Genres: Jazz

An introduction to jazz featuring the most important, influential, and definitive jazz recordings of all-time.

Ease into a mellow, contemplative mood with these serene jazz instrumentals from some of the leading lights of the 1950s and '60s jazz scene.

Today's young modern jazz artists grew up as part of the hip-hop generation, and their music reflects that in their style and choice of collaborators. Call it swag-jazz.

Join us at the cocktail bar with this smart and dashing collection of upbeat instrumentals. Featuring the trailblazing artists of the golden age of jazz and swing, this is the sound of old-fashioned cool.

If you're getting your grill fired up, no musical style screams BBQ more loudly than the saucy, soulful, blues-basted sound of a jazz organ trio. From the old masters of the Hammond to the faithful flame-keepers blending blues and bop with tasty licks, these jazz organ jams will make your barbecue a full-on smoker.

Sophisticated, yet seductive, here's where the finest jazz artists of the 1950s and '60s offer up their interpretations of the blues. Use this to set a mood of laid-back cool.

With the way you look tonight, you'll have the world on a string. Now, make your party count with this sophisticated playlist of high society's biggest names, delivering jazzy inspiration and vocal delights from the 1950s, '60s and early '70s.

According to the listeners of Jazz24.org, these are the 100 greatest jazz songs of all time.

Not too cool, not too hot. Not too square, not too out. Delve into jazz's classic era at the office, at tempos that won't put you to sleep or get you too wound up to work.

Delve into the quiet, ballad-oriented side of Miles Davis, along with a wide selection of the contemplative moods of members of his classic 1950s and '60s bands. Get mellow with Miles.

A nice, relaxed dinner party needs a nice, relaxed soundtrack. Enjoy the best female jazz singers from the '40s to today, singing standards and forgotten favorites. Pass the wine, please.

Looking to relax, but not get so mellow your book will fall out of your hands? Check out these piano-centric small group jazz instrumentals, heavy on the standards and ballads.

Mind if we spice up your Eggs Benedict? How about another Bloody Mary? Enjoy these jazz inspirations to help you waste the afternoon away.

Trumpeter and singer Chet Baker came out of the first flowering of the West Coast school of cool modern jazz in the early 1950s. This playlist explores that time and place, with a particular emphasis on languid ballads.

Settle in with the quieter side of jazz. Wind down and drift off to the relaxing sounds of post-bop, cool, modern and contemporary jazz, perfect for those mellow late-night hours.

Jazz as we know it began with the exciting blues-based licks and bold syncopation of ragtime. Enjoy the works of the ragtime masters who dominated the genre, as well as the early jazz groups who helped make the rag an American institution.

This bop-leaning selection of vintage jazz features the unique and unmistakable pianist/composer Thelonious Monk, as well as many of his esteemed associates.

Dance, swing and stomp to sounds of New Orleans jazz. Characterized by an emphasis on ensembles and a whole lotta brass, New Orleans jazz has been called the happiest of all forms of music.

For a period in the late '50s and early '60s, Blue Note was the most stylish label in jazz. The music brought both soul and a questing sense of experimentation to bebop, and Reid Miles' gorgeous LP designs remain influential to this day.

Miles Davis was at the forefront of every development in jazz during his 50 year career. This playlist features Davis's most notable recordings as a bandleader and sideman, as well as his tracks by his most notable collaborators.

Manhattan was the center of jazz in the 1950s and '60s, from post-bop to modal experimentation to the controversial "New Thing" of free jazz. Revisit that vibrant time and place.

Originating in the 1950s, bossa nova (Portugese for "new trend") combined harmonies and rhythms from American jazz with Brazilian samba. Now these songs have become standard jazz repertoire.

Beginning during World War II, bebop signaled the end of the big band swing era and the birth of modern jazz. Enjoy this introduction to the style, focusing on the post-war era when bebop was in its prime

This one's all about the ivories, featuring the classic piano-led jazz trios and quartets of the 1950s and '60s, from post-bop to the birth of the modern era.

During the late 1950s and early '60s, John Coltrane and many of his peers searched for a sound beyond bebop. This cool post-bop set, with saxophones aplenty, balances adventurousness and melody.

The musicians who played on Miles Davis's pioneering jazz-rock albums, such as Bitches Brew, graduated to their own groups after working with the mercurial trumpeter. Here's the first wave of Miles's fusioneers, along with some extended family members.

Explore the fusion of jazz and rock, as heralded by Miles Davis and others in the late '60s. Coming at it from both the jazz and rock perspectives, this playlist showcases fusion at its most fearlessly experimental and lushly pretty.

Essential recordings from the 1930s and '40s Swing-era big bands, which featured upwards of 12 musicians. During their heyday, big bands produced America's most popular dance music.

Starting in the late 1940s, a new, more cerebral and mellower response to bebop became one of the dominant strains in jazz. Enjoy the birth, maturation and continuation of cool jazz, with an emphasis on ballads.

Often referred to as "Hot Jazz," "Early Jazz," or "New Orleans Jazz," Dixieland is the earliest form of jazz music.

Bring together 10 fingers, one guitar, and a head full of jazz, and a whole world will spring into view right before your very ears. Listen to these solo-guitar performances by some of the finest fretmasters ever to sling a jazz axe.

An offshoot of hard bop that flourished in the '60s and early '70s, soul jazz fed on the bluesy passion of R&B. Most associated with hard-driving organ trios and honking, bluesy horns, it's jazz with groove, grit and soul.

Jazz on the light and easy side, spanning the decades with plenty of mellow R&B flourishes.

Pioneered in the late '50s, exotica is easy-listening lounge music that draws upon world music, but doesn't aim for authentic replication. Instead, exotica's purpose is lightweight entertainment that conjures images of foreign paradises.

Since the late 1950s, bossa nova has entranced listeners around the world. Enjoy over five decades' worth of music from Brazil and beyond, all influenced by the languid sensuality that began on Ipanema beach.

Various artists cover songs in the repertoire of the charismatic and prolific composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington, one of the most revered figures in jazz history.

A selection of jazz tunes by bandleader/bassist/composer Charles Mingus and the many accomplished musicians that performed with him.

Herbie Hancock is one of the most creatively restless and prolific artists in jazz history. He's presented here in phases ranging from post-bop to electronic pop, alongside many of his influences and contemporaries.

Get dressed up, grab a cocktail, and listen to some upbeat standards by jazz greats from Louis Armstrong to Miles Davis and beyond.

With the onset of Prohibition, the country went dry and the party moved underground. Revisit American pop music's salad days, when ragtime was morphing into dixieland jazz and the first recordings of rural blues were being heard in major cities.

Halloween shouldn't just be "Monster Mash" & "Thriller;" sometimes you just need a little Trick-or-Treat with a jazzy beat. So put the lights down low, light up the jack-o-lantern, turn up this playlist and watch the spirits start to swing.

Make your next dinner party extra sophisticated with the lush sounds of CTI Records. From 1968 to the late '70s, producer Creed Taylor blended jazz, soul and Brazilian music into a sumptuous, engaging form of fusion.

Listen to the best recordings from the most influential female jazz musicians of all time.

Sinatra's artistry is so all-encompassing you could easily spend your entire life listening to no one else. But even the most fanatical Frank lovers might want to mix it up once in a while, so here's a batch of vocalists bound to appeal to admirers of Ol' Blue Eyes.

This playlist takes you back to a time when Sinatra was king, men wore suits, and everyone swilled martinis like the world was going to end in nuclear winter. Thankfully, it didn't, and the swingin' lounge music of the era lives on.

The perfect combination of Afro-Cuban rhythms and American jazz, from the Havana jam sessions where the style was born to its international exodus.

A crate-digger's dream, here are the smooth, soulful and funky tracks sampled by Q-Tip and Ali Shaheed Muhammad for their visionary '90s hip hop group, A Tribe Called Quest.

Cole Porter's clever and sophisticated songs have become standard repertoire for jazz musicians and Broadway performers. Listen to a collection of his timeless standards, from "I've Got You Under My Skin" to "I Get A Kick Out Of You."

Sometimes all you need is a rousing song to get yourself out of a rut. Take inspiration from some of the all-time great pop vocalists and c'mon, get happy!

A Julliard-trained pianist, Nina Simone was as comfortable with Broadway standards as she was with African polyrhythmic rave-ups. Here are the best songs from her influences and contemporaries and the songs she covered with her unmistakable voice. http://ninasimone.com

Clear, concise and creative solo piano recordings that evoke a contemplative and, at times, nocturnal feeling. Perfect for late night unwinding.

Stylish, soulful, and funky tunes hand-picked for your next casual get-together by Patrick Wilson of The Special Goodness and Weezer. http://thespecialgoodness.com

If you're getting set to apply your gray matter to some serious study, let the sounds of a large-scale jazz ensemble in full flight buoy your brain without manhandling your ears.

When you've had enough choirs and carolers but still want to get in a festive holiday mood, slip into something more comfortable with these swinging instrumental jazz interpretations of Christmas favorites.

The decorations are set and the toddies are spiced, but a Christmas party isn't complete without a classic, and classy, soundtrack. Listen to the lush arrangements and sonorous voices of the iconic post-war crooners who set the standard for holiday music.