help me find quality classic jazz?

lester young

I second Ben Webster, he played on many recordings with Billy Holiday, since you are a Holiday fan. One of my favorite recordings of Ben is "Time after Time" on the "Ben and Associates" CD. If you like Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Gene Ammons may be up your alley as well.

BTW Phil, Webster, Young, Hawkins, and Ammons are all Tenor Sax players.

Hmmm. You want jazz made between 1930 and 1950, but you don't want Swing, Big Band, or Bebop. What's left?

Seriously, the suggestions above are good ones. I'd encourage you to push the envelope a little. Try some small-group swing, like Benny Goodman's quartet and sextet recordings, or "Great Ellington Units"--subsets of the 40s Ellington band.

And push into the 50s as well. Early Bill Evans and Ahmad Jamal trios, while informed by bop, still have a quite traditional feel.

I can't guarantee you'll like all of this, but it's always good to try something new. Ya never know.

Not much of a jazz afficionado myself, but I do like Paul Desmond/Gerry Mulligan's "Two of a Mind" ... alto and baritone saxes - each soloing, and then weaving together in contrapuntal harmony, unobtrusive backbeat, string bass.

1962 performance; on the Victor Jazz label (digital remaster)

Tracks
- All The Things You Are - Kern/Hammerstein
- Stardust - Carmichael/Parrish
- Two of a Mind - Desmond
- Blight of the Fumblebee - Mulligan
- The Way You Look Tonight - Fields/Kern
- Out of Nowhere - Heyman/Green