Top 100 Jazz Albums

After doing a Jazz Guitar Albums Top 100, I thought it was a good idea to do a Top 100 of greatest jazz albums that don’t have a guitarist in the key position. I asked all forum members to post their favorite jazz albums and the result is this list.

The Top 100 is by no means an attempt to find out what the ‘best jazz albums of all time’ are, but it reflects which jazz recordings are popular with our forum members.

Funny thing is that the results of the forum poll are nearly identical with other Top 100s found on the internet.

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you’ll find a Top 15 of jazz musicians (guitarists not included), sorted according to how many times they showed up in the Top 100 poll.  Again, I’m not trying to tell you that Miles Davis is better than Charlie Parker, it’s just a popularity list.

So, if you ever get the question “What are some good jazz albums?” again, just refer to this page.

Jazz Albums Top 100 (No Guitars)

1. Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue
2. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
3. Cannonball Adderley – Somethin’ Else
4. The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out
5. Sonny Rollins – Saxophone Colossus
6. Ornette Coleman – Shape Of Jazz To Come
7. Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um
8. The Weather Report – Heavy Weather
9. John Coltrane – Giant Steps
10. John Coltrane – Blue Trane: John Coltrane Play the Blues
11. Herbie Hancock – Maiden Voyage
12. Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
13. Horace Silver – Song for My Father
14. Bill Evans – Sunday at the Village Vanguard
15. Miles Davis – Milestones
16. Bill Evans – Waltz for Debby
17. Miles Davis – Birth of the Cool
18. Thelonious Monk – Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall
19. Charlie Parker – The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948
20. Keith Jarrett – The Köln Concert
21. Wayne Shorter – Speak No Evil
22. Count Basie – Complete Atomic Basie
23. Louis Armstrong – Complete Hot Fives and Hot Sevens
24. Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain
25. Miles Davis – In a Silent Way
26. John Coltrane – My Favorite Things
27. Joshua Redman – Wish
28. Michael Brecker – Tales From The Hudson
29. Charlie Parker – Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Collection
30. Bill Evans – Everybody Digs Bill Evans
31. Bill Evans – Portrait in Jazz
32. Dexter Gordon – Go
33. Larry Young – Unity
34. Lee Morgan – The Sidewinder
35. Oliver Nelson – The Blues and the Abstract Truth
36. Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch!
37. Clifford Brown and Max Roach – Study in Brown
38. Jimmy Smith – Back at the Chicken Shack
39. Yusef Lateef – Eastern Sounds
40. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’
41. Return to Forever – Romantic Warrior
42. Thelonious Monk – Brilliant Corners
43. Charlie Parker – Charlie Parker with Strings
44. Herbie Hancock – Head Hunters
45. Count Basie – Straight Ahead
46. Freddie Hubbard – Red Clay
47. Sarah Vaughan – Sarah Vaughan w Clifford Brown
48. Duke Ellington – Live at Newport ’56
49. Weather Report – Mysterious Traveler
50. Ella Fitzgerald – The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks
51. Chick Corea – The Elektric Band
52. Sonny Clark – Cool Struttin’
53. McCoy Tyner – The Real McCoy
54. Modern Jazz Quartet – Django
55. Jean-Luc Ponty – Mystical Adventures
56. Wynton Marsalis – Black Codes (From The Underground)
57. Benny Goodman – Live At Carnegie Hall
58. Chet Baker – The Best of Chet Baker Sings
59. Andrew Hill – Point of Departure
60. Stan Getz – Au Go Go
61. Keith Jarrett – Standards, Vol. 1
62. Ben Webster – Soulville
63. Bill Evans – Conversations with Myself
64. Erroll Garner – Concert by the Sea
65. Sonny Rollins – Tenor Madness
66. Art Pepper – Meets the Rhythm Section
67. Ornette Coleman – Change of the Century
68. Joe Henderson – Page One
69. Hank Mobley – Soul Station
70. Billie Holiday – Lady Day (2 CD)
71. Roy Hargrove – Habana
72. Herbie Mann – Memphis Underground
73. The Gil Evans Orchestra – Out of the Cool
74. Les McCann Trio – Swiss Movement
75. Brad Mehldau – The Art of Trio
76. Benny Carter – Jazz Giant
77. Coleman Hawkins – Body & Soul
78. Roy Haynes Quartet – When it’s Haynes it Roars
79. Oscar Peterson Trio – Night train
80. Dizzy Gillespie – Sonny Side Up
81. Diana Krall – Live in Paris
82. Cassandra Wilson – Blue Light ‘Til Dawn
83. Jaco Pastorius – Jaco Pastorius
84. Nat King Cole – Unforgettable (Best Of)
85. Quincy Jones – Walkin’ in Space
86. Dave Holland Quartet – Conference of the Birds
87. Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross – Everybody’s Boppin’
88. Milt Jackson – Ain’t But a Few of Us Left
89. Charles Lloyd – Voice in the Night
90. Sidney Bechet – Legendary Sidney Bechet
91. Lester Young – Complete Savoy Recordings
92. Sun Ra – Lanquidity
93. Grover Washington Jr. – All My Tomorrows
94. Bud Powell Trio – Bouncing with Bud Powell
95. Art Tatum – 20th Century Piano Genius
96. Frank Sinatra – Sings for Only The Lonely
97. Stephane Grappelli – Afternoon in Paris
98. Toots Thielemans – East Coast/West Coast
99. Jan Garbarek – Visible World
100. Mahavishnu Orchestra – The Inner Mounting Flame

Jazz Musicians Top 15

Here is the top 15 of jazz musicians, sorted according to how many times they were mentioned in the forum poll.

1. Miles Davis
2. John Coltrane
3. Bill Evans
4. Herbie Hancock
5. Stan Getz
6. Cannonball Adderley
7. Thelonious Monk
8. Weather Report
9. Sonny Rollins
10. Ornette Coleman
11. Charlie Parker
12. Charles Mingus
13. The Dave Brubeck Quartet
14. Oscar Peterson Trio
15. Duke Ellington

ALSO CHECK OUT:

• Top 100 Jazz Guitar Albums
• Top 50 Jazz Guitar Books