#360 Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

This is THE jazz album. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing for Allmusic.com so accurately puts it, it’s the “Citizen Kane of jazz”. But exactly what is it about it that makes it so special? There’s the sheer craftmanship of the musicians Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, James Cobb and Wynton …

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#1139 Annie Ross with the Tony Kinsey Quintet

This is one of my grandfather’s records and a singer I’d never heard of before I owned this. It’s really something quite special however. Annie Ross is a British-born American-resident jazz singer and actor who started young – her first regular acting gig came at the age of five. Interestingly she came back to the …

#639 Woody Herman – Woody’s Winners

This is a great live jazz album, and aside from the quality of the music, it really captures the excitement and spontaneity of live performance, and the audience’s reaction and applause. This is another of my grandfather’s jazz records, another cheapo from the CBS I Love Jazz 1984 reissue. It was recorded live at Basin …

#65 Chet Baker Sextet – Chet is Back!

Giving Miles Davis a run for his money in terms of who’s ‘coolest’, this is an album of pure jazz perfection. A stunning recording, from RCA Italia in 1962, it features 8 BeBop jams from trumpeter Baker and his band. These jams are loose in terms of their wonderfully swinging rhythm, but the band are …

#1208 Soft Machine – The Soft Machine Vol. One

One of several bands who have taken inspiration from William S Burroughs. Whether that puts you off, or turns you on is a matter of taste, but for lovers of psychedelia, jazz-rock or early progressive rock, Soft Machine’s first album, the ambitiously titled Volume One, offers a smorgasbord of each, effortlessly sandwiched together in a …

#672 Keith Jarrett – The Köln Concert

This is the bestselling piano album ever, of any genre, selling over 3.5 million records. And my record is a second-hand copy of one of those. It is, however, the wrong piano. The Wikipedia author for this entry tells the story in detail, so I won’t repeat it all here, suffice to say that the …

#528 Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg – Bonnie and Clyde

Gainsbourg was/is a god, a genius, a prolific master of multiple musical styles and art forms. He recorded over 500 songs, wrote and produced multiple albums for other artists as well as himself, wrote a book, directed a film, acted in over 50 TV and film roles and composed the soundtrack for another 50+ more. …