@Jeff Sproat

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

Created with FreeYourMusic.com where you can transfer playlists to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and others

The piano has enjoyed a place of prominence throughout jazz history. Pianists' intrepid shifts and innovations provide a road map of the genre's twists and turns, tracing the early swing of Fats Waller and Count Basie, the bebop of Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and the hard bop of Red Garland and Horace Silver. The piano thrives in a solo setting, where musicians can revel in its rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic qualities simultaneously. In big bands, it plays the essential role of directing the flow of traffic while adding mutable textures. And as a microcosm of jazz’s tireless trajectory, it simply can't be beat.

In addition to his own celebrated solo career, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard backed a host of legendary jazz artists, from John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock, to his three-year tenure with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers alongside Wayne Shorter and Curtis Fuller. The best of these collaborations, including tracks with Oliver Nelson, Eric Dolphy, and McCoy Tyner, are featured in this wide-ranging set.

Relax and reflect with selections from the quieter side of jazz. Our editors regularly update this playlist—if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

Keyboardist George Duke helped enrich a whole mess of funky pop and jazz recordings. On Michael Jackson's “Off the Wall,” his shiny chords seep into a disco-pop pulse, while his playfully melodic solo peaks on the syncopated fusion of John Scofield's “Loud Jazz.” Duke also worked with art rocker Frank Zappa, honing his eccentric synth contortions on complex workouts like “Inca Roads.”

Ben Webster was well-known as a solo sax player, but he cut his teeth playing with some of jazz's greats and continued to do so throughout his life. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Webster gave his warm tone to Duke Ellington's band (“The ‘C' Jam Blues”); his sensual solos fleshed out work by Ella Fitzgerald (“Don't Get Around Much Anymore”) and Billie Holiday (“What a Little Moonlight Can Do”).

Mal Waldron was the ultimate singer's pianist, providing the kind of delicate, atmospheric backdrop that allowed frontwomen like Lady Day to tear into their songs with stunning emotion (his version of “Willow Weep for Me” with Holiday is a must-hear). But he was also a musician's musician, gleefully poking holes in jazz convention with fellow mavericks such as Eric Dolphy on serpentine tracks like “Fire Waltz.”

There's a distinctly electric tilt to Japan's array of jazz practitioners—a modern fusion sensibility that veers into funk, dance music, and other byways. The country has long had a love of the American musical tradition, but its own wave of open-minded players is taking jazz's experimental imperative to invigorating new places. Our editors regularly refresh this playlist. If you like a song, add it to your library.

On paper, the idea of Third Stream is simple: jazz and classical music, mixed together—not in a way meant to supersede jazz or classical but as, in the words of composer Gunther Schuller, “another option amongst many for today’s creative musicians.” Of course, those musicians took a simple concept and used it as a launchpad to create records that are deep, dynamic, and complex, exploring new possibilities for melody and improvisation. Schuller coined the term in 1957, but this playlist starts earlier, beginning the story of Third Stream with the orchestral innovations of hybrid composers like George Gershwin and Duke Ellington. The Modern Jazz Quartet, meanwhile, take center stage, emerging from Dizzy Gillespie’s rhythm section in the early ’50s, using John Lewis’s subtly swinging piano and Milt Jackson’s unpredictable vibraphone to explore new possibilities in fusion, crossing from the conservatory to the nightclub and back again.

Beginning his career at the tender age of 19, trumpet prodigy Lee Morgan became a go-to sideman from moment one. A trusted associate of Art Blakey, Jimmy Smith, Joe Henderson, Grachan Moncur III, and Wayne Shorter, Morgan collaborated with some of the most innovative names in jazz before his life was tragically cut short at age 34.

This pianist is famous for the eclectic nature of his many groups—and even within a collaboration, he can produce varied styles. Return to Forever are known for rock-influenced jazz, though they deliver prog fusion on “No Mystery.” A union with fiercely swinging bassist Christian McBride resulted in the brisk “Tango Improvisation #1.” Corea was even game to play drums on Wayne Shorter's frenetic “Super Nova.”