A guide to the 11 essential albums that can form a solid foundation for a John Coltrane collection.
The future of jazz has always been shaped by young jazz musicians seeing new modes of expression. These 13 artists reflect the changing times they live in.
Photographing the great jazz musicians both in public and private, William Gottlieb always managed to capture them with a truth others failed to achieve.
Recorded over three sessions between 1949 and 1950, Miles Davis’ ‘Birth Of The Cool’ remains a landmark jazz album that influenced generations of musicians.
Impulse! Records’ history blends indie hipness with a compulsion to push the boundaries, creating some of the most forward-thinking music in history.
In the early 60s, Brazil initiated a quiet musical revolution by exporting the silky sound of bossa nova to the rest of the world.
With their three albums for Verve Records, Ella and Louis proved themselves the perfect partnership, setting the bar for all jazz duets to follow.
Today, legends are ten a penny. When Billie Holiday was given the accolade it meant something: she was one of, if not the, best jazz singers of all time.
Lying somewhere on the spectrum between avant-garde jazz and free jazz, astral jazz represented one of the most experimental periods in jazz’s history.
Everyone from Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga has sung from The Great American Songbook – classic songs so familiar they are woven into our cultural fabric.
Smooth jazz is often unfairly maligned, but there’s a lot to love in its accessible, mellow soundscapes and flowing melodies.
Blue Note president Don Was talks about his love affair with jazz’s most iconic record label, and following in Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff’s footsteps.
Eclectic and seductive, ‘Glamoured’ remains a potent crystallisation of Cassandra Wilson’s unique style, and a key release in the singer’s canon.
Free jazz was a much misunderstood – and even maligned – genre when it emerged in the late 50s, but it resulted in some of the finest modern jazz.
An essential introduction to jazz for beginners, these 20 albums offer a guide to jazz that traces the music’s development over the 50s and 60s.
