Top 20 [Verified] Jazz of 2026: PickSmartly' Selection

#TOP1

Best For Silver Best Classical Quintets

Song For My Father [Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series] [Lp]

BLUE NOTE

0744043

12.36 X 12.36 X 0.31 Inches

0.52 Pounds

Song For My Father [Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series] [Lp] #TOP1

Reviews for BLUE NOTE (PM Score)

9.7

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
MovieMars-CDs	9.92	❌	❌	❌

Features

Silver, Horace

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#TOP2

Best Traditional Jazz Ragtime Best Jazz Music

Jazz Age, Remastered 2-Cd Set: Hot Sounds Of The 20S & 30S. Jazz Musicians. Jazz Masters. Some Of America's Finest Jazz Legends. From The Original Recordings. No Hisses Or Crackles. 1920S 1930S

PAST PERFECT

5026554201316

Jazz Age, Remastered 2-Cd Set: Hot Sounds Of The 20S & 30S. Jazz Musicians. Jazz Masters. Some Of America's Finest Jazz Legends. From The Original Recordings. No Hisses Or Crackles. 1920S 1930S #TOP2

Reviews for PAST PERFECT (PM Score)

9.7

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
PastPerfectVintageMusic	9.95	✅	✅	✅

Features

These selections are prime monuments of the Jazz Age and arguably, some of America's finest jazz performances.

"he best introduction to early jazz music I have come across and features a huge variety of artists from Jelly Roll Morton and Bix Beiderbecke to Basie, Ellington and the splendid Muggsy Spanier."

It is no exaggeration to say that the fusion of several vital strands in American popular culture - the emergence of jazz on record and the upsurge in social dancing - brought an outpouring of individual creativity that was without precedent. As one jazz master after another came to maturity and triumphed, so others, influenced and inspired by their predecessors, followed on.

All of these giants are here - enduring legends every one: Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Johnny Dodds, Duke Ellington - the alphabetical litany goes on.

The best in Twenties and Thirties hot jazz. Small groups and big bands, vocalists and instrumental stars, blues and swing, technical virtuosity and simple statements. No wonder Jelly Roll wanted more!

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#TOP3

Best Smooth Jazz

Smooth Jazz Number Ones

CONCORD

4571988

5.60 X 0.40 X 4.90 Inches

0.19 Pounds

Reviews for CONCORD (PM Score)

9.6

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
Amazon.com	9.68	✅	✅	✅

Features

Shrink-wrapped

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#TOP4

Best Dixieland Jazz

The Fabulous Sound Of The Dukes Of Dixieland - Four Original Stereo Albums [Original Recordings Remastered] 2Cd Set

DUKES OF DIXIELAND

CDJAS721

5.60 X 0.30 X 4.70 Inches

0.23 Pounds

The Fabulous Sound Of The Dukes Of Dixieland - Four Original Stereo Albums [Original Recordings Remastered] 2Cd Set #TOP4

The Fabulous Sound Of The Dukes Of Dixieland - Four Original Stereo Albums [Original Recordings Remastered] 2Cd Set #TOP1

Reviews for DUKES OF DIXIELAND (PM Score)

9.6

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
Amazon.com	9.68	✅	✅	✅

Features

COMPACT DISC

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#TOP5

Momentum

ISLAND

0602537290734

4.88 X 5.55 X 0.43 Inches

0.22 pounds

Reviews for ISLAND (PM Score)

9.5

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
skyvo-direct-usa	9.96	✅	✅	✅

Features

Record Label: Island

Country Of Release: NLD

Year Of Release: 2013

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#TOP6

Best Instructional Recordings

New Approach To Jazz Improvisation

JAMEY AEBERSOLD JAZZ

9781562241223

7.09 X 11.81 X 1.18 Inches

0.66 Pounds

New Approach To Jazz Improvisation #TOP6

Reviews for JAMEY AEBERSOLD JAZZ (PM Score)

9.5

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
Amazon.com	9.68	✅	✅	✅

Features

Sold as "Paperback (Book/2CDs)"

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#TOP7

Best Swing Jazz Best Classic Big Band Best Cuban Big Band Music

Perfect Swing, Remastered Cd: Best Swing Bands Of The 20S 30S & 40S. Lively Jitterbuggers, Crowded Dance Pavilions, And The Big Bands. Restored By Past Perfect Vintage Music From The Original Recordings

PAST PERFECT

5026554201385

0.23 Pounds

Perfect Swing, Remastered Cd: Best Swing Bands Of The 20S 30S & 40S. Lively Jitterbuggers, Crowded Dance Pavilions, And The Big Bands. Restored By Past Perfect Vintage Music From The Original Recordings #TOP7

Reviews for PAST PERFECT (PM Score)

9.5

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Customer Reviews

SELLER	SELLER SCORE	AMAZON FULFILLED	PRIME	FREE SHIPPING
PastPerfectVintageMusic	9.95	✅	✅	✅

Features

Of course, to lovers of between-the-wars jazz, swing is far more than a portmanteau term for a musical style. But try to get a fan or indeed, a critic to define what they mean by swing and you tend to get a response which echoes Fats Waller's famous dictum: “If you have to ask, you'll never know.

What better way to open our marvellous collection of re-mastered classics from the swing era than with At The Woodchopper's Ball? Woody Herman's greatest commercial and popular success features Woody's haunting blues clarinet and Neil Reid's punchy trombone with Saxie Mansfield on tenor-saxophone and trumpeter Steady Nelson.

Benny Goodman makes two appearances in our compilation and that is only fitting, given his dominant position in the swing pantheon. Christened the 'King of Swing' by his promotions people, Goodman was an incisive instrumentalist, a clarinet virtuoso who had emerged from Chicago's Jewish ghetto, made good musically and formed an excellent big band.

It was Lil Armstrong (nee Hardin) who set her husband Louis on the path to stardom with some astute promotional ideas. When he moved on and they divorced, Lil re-built her career as a bandleader and cut some tasty small-group records. Her tribute to the Lindy Hop (a dance craze pioneered at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom) spots her girlish vocal and some hot trumpet from the underrated Shirley Clay.

Louis Armstrong so much liked Swing That Music that he used it as the title for his (ghosted) autobiography. He made two versions of this exciting piece in 1936, the first with his own band and this with the popular Jimmy Dorsey orchestra just three months later.

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#TOP8