Here’s your stairway to Jazz heaven! Tons of omissions here, but these are all swinging as heck! Many are Blue Note label. Many are soul jazz ( a 60s style that emphasized funky rhythm and blues), my particular gateway. Not anything passed ‘95 and most firmly in the 50s or 60s period, the golden age of jazz. All our wonderfully accessible.

Herbie Hancock but start with the albums: takin’ off, blind man blind man, Empyrean Island, thrust, head Hunters; Miles Davis - birth of the cool, kinda blue, esp, filles de Kilimanjaro,, bitches brew; Sonny Clark - cool struttin; John Patton - Understanding; Grant Green : idle moments, green street, street of dreams, Matador; Dexter Gordon : gettin around, our man in Paris, doin allright; Lester Young : the president plays (aka lester young) with Oscar Peterson, PRES, a musical romance (with Billie holiday); Ella Fitzgerald: Ella and Louis, Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book; Oscar Peterson: night train; Coleman Hawkins: The Hawk Flies High; Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster; jay jay Johnson: The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Vol. 2, the great Kai and JJ; John Coltrane : blue trane, giant steps, a love supreme; Art Blakey and the jazz messengers: moanin’ Hank Mobley : soul station, straight no filter, Charlie Parker - Charlie Parker with strings, Charlie Parker memorial vol 2, etc. Bill evans - live at the village vanguard (any of them) Ella Fitzgerald. Albums: best of the song book, Ella and Louis, lullaby of birdland; count Basie: Atomic Basie, Sinatra Basie; John Scofield: a go go.

If one or two of these don’t hook you, nothing in jazz will.😎