being one of my random finds. It’s a fun record that has an organ at its core, and it throws some bluesier elements into the fray.

Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings (1954)

Sometimes opinions change, and in the case of Chet Baker’s Chet Baker Sings, this was one of my favorite albums of all time, as well as one of my favorite jazz albums. It still is, in both cases, as I wouldn’t put it on the list at all if it wasn’t. But I realized when making this list that I haven’t gone back to this album much at all, but I still love it. I think it’s Baker’s very unique voice that I don’t love as much as I thought I did. He’s a good singer, but his voice is very quiet, subdued, and truthfully not anything great; it’s more so how he uses his voice that I like, as he uses it to complement the songs, and his trumpet playing is impeccable. He’s just no Sinatra or Nat King Cole, but he doesn’t need to be, either. It’s the instrumentation that shines here. His voice is also very warm, inviting, and welcoming, which is why this album is among the ones I’d recommend for people to get into first.

John Coltrane - Blue Train

Now I absolutely love John Coltrane’s 1958 album, Blue Train, but I didn’t want to overload my list with the same few artists, including the legendary Coltrane. Blue Train is a great album, but it’s also a very “basic” album in terms of what else I have on this list. That doesn’t mean this album isn’t awesome, however, because it plays with a lot of hard bop sounds that him and a handful of other artists dove into that style at the time. This album has so much energy, heart, and a sense of fun that his other albums have, although this one being more straightforward makes for a very easygoing listen that new fans can get into.

Now let’s get into the list proper!

10: Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder (1964)

One of the first jazz albums I got into was trumpeter Lee Morgan’s 1964 magnum opus, The Sidewinder, and that was a handful of years ago now. I remember getting into a handful of jazz albums, and this was one of them, but I love it. Morgan isn’t the most recognizable musician from the 1950s and 1960s, although he played with a lot of the greats. I just got a copy of drummer Art Blakey’s 1957 album, A Night In Tunisia, where he plays trumpet, and it was a cool thing to see, since he was just coming up at the time. This is easily his most popular album, and it was Blue Note’s highest selling album for a long time, but for good reason. It’s a pretty fun hard bop album, and as I’ve said before, it’s one of the first jazz albums I listened to, so I have a soft spot for it.

9: Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

The Christmas season has come and gone, but one of the albums that got me into jazz music was the 1965 soundtrack album to A Charlie Brown Christmas. That was the first Charlie Brown special, and the soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio (who would do a majority of the soundtracks for the specials until Guaraldi’s passing in 1976) is iconic on its own, not just as a soundtrack. This is one of my favorite jazz records, but it’s unfortunate you can only really listen to it a couple months throughout the year.

8: Frank Sinatra - Come Fly With Me (1958)

Of course I had to throw on some Sinatra if we’re talking about my favorite jazz albums, but one that I wanted to talk about is one of 1958 albums, Come Fly With Me. He was known for doing “concept” albums around this time, and this one is about traveling, so every song is about traveling, either the act of traveling or a specific place. This isn’t necessarily anything unique, innovative, or anything like that, but it’s prime Sinatra. The arrangements are superb, his vocals are top notch, and everything just came together to make for a wonderful album. It has some of my favorite songs from Sinatra, including the lovely title track that was written specifically for Sinatra.

7: John Coltrane - Giant Steps

John Coltrane is going to appear again on this list, even though he already appeared once, but he recorded so many influential albums and the first one I ever heard was 1960’s Giant Steps. Like with Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder, I looked up some essential jazz albums to start off with, and that was one of them, but I really enjoy this one. Giant Steps was the first time he figuratively took a giant step into something more experimental and unique. This record is still awfully listenable, but he experimented with time signatures, and really cool chord changes that musicians still take practice from today. Giant Steps was also Coltrane’s first album as a bandleader for Atlantic, which he would work with for a bit, but this album is very impressive.

6: Jon Batiste - Chronology Of A Dream

There are a lot of artists keeping jazz alive today, but one of the big names of the genre is Jon Batiste. Known mainly for his stint as the bandleader of Stephen Colbert’s show, he also got a lot of praise and exposure with partially composing the soundtrack of the Pixar movie Soul. He got even more recognition with 2021’s We Are, a record that felt like a ray of sunshine in a very dark time for a lot of people. COVID was starting to dial back by that point, and people were still in a state of sadness, fear, and anger, but that record celebrated all types of music, especially jazz, soul, R&B, and hip-hop. I really love 2019’s Chronology Of A Dream, which is one of two live albums that he recorded at the Village Vanguard. This one is a lot more fun, lively, and energetic, and it’s also very short. It’s extremely playful, and it’s an album that’s good to play when you have a good time. Every time I listen to this, I feel as excited and joyous as Batiste does when he’s performing, and I always love listening to this.

5: Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus

We’re getting into the top five now, and this is where the kitchen is really cooking, but saxophonist Sonny Rollins made a really fantastic album after Tenor Madness, let alone within the same year; that album is Saxophone Colossus, and it’s a monster of an album. A hard cop classic that’s more so a cult classic than a mainstream one, but a classic, nonetheless. It’s one of my favorites because it showed me how diverse jazz can be, let alone how interesting it can be when different instruments are at the focus. A couple of these artists play the same instrument, but there are keyboardists, trumpeters, pianists, and in the case of Sonny Rollins, he is a saxophonist. Fun fact: he’s one of the only artists on this that’s still alive, aside from Jon Batiste. I love the trumpet and sax; I’ve said before that I’m a sucker for a saxophone, and anything that has a sax, I’m all for it. That’s why I loved the new Rivers Of Nihil album, because they incorporated sax in it quite often, but I just love the sax. This record is chock full of it, and it also has some slower moments that make for a good balance.

4: Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin’

Speaking of another Sonny, Sonny Clark was a pianist that didn’t have a very long career, but what the legacy he left was very important. He was only active from 1953 to his death in 1963, but he left a lot of music behind. A cult classic that I found when I was first getting into the genre was 1958’s Cool Struttin’. This album is another hard bop masterpiece, let alone only clocking in at 35 minutes. Clark also has a stellar lineup for this, including trumpeter Art Farmer and double bassist Paul Chambers (who was part of Miles Davis’ rhythm section). The album actually features a Miles Davis cover, but this record is so much fun. My favorite style of jazz is hard bop, where it has a lot of energy, and this is one of my favorite albums in that style. It’s also one of the first jazz albums I really got into, and it’s stuck with me since.

3: Frank Sinatra - In The Wee Small Hours

There are two Frank Sinatra albums I really, really love, and I already talked about one, but let’s talk about the other one — 1955’s In The Wee Small Hours. This album isn’t admittedly one that I go back to a lot, but there is a reason for that. Small Hours is a concept album that’s about going through a breakup, basically, and the album is about a guy going through the emotions of being sad late at night and reveling in that sadness. The album’s very slow, melancholic, and rather sad, but it’s compelling, emotional, and interesting. Sinatra really revolutionized the concept album with this one, and it may not be a record that I go back to a whole lot, but it’s one that I love listening to, especially when I’m in that type of mood.

2: John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

The last two albums are often considered the two best jazz albums of all time, and these two albums are kind of interchangeable. They’re both very similar influential, but they’re also truly great. I got into this album way after my initial deep dive, but that’s not a bad thing. It took me a long time to find a copy of this album for a good deal, but I love this. It’s a really cool four-part suite, but it’s got this spiritual sound throughout it and this album is just a treat to listen to. It’s only 34 minutes, but it packs a punch. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this album now, because I may write more about it down the line, but it’s an utter joy to listen to.

1: Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue