Essential Blues/ jazz

To see where jazz might be heading, or at least is right now, I'd like to add my favorite jazz albums of the last few years.

Joshua Redman: Elastic

Brad Mehldau: Largo

Marco

The long list from rrsands is just amazing, especially for Tidal users like myself. Not only has the list helped expand my exposure to jazz, the sound quality of those albums that are available on Tidal is excellent, and most are available. I don’t know if record sound quality was a factor when the list was compiled, or if it is just a collection of each artist’s best albums, but almost every album on the list is a home run when streamed from Tidal. I’m so glad I found it. I added 95% of them to My Albums collection. It’s amazing how well that old list works with music streaming today, and how well curated it is for SQ.   

"The Great Summit"    Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.    A must listen.

All Muddy Waters records on Chess are a must.

A second on ebm's Muddy Waters suggestion. Some other essentials are best of collections of Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Big Joe Turner, Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, Lowell Fulsom, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, the three King's (Freddie, Albert, and B.B.), John Lee Hooker, Mississippi Fred McDowell, T-Bone Walker, Son House, Memphis Slim, Amos Milburn, Big Mama Thornton, and Lightnin' Hopkins. That will be a good Blues starter kit. It will also show you from whom all the mid-60's onward white would-be Bluesmen (and women) stole their stuff!