The Best Jazz Music on YouTube

This article is a collaborative effort, crafted and edited by a team of dedicated professionals.

Contributors: Andranick Tanguiane, Fred Lerdahl,

Looking for the best jazz music on YouTube? Look no further! In this blog post, we’ll share some of our favorite channels and videos for you to enjoy.

Best Jazz Music on YouTube

There are a lot of great Jazz musicians out there and a lot of them have put their music on YouTube. This list will cover some of the best Jazz musicians on YouTube. These are all great Jazz musicians that you should check out if you’re a fan of the genre.

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an American 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.

Born and raised in Illinois, Davis left his studies at the Juilliard School in New York City after only one year to pursue a career in music. He began performing professionally in the mid-1940s with other leading bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. He signed with Columbia Records in 1955 and gained popularity with his first album, Round About Midnight.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane was one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time. His work on saxophone helped to shape the sound of jazz and he was a major force in the development of modal jazz. While Coltrane’s work spanned a wide range of styles, he is perhaps best known for his work in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when he was at the forefront of the avant-garde jazz movement.

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker was one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time. He was a key figure in the development of bebop, a style of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique and advanced harmonic structures. Parker was a master improviser, and his unique approach to melody and phrasing influenced generations of subsequent jazz musicians.

There are hundreds of Charlie Parker recordings available on YouTube, but we’ve selected a few of our favorites to get you started.

“Now’s the Time”

“Now’s the Time” is a thirteen-minute recording from 1945 that features Parker on alto saxophone, Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet and Budd Johnson on tenor saxophone. The track is based on the chord progression from “I Got Rhythm,” but Parker and Gillespie take the tune in entirely new directions with their inventive solos.

“Ko-Ko”

“Ko-Ko” is a bebop classic that was written by Parker in 1945. The tune features Parker on alto saxophone, Gillespie on trumpet and Milt Jackson on vibraphone. This version also includes an appearance by legendary bassist Slam Stewart, who can be heard playing his famous “walking bassline.”

“Yardbird Suite”

This performance of “Yardbird Suite” features Parker on alto saxophone, Gillespie on trumpet and Bud Powell on piano. The track is based on the chord progression from “I Got Rhythm,” but Powell takes the tune in a completely different direction with his innovative soloing.

Best Jazz Songs on YouTube

Jazz is a genre of music that originated in the African-American communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was developed from a combination of African and European music traditions. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.

So What

“So What” is a jazz standard composed by Miles Davis. It was first recorded on January 21, 1959, at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City, and released that year on Davis’ hugely influential album Kind of Blue. The personnel on this recording included pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb, alongside Davis on trumpet.

The composition is a modal jazz piece with various chord progressions throughout. In the third measure, there is a III-VI-II-V turnaround (Cmaj7-Am7-Dm7-G7). The song is in the key of F major. The main melody throughout the A section is eight measures long and is primarily based around an F Dorian scale.

Davis stated that he did not write down the melody of “So What”, as he usually did with his compositions; instead he played it for the other musicians in the studio and they just improvised around it. He also told them that they could take solos in any order they wanted.

A Love Supreme

A Love Supreme is a jazz album recorded in 1964 by John Coltrane and released on Impulse! Records in 1965. It is Coltrane’s most popular album and one of the most influential jazz records ever made. In 1998, the Library of Congress honored A Love Supreme as part of the National Recording Registry; in 2001, it was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Now’s the Time

Now’s the Time is a tune written by saxophonist Charlie Parker. It was first recorded by Parker with Dizzy Gillespie on September 29, 1945. The original recording was issued by the Savoy label as part of the album The Genius of Charlie Parker. It has become one of Parker’s best-known compositions.

The tune is based on the chord changes to “I Got Rhythm”, with the chord changes occurring in a different order than in George Gershwin’s original composition. The melody primarily uses the notes of a blues scale.

The tune was popularized by Miles Davis, who recorded it several times. Davis’ first recording was on January 24, 1947, as part of the Birth of the Cool sessions. This version was released on the LP Birth of the Cool and is one of Davis’ most acclaimed recordings.

Best Jazz Albums on YouTube

There are plenty of great Jazz albums on YouTube. However, some are better than others. In this section, we will take a look at the best Jazz albums on YouTube. We will also provide a brief description of each album so that you can get an idea of what to expect.

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is one of the most popular and influential jazz albums of all time. Released in 1959, it features Davis’ quintet with Adderley, Evans, Chambers, and Higgins. The album is notable for its use of modal jazz, which allows the soloists to improvise more freely within the confines of each mode.

Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

Recorded on November 29, 1957, this live album presents Monk and Coltrane performing together with Wilbur Ware on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums. It’s an outstanding example of the kind of chemistry that could occur when two master musicians improvise together.

A Love Supreme

“A Love Supreme” is a 1965 jazz album recorded by John Coltrane and released on Impulse! Records. It is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential jazz albums of all time, and has been voted number four on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”

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