Some of These Days
1911
Tucker's maid pressed Shelton Brooks's song on her in 1910, and it stayed her signature for the rest of her career.
★ 3.7
The Songs canon
Sourced and sung.
Every song chosen by hand, with the recording to play it.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
Browse all 2,393 songs or filter by genre, subject, artist, and year.
After You've GoneMarion Harris
After You've Gone
1918
Cut for Victor in July 1918 by the singer billed as Queen of the Blues; jazz kept it.
★ 4.3
Tiger Rag
1918
Cut for Victor in March 1918, over 136 versions by 1942, and New Orleans still argues over who wrote it.
★ 5.0
Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair
1959 · From Nina Simone at Town Hall
Sharp and Karpeles collected this Scottish ballad in the Appalachians in 1916; Simone slows it to near-stillness at Town Hall.
★ 5.6
Cantaloupe Island
1964 · From Empyrean Isles
Hubbard on cornet, Van Gelder engineering, June 1964; Us3 later looped Hancock's vamp into the Top 10.
★ 5.9
How High the Moon
1951
Twelve guitar parts and twelve vocals, by Paul's own count, layered in a Queens apartment studio; nine weeks at number one.
★ 6.1
Birdland
1977
Zawinul named it for the club where he heard Basie, Ellington and Miles, then made an instrumental a hit.
★ 6.1
Shhh, Peaceful
1969 · From In a Silent Way
Three electric pianos over a single February 1969 session, and Macero's edit brings the opening back to close it.
★ 6.2
Moanin'
1960 · From Blues & Roots
Pepper Adams' extended baritone solo, and a whole blues album Mingus cut in one February 1959 session.
★ 6.4
Stolen Moments
1960
A sixteen-bar theme, twelve-bar minor blues solos, and Dolphy, Hubbard and Bill Evans in Van Gelder's room.
★ 6.4
Livery Stable Blues
1917
Barnyard imitations from clarinet, cornet and trombone, waxed for Victor in February 1917: the first jazz record commercially released.
★ 6.4
Linus and Lucy
1964
A piano vamp, Budwig's bass, Bailey's drums, taped in San Francisco in 1964 and welded to Peanuts ever since.
★ 6.6
One O'Clock JumpCount Basie
One O'Clock Jump
1937
A head arrangement built section by section, Lester Young and Herschel Evans trading solos, Basie's theme song ever after.
★ 6.6
Begin the BeguineArtie Shaw
Begin the Beguine
1938
RCA called it "a complete waste of time", hid it on a B-side, and Shaw's clarinet sold six million anyway.
★ 6.6
Moonlight Serenade
1939
Composed under Joseph Schillinger's tuition, and the band was playing it as a theme before it had a title.
★ 6.7
Black and Tan Fantasy
1927
Miley's growl trumpet, Nanton's plunger-muted trombone, and a Chopin funeral march closing out the 1927 Victor side.
★ 6.9
Mood Indigo
1930
Ellington inverted the horns, trombone high and clarinet low, and the overtones invent a fourth instrument that is not there.
★ 6.9
Mack the KnifeBobby Darin
Mack the Knife
1959
Richard Wess's arrangement climbs a semitone verse after verse, and Darin rides the tension to his only number one.
★ 6.9
Goodbye Pork Pie HatCharles Mingus
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
1959 · From Mingus Ah Um
Lester Young died two months before the session, and Mingus answered with a slow blues named for his hat.
★ 7.4
Sinnerman
1965 · From Pastel Blues
Simone learned it at her mother's revival meetings and stretched it past ten minutes of piano vamp and handclaps.
★ 7.4