Free Streaming Music: The Best of the Blues and Jazz Genres

Looking for some free streaming music to help get you through the day? Check out our picks for the best of the blues and jazz genres!

The Best of the Blues

A lot of people don’t realize this, but the blues is one of the most important genres of music. It’s the foundation of so many other genres, including jazz. The blues is all about feeling, and it’s a genre that really speaks to the human soul. If you’re looking for some great blues music, here are some of the best artists in the genre.

Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who is often cited as the “father of modern Chicago blues”, and an important figure on the postwar blues scene. His style of playing has been described as “an electric guitar re-taught by the hands of Bukka White.” He was a major influence on Chess Records recording artists such as Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, and Sonny Boy Williamson II. He also influenced rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac and Rollings Stones.

B.B. King

B.B. King (born September 16, 1925 in Itta Bena, Mississippi) is an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. Regarded as one of the most influential blues guitarists of all time, King has inspired many other electric blues and rock-and-roll guitarists.

King began performing in clubs around Memphis, Tennessee in the 1940s and was later signed to the Chicago-based Chess Records label in 1952. He recorded his first hit single, “Three O’Clock Blues,” that same year. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, King toured relentlessly throughout the United States and released a string of successful albums and singles. In 1956 he recorded what would become one of his signature songs, “The Thrill Is Gone.”

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, King experimented with incorporating elements of rock and roll into his music. This new direction yielded some of his most commercially successful recordings, including the 1971 album Living in a Lonely World and the single “The sky is Crying” (both featuring Stevie Wonder on harmonica). In recent years, King has continued to perform live and record new music; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated elements of other popular music styles, including Chicago blues, into his recordings. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the slower shuffle boogies of his contemporaries Amos Milburn and Roy Brown. His best known songs include “Boogie Chillen'” (1948), “Crawling King Snake” (1949) and “Boom Boom” (1962).

The Best of Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States. It is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvised solos. Jazz has roots in West African musical traditions, and in African-American music traditions.

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical styles throughout his career, which included bebop, hard bop, post-bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. His 1959 album Kind of Blue remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time.

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong was an American trumpeter, composer, singer and occasional actor who was one of the most influential figures in jazz and in all of American popular music. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and different eras in jazz.

Armstrong was born into a poor family in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the son of Mayann Williams and William Armstrong Sr., both part of Louis’s mixed-race background. Armstrong’s father abandoned the family when Louis was an infant, leaving Mayann to raise him as a single mother. AtCareer highlights include “West End Blues” (1928), “Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings” (1925–1928), “Muggsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band” (1940s), “All-Stars” (1946–1947), “Ambassadors” (1950s) and “Louis Armstrong and his Friends” (1965).

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald is undoubtedly one of the most influential jazz artists of all time. With a career spanning more than 50 years, she released over 200 recordings and won 13 Grammy Awards. She was also the first woman to win the National Medal of Arts.

Her voice was unique and instantly recognizable, with a warmth and richness that was unmatched in her generation. She was equally at home singing blues, standards, or bebop, and her vocal skills were so praised that she was once called “the First Lady of Song.”

Ella Fitzgerald is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. If you’re looking for a place to start streaming her music, we suggest checking out her album “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook.”