Home » Jazz Articles » Building a Jazz Library » The Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings: 1953-1965

The Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings: 1953-1965

By C. Michael Bailey
March 23, 2015
View read count

Having recently completed a survey of the Best Live Rock Albums, I have learned a couple of valuable things. One is a list of this sort should be presented in descending order starting with number 10 and descending to number 1. Second, it is better to poll a group for their opinions and develop the list from an analytical (or pseudoanalytical) evaluation of the results. This is how the Top Ten Best Live Jazz Recordings (1953-65) were selected. I polled the writership of All About Jazz, combined the results and ranked the recordings. For recordings that tied in number of votes, I arbitrarily selected the order (I had to exert editorial control somewhere!).

1.

At The Village Vanguard
Bill Evans
(1961)

2.

At The Village Vanguard
John Coltrane
(1961)

3.

At The Plugged Nickel
Miles Davis
(1965)

4.

At Antibes
Charles Mingus
(1960)

5.

At Newport 1956
Duke Ellington
(1956)

6.

At The Village Vanguard
Sonny Rollins
(1957)

7.

At Birdland
John Coltrane
(1963)

8.

At The Half Note
Wes Montgomery
(1965)

9.

Concert By The Sea
Erroll Garner
(1955)

10.

At Massey Hall
The Quintet
(1953)

#11... The Best of the Rest

About Bill Evans

PREVIOUS / NEXT

A Fireside Chat With Chris Potter
< Previous

Art Blakey: Orgy in Rhythm, Volumes ...
Next >

Become a Sustaining Member

Since 1995, All About Jazz has championed jazz as an art form and supported the musicians who create it. Over three decades, it has grown into one of the world's leading jazz resources, serving hundreds of thousands of readers, musicians, presenters and industry professionals each month.

Help Build the Future of All About Jazz

Your support helps us continue building All About Jazz for the next generation—expanding our editorial coverage, preserving jazz history, developing new community features and creating better ways to discover the music and the people behind it.

Become a sustaining member for as little as $20 per year and you'll immediately enjoy an ad-free experience along with access to subscriber features and future articles for a full year.

Together, we're not simply sustaining All About Jazz—we're building its future. Thank you for being part of the journey.