Giant Steps
1960
The title track modulates through three keys so fast that the pianist, Tommy Flanagan, audibly struggles through his solo on the finished take.
★ 8.6
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Blue Train
1957
Coltrane's only record as a leader for Blue Note, made as a favor to the label's founder while he was under contract elsewhere.
★ 7.1
Maiden Voyage
1965
A concept album about the sea, made by Miles Davis's pianist with Davis's rhythm section, and every title refers to water.
★ 6.8
Speak No Evil
1965
Shorter wrote these while working in Miles Davis's band and said he was thinking about folk tales and misty landscapes with witches.
★ 6.4
Moanin'
1959
The pianist Bobby Timmons wrote the title tune as a joke riff the band kept asking him to finish. It answers itself like a hymn.
★ 6.0
Somethin' Else
1958
Miles Davis plays as a sideman here, on someone else's record, which he almost never did before or after.
★ 5.4
The Sidewinder
1964
Chrysler used the title track in a television advertisement without asking, and the record sold well enough to steady Blue Note's finances for years.
★ 5.4
Soul Station
1960
A critic called Mobley the middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone, meaning he never played loudly, and this is where that pays off.
★ 4.9