Your Number 1 Favorite Jazz Album

[jazzloverfat]

it's really hard to pick just one, but i think i'll go with Dave Brubeck Quartet - Live at Carnegie Hall

[jumpnblues]

Waaayyyy too many to choose from. I pretty much like all forms of jazz but favor the traditional small group combos and solo chord melody players.

[charlieparker]

Bright Size Life

[mr. beaumont]

It might be this.

[Onesimus]

[Kirk Garrett]

It might be this.

Jeez, same here. And we disagree on everything else. Interesting.

[pamosmusic]

Probably Jim Hall “Jazz Guitar” and Quincy Jones “The Quintessence.” Hard to pick a favorite but if I could do a favorite album run, then the Miles second quintet albums … Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, Sorcerer.

Out of control, this album:

[d115]

I could reach far to be unique, but Kind of Blue woeld be my default.

[mr. beaumont]

Jeez, same here. And we disagree on everything else. Interesting.

Do we though? I don't think I ever noticed that.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

I might still have somewhere the cassette in 80ies-ish pastel yellow an 8th grade classmate recorded me this album on from his parents' vinyl record collection, must have. So this is definitely the first jazz album I ever listened to (and a lot) on my cheap Sony walkman copy in 1987 on my way to school in the city center. And definitely time to revisit.

[Kirk Garrett]

Do we though? I don't think I ever noticed that.

I overstated, no doubt. Actually, I agree with all of your learning advice for jazz guitar, or I should say I try to learn from it myself. You do emphasize the importance of learning tunes above all else, but when I see you play solo guitar on YouTube, I can’t imagine approaching that level without a lot of fundamentals first. But I am definitely in love with the album in question!

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

It might be this.

Did not know that. Great album.

[palindrome]

Cannot make up my mind, but wow, what a flashback!

One of my all-time favorites is "Lady Coryell" by Larry Coryell.

It was one of the first "jazz" guitar albums I heard, the title track blew my mind when I was a teen. It spans all genres - from jazz, blues, psychedelic rock, and Jimmy Wyble like classical-country etudes. His acoustic rendition of "You Don't Know What Love Is" is elegant.

His singing is... not good, but the sheer eccentricity of it works on the track "Herman Wright."

Here it is on YouTube:
Larry Coryell - Lady Coryell - YouTube

This one I haven't heard in ages (has never crossed my mind either)!

Whereas THIS one has been playing constantly ever since, somewhere in the back of mind.

(Both were on the Essential album... I liked both, but memory doesn't seem to stick to any obvious rules...)

[Groyniad]

You can only choose one!!!

Mine is "Everybody Digs Bill Evans". I just think it has everything. "Portrait in Jazz" is also amazing, with Scott Lafaro, but somehow I find myself listening to EDBE more often and in more different situations.

mine is portrait in jazz

first jazz record I ever heard - and still unbeatable

(unless you count anything recorded by Bird or Bud Powell)

[chrisrubenwinters]

The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, hands-down.

[pawlowski6132]

Here's one of my all time favorites since I was a kid: Lester Young

[LandonEavers]

Rented this from a library when I was a teenager. Changed me forever. The intensity and that everyone brings to the table here is simply unforgettable. I suddenly had a new standard to reach for.
All original compositions with sing-able, memorable melodies. Swing, straight eighths, ballads and up tempo tunes all in one album. Incredible moments of full band playing with the fiery and spontaneous sounding rhythm section supporting some of the best "trading" sections between the soloists that I have ever heard. Michael was battling cancer during the entire thing and put his all into it. So did the other musicians present. He did not live to see it's release- he passed away just 4 months or so after recording the album. It went on to win 2 Grammy's- Best Jazz Instrumental Solo (for his solo on "Anagram") and Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group.

[Bob_Ross]

You have to choose one. If you choose two, eventually somebody will choose three... and on it will go. One album, you have to choose...it's the only one you can listen to the rest of your life...what is it?

"What if there were no hypothetical situations?"

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My answer to the OP depends both on one's definition of "Jazz" and also on whether or not an answer in this here Jazz Guitar forum needs to be an album that includes guitar.

But I'm going to assume it should include guitar ...and so my "Number 1 Favorite Jazz Album" that includes guitar is probably a three-way tie:

- Wes Montgomery - Impressions: The Verve Jazz Sides
I realize that's kind of like cheating, because this two-disc set includes Wes' Smokin' At The Half Note in its entirety, along with another entire disc culled from various other sessions. But holy crap, if yer only ever gonna have one Wes album -- or one Jazz album -- it's hard to argue with this collection.

- John McLaughlin - Johnny McLaughlin, Electric Guitarist
I absolutely adore this 1977 recording, in part because he uses a completely different band for every track, and so you get to hear his playing in a wide variety of contexts, inspired/provoked/supported by some of the greatest musicians of the era...and also because he plays the entire album on a guitar with a fully scalloped fingerboard, and so the pitch inflections and nuances are very unique, a plaintive vocal keening, that lends itself to all those aforementioned contexts. Much of the album could be called "fusion" although the standout track for me is his solo chord-melody rendition of "My Foolish Heart" which is exquisitely beautiful in a way that I don't think I had ever associated with McLaughlin.

- Power Tools - Strange Meeting
The 1986 debut album by the trio of Bill Frisell on guitar, Melvin Gibbs on electric bass, and Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums. Probably as far from "traditional" as an improvising ensemble can get while still being considered "jazz" (or "jazz-ish"), but by far the most visceral, impassioned, incendiary, direct-from-the-gut music I've heard that doesn't sacrifice piquant sensetive delicacy in the name of power. Lightning in a bottle, for sure.

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Ya wanna hear my choices that don't include guitar?