Strange Fruit
1939
A Bronx schoolteacher's poem about lynching, sung in a single spotlight, still the bravest three minutes on record.
★ 9.6
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.
So What
1959 · From Kind of Blue
Two chords and all the space in the world, Davis proving that less was the most radical idea in jazz.
★ 9.2
West End Blues
1928
Armstrong's twelve-second opening cadenza announced that jazz had a soloist, and everything since has been the answer.
★ 9.1
Rhapsody in Blue
1924 · From Rhapsody in Blue
Ross Gorman slurred the opening clarinet as a joke in rehearsal, and Gershwin kept the wail for Aeolian Hall.
★ 8.7
Take Five
1959 · From Time Out
Morello kept soloing in five, so the quartet built him a tune in 5/4; Desmond wrote the theme.
★ 8.7
A Love Supreme, Part 1: Acknowledgement
1965 · From A Love Supreme
Garrison's four notes, then Coltrane overdubbing the chant nineteen times, one December day at Van Gelder's.
★ 8.6
Stardust (1927)
1927
Carmichael whistled the tune to his band at Gennett and cut it fast; Parish added the lyric two years later.
★ 8.3
Take the "A" Train
1941
Strayhorn turned Ellington's subway directions into a theme song; Ray Nance's trumpet solo got copied note for note ever after.
★ 8.2
My Favorite Things
1961 · From My Favorite Things
Coltrane picked up the soprano saxophone Miles gave him and stretched a Rodgers and Hammerstein waltz past thirteen minutes.
★ 8.1
Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)
1937
Louis Prima's tune, Krupa's tom-toms, and a performance long enough to fill both sides of a twelve-inch 78.
★ 8.0
Giant Steps
1960 · From Giant Steps
Recorded May 5, 1959, with the band reading it cold, and those third-related key changes remain jazz's hardest exam.
★ 7.8
Round Midnight
1947 · From Genius of Modern Music, Vol. 1
Monk wrote it around 1940, cutting it for Blue Note in 1947; no jazz composer's tune is recorded more.
★ 7.8
The Girl From IpanemaAstrud Gilberto
The Girl From Ipanema
1964
Never a professional singer, Gilberto sang at the 1963 session because she spoke English; Record of the Year followed.
★ 7.8
God Bless the ChildBillie Holiday
God Bless the Child
1941
A quarrel with her mother over money, by Holiday's own account, gave the song its title line and its steel.
★ 7.8
Body and Soul
1939
Hawkins barely states the melody, improvises two choruses instead, and the 1939 Bluebird side pointed jazz toward bebop.
★ 7.7
Feeling Good
1965 · From I Put a Spell on You
Written for a Newley and Bricusse musical, it opens with nothing but her voice before Hal Mooney's horns land.
★ 7.7
A Night in TunisiaDizzy Gillespie
A Night in Tunisia
1946
Written at a Kelly's Stables piano in 1942 under the title Interlude, with a bass line that refuses to walk.
★ 7.6
All Blues
1959 · From Kind of Blue
A twelve-bar blues in 6/8, take two the only complete one, and Paul Chambers' bass figure underneath everything.
★ 7.6
Minnie the Moocher
1931
Calloway forgot the words on a Cotton Club broadcast, by his account, and the hi-de-ho call and response was born.
★ 7.6
Ain't Misbehavin'
1929
Waller sold every song in Hot Chocolates for five hundred dollars, then cut this one alone for Victor.
★ 7.5