Top 10 Jazz Albums of All time

Ricardo Alonso Esparza Gamez
8 min readJan 8, 2024

The following is a list of what I consider the most relevant, artistic and enduring jazz albums of all time. It excludes notably Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Charlie Parker, who lived before the LP era and thus did not release any album per se. Still, I consider the former artists as the most significant of the genere but not necessarily the best ones in terms of quality, just like Chuck Berry is THE figure of rock music.

This is not a theoretical or musicologist analysis of jazz (for which there are several in the public domain, far superior and with more scholarship), rather a personal list with a poetic and aesthetic interpretation, combined with a subjective ranking of historical significance.

10. Miles Davis — Kind of Blue

The album that dictated the change from bebop (jazz based on a succession of chords) to modal jazz (jazz based on a single key/chord/mode), which influenced most of the jazz to be created onwards for small ensembles. The focus is now for individual virtuous musicians’ melodies through solos since harmony is simplified. By setting a single scale for several bars, the creativity induced memorable melodies and more improvisation. The virtuous musicians involved, including giants like Bill Evans and John Coltrane, are playing music whose subtle mood is the response of a single soul instead of the juxtaposition of multiple ones, where the unified harmony creates a seamless flow of sound. It may not be the most daring, complex or revolutionary jazz composition ever made (not even by Davis himself — Bitches Brew) but it is arguably the most influential and the cornerstone of jazz. The influence of the modality of this album extends beyond Jazz to all popular music.

9. Thelonious Monk — Brilliant Corners

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8. Ornette Coleman — The Shape of Jazz to Come

Ornette Coleman is one of the (if not the) pioneers of free-jazz. Bebop jazz, the preceding jazz fad, was a succession of chords that followed mostly a head-solo-head structure. On this album, the compositions created by Coleman are usually a theme followed by improvisation, and then the repetition of the theme. What set free jazz apart was the absence of chords. Free Jazz is not about the improvisation itself (which is a common element of jazz) but about freedom from conventions, just like atonal music was freedom from tonality but not from harmony, melody and rhythm. Coleman, was about all, a melodist, and an outstanding one. The polyphony in his music was not because there was no sense of tonality in itself, but rather because the other musicians were providing melodies of their own instead of creating harmony. That doesn’t mean there is no logic in his compositions, but rather that the tradition of Jazz, and all music genres, followed a continuous element, whereas Coleman’s music had abrupt changes, that isolated were rational and melodic. By the standards set by many musicians after him, including his own “Free Jazz” album, this music is not as chaotic, experimental, innovative, nonetheless, its purpose was not improvisation for the sake of improvisation and removal of formal structures, but rather a removal of conventions. There is no vanguardism or virtuosity pretentions in this album, but rather compositional improvisations with bold, elegant yet theatrical outburst that explore pitches and tones.

8. Cecil Taylor — Unit Structures

Wild and mesmerizing, the furious freedom of this album is unlike anything else in the free-jazz repertoire. It is as chromatic as high energy, the atonal attacks of the instruments involved create a turbulence of emotions. It’s abstract and challenging, yet the intense musical landscape showcase moments of disorienting beauty. The pianist Cecil Taylor, famous for his polyrhythmic style, was musically trained and familiar with Avante-Garde classical music of his time, such as Bartok and Stockhausen. The instrumentation is richer than usual: besides Taylor’s piano, there’s drumming, two double bass, trumpet, two alto saxophones with some pieces having oboe or clarinet. There are moments of hysteria, and moments of reflection, yet this abrasive jazz is somehow unified by Taylor’s mechanistic and contemplative piano all over. It’s a cold, expansion of the limits of musical freedom, intellectual but also deeply imaginative.

6. Miles Davis — Bitches Brew

Rhythmic richness, varied instrumentation, creative freedom, electronic sounds, and a fusion of jazz and rock. This is Miles Davis at his finest, even if his trumpet playing on this record is the opposite of what characterized (melodic and smooth) him, with a sound as explosive, hectic, fluid and expanding as the solos of electric guitars in psychedelic rock music. This a jazz album whose focus is not on virtuosity, even if the musicians improvising are very virtuous, it’s not on expanding harmony, even if the harmonic landscape seems boundless, it’s not about trying new structures, even if there’s lots of free jazz, it’s all about texture and mood. The fusion of jazz and rock created a musical landscape not heard before, wedding the organic and intricate improvisations of jazz with the mechanical and abrasive tones of rock, youthful, invigorating, powerful, lustful and viril yet cerebral like fine jazz.

5. Don Cherry — Mu

An album created by two musicians: Ed Blackwell (one of Ornette Coleman’s drummers) on percussion and multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry. Don Chery is considered one of the pioneers of world music: the incorporation of non-western music into songs created by western artists. Nonetheless, Don Cherry had no collecting or displaying intentions: though he was interested in music from other cultures, his purpose was not to showcase exoticism itself or the mystery of the East, he was just being himself. He used instruments and techniques from other places to create raw and humble music that was a reflection of his personal emotions and of his interest for ancestral spirituality. He embraced music from other cultures and fused them with the jazz tradition but also with his own soul. The sounds of this album emanate from primeval spirituality: the drumming ranges from subtle to tribal, the piano intervals are simple and gentle yet memorable, the wind instrument improvisations evoke old time religion.

4. Eric Dolphy — Out to Lunch

One of the most revolutionary jazz ever recorded were this compositions by classically-trained multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy. He’s also known for introducing two instruments not commonly used before in the jazz tradition: the flute and the clarinet. On this 5-track album, he plays the clarinet bass in the first two, the flute on the third, and the alto saxophone on the last two, while his peers play along with the bass, drums, vibraphone and trumpet. It is an extremely difficult to categorize music: while rooted in the formal structures of blues and bebop, the free-jazz improvisations are dissonant and abrasive, yet they somehow fit within their tone when analyzed individually. It’s an evolutionary form of bebop, more abstract and “free”: Dolphy was not improvising, but rather combining and presenting several compositional ideas at an unprecedented speed. The drums of this album provide no beat or rhythm to go along with, it combines martial drumming with blues solos, while the wind instruments plus the vibraphone remind us of a Ravel-like orchestration, with the solos by their players providing some Schoenberg-esque dissonance. The challenging and abstract harmony is balanced by tender, adventurous, and sinuous melodies, specially those from the bass and the trumpet, while the multi-instrumentalist Dolphy knows to explore every tone and expand the boundaries (but never break it) of the clarinet, the flute and the saxophone. This is not “free jazz”, boundless and experimental, whose main limitation is that there are no limitations, this is truly Avante-garde jazz, whose ethos is that of new musical ideas that push the frontiers of sound but still confined confidently and purposefully within them.

3. Carla Bley — Escalator over the Hill

An ambitious and ecumenical recording, this is the first of a kind — a jazz opera. It has thus the complexity and proportions of a classical one, featuring over 20 vocalist and more than 50 musicians across the different compositions. It is a combination of jazz, rock, electronic, opera, and Indian music that highlights the virtuosity of the musicians involved but also the harmonic ideas of the composer Bley, ranging from the dissonant experimentations of Avant-garde to the free jazz improvisations. The chromatic drama of Wagner, the eccentric and satiric rock of Frank Zappa, the ancestral mysticism of Don Cherry free jazz, the theater music of German Cabarets, the electronic experimentations of avante-garde classical music are fused together coherently and conceptually by Bley, one of the most important composers of the 20th century. No other album compasses all the musical creativity of its time across all genres, from art music (classical) to popular music (rock).

2. Charles Mingus — The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

If there is a jazz composition whose ethos and delivery is the closest to art music (classical music) is this one. Composed as a ballet for a Big Orchestra, Mingus exposes the contrast between different tones with complex instrumentalism that combined Big Band jazz, Avant-garde jazz, Classical Music ethos and even Flamenco. The orchestration of this composition reigns supreme and states Mingus as the best composer of the genre: the intricate arrangements utilize juxtaposition of textures that create a myriad of musical colors. An intense and vigorous composition will shock the listener: the rhythm is complex yet fit for frenetic dancing, the wind instruments are in a harmonious battle with each other, as if they were human voices that ranged from longing to screaming, from crying to laughter, from despair to ecstasy. The album is full of passion but also of a rigid and intelligent order: it’s about the struggle, frustration and pain of African-Americans, but also that of his composer; it’s about the vitality, sensuality, joie-de-vivre and aggressiveness of African-Americans, but also that of his composer; it’s about the existential doubts of the urbanites, but also that of his composer. Each track if composed of a repeated theme, akin to the motifs found in classical music, interrupted by wild passages of counterpoint melodies and vigorous rhythm. The intensive and expressive (and thus, often chaotic) freedom of jazz is able to be contained within the genius composer’s norms and command. Quite likely one of the few non-art music compositions to surpass the test of time.

1. John Coltrane — A Love Supreme

Context is important as in all great art: Coltrane hit rock bottom with alcohol and heroine in the late 50’s, but he found a way out through faith. This album, recorded on a single take in 1964, is the finite and finest exposure of this experience, and it’s meant to be interpreted not as a vanguardist album but as a conceptual album with a common message: that of higher love emanating from a supreme being. A deeply personal album became universal, elevating his suffering to a transcendence sought by all human kind. Coltrane’s metaphysical and heavenly improvisations played alongside the trepid and ecstatic drumming, bass and piano of his peers create a unique sense of spirituality combining African-american spontaneity and vitality with western rationalism and hints of oriental mysticism. The music combines elements of free-jazz, Avant-garde jazz, and post-bop, but it’s above all a modal jazz album whose continuity is guided by the predicative and expressive yet peaceful saxophone of Coltrane. Coltrane is a preacher whose revelations are not words but the beautiful vibrations of his music. He acknowledges God’s presence, his peers depict the terrestrial quest and pursuance for Him, to finally find Him and express gratitude and devotion. It’s a sublime exaltation for everlasting love.

Honorable mentions

In no order

  • John Coltrane — Ascension
  • Atlantis — Sun Ra
  • Anthony Davis — Lady of the Mirrors
  • Art Ensemble of Chicago — Les Stances A Sophie
  • Ornette Coleman — Free Jazz
  • Charles Mingus — Ahm Uhm
  • Albert Ayler — Spiritual Unity
  • Anthony Braxton — Saxophone improvisations

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Ricardo Alonso Esparza Gamez

Interests: Energy, Sustainability, Economics, Bitcoin, Finance, Technology, History, Art.