I'm not really sure if there is a simlar thread to this but anyway. Quite a few people in the society are pretty into jazz and I'm looking into getting some more of it so I figure I'll start a thread on people's recommendations. I've recently got hold of 'The complete Riverside Recordings' by Bill Evans which I've only just put onto my mp3 player but I've listened to quite a bit of and would definitely recommend it. Apart from that I've always liked 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' by Ornette Coleman, quite a lot of John Coltrane (particularly A Love Supreme), 'Bitches Brew' and 'A Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis and prety much anything by Pat Metheny or Allan Holdsworth. What are your favorites? (I haven't listened to too much so I may have missed quite a few examples).

1958 Miles is a pretty nice album, in terms of track choices imho. It has Bill Evans on piano as well. Somethin' Else by Cannonball Adderley (with Miles Davis) is good. I don't know if your Coltrane collection includes Giant Steps, with lovely Coltrane changes! For Musicians Only by Stan Getz (with Dizzy Gillespie) has some nice fast & high bebop if you're in the mood for that.

I've been listening to two Bill Evans albums all summer, New Jazz Conceptions and Everybody Digs Bill Evans.

If you like singing then Billie Holiday - Lady Sings The Blues is one of my favourite albums for that.

Of course absolutely do not buy these albums individually, I got hold of them as parts of ridiculously cheap sets in Rise, for example, there is a 3 CD set containing 6 whole Miles albums for £5. To buy the albums individually on Amazon costs around £45.

I've been mentioning Bill Evans a lot but I should say Oscar Peterson is one of the greatest bebop pianists of all time. Of ALL TIME! But I just have a ton of individual tracks, no albums.

I really like basically all the stuff you guys have mentioned. I could talk for hours on end about Bill Evans and all his albums are great but if I was to pick just a few then I'd particularly recommend Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard (actually get the complete Vanguard recordings if you can, it has Waltz for Debby and Sunday at the Village Vanguard along with some extra takes) as well as Portrait in Jazz and Explorations (and basically any other album with the original trio, they're all absolutely amazing). A few other later and less well known albums that are really worth checking out are the Conversations albums (especially the last one), Symbiosis (very rare and really underrated), Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival (with Jack DeJohnette on drums), The Paris Concerts (two albums with the last incarnation of the Bill Evans trio) and Undercurrent (superb duo album with Bill and Jim Hall). Speaking of Jim Hall, there's another duo album of his which I absolutely love: Alone Together (with Ron Carter). One Miles album I particularly like is My Funny Valentine (including Four and More), a live album with his second great quintet (minus Wayne Shorter) but you can't go wrong with some of the classics like Milestones, Walkin', Miles Smiles, In A Silent Way, etc. McCoy Tyner is another of my favorite pianists and he's got some great albums as well: check out Echoes of a Friend, Supertrios, The Real McCoy, Jazz Roots and McCoy Tyner Quartet (the 2007 live album) for example. Continuing on the piano theme, the Keith Jarrett Trio is really good and you should try Still Live, Standards Vol 1 and 2 and Standards Live particularly. Another two great Coltrane albums are My Favorite Things and Blue Train and Herbie Hancock's Maiden Voyage and Empyrean Isles are brilliant too, as is Parallel Realities Live (with Herbie, Pat Metheney, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette). Speaking of which, here are two more good Pat Metheney albums: Question and Answer with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes and Bright Size Life with Jaco and Bob Moses. Django Reinhardt is another guitarist I really like but I don't really know which particular albums to suggest, I only have one huge box set. It's 6:17 AM so I should probably stop here for the moment, I'll post more stuff later though. :P

This is quite nice if you like Bill Evans, it has my favorite version of Waltz for Debby and a really good rendition of Reflections in D among other things.

Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack

http://www.amazon.com/Back-Chicken-Shack-Jimmy-Smith/dp/B000005H4M