The 19 Greatest Jazz Compositions of All Time

Some are jam session workhorses, others were written once and never really covered again. All of them changed what came next.

1. 1
   'Round Midnight

   Thelonious Monk's ballad, the most recorded composition ever written by a jazz musician.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Giant Steps

   John Coltrane's 1959 harmonic obstacle course, still the standard test of a soloist's nerve.
   551pts
3. 3
   Sing, Sing, Sing

   The Louis Prima tune Benny Goodman turned into a twelve-minute Carnegie Hall showpiece in 1938.
   551pts
4. 4
   Take the A Train

   Billy Strayhorn's 1939 theme for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and its signature for three decades.
   551pts
5. 5
   Watermelon Man

   Herbie Hancock's 1962 hard bop tune, remade in 1973 as the funk track that outsold everything else he wrote.
   551pts
6. 6
   A Love Supreme

   Coltrane's four-part 1964 suite, a devotional work built from a four-note cell.
   466pts
7. 7
   Blue in Green

   The 1959 ballad credited to Davis and long claimed by Bill Evans, a ten-bar form that refuses to resolve.
   466pts
8. 8
   Naima

   Coltrane's 1959 ballad for his first wife, the piece he kept in the book long after his style had moved on.
   466pts
9. 9
   All Blues

   Davis's 6/8 blues from 1959, a twelve-bar form that never sounds like a blues.
   466pts
10. 10
    Birdland

    Joe Zawinul's 1977 tribute to the New York club, the fusion tune that crossed over to pop radio.
    466pts
11. 11
    Body and Soul

    The 1930 ballad that became jazz's most recorded standard after Coleman Hawkins rebuilt it in 1939.
    363pts
12. 12
    Song for My Father

    Horace Silver's 1964 bossa-inflected theme, later borrowed wholesale by Steely Dan.
    363pts
13. 13
    My Favorite Things

    The Rodgers and Hammerstein waltz Coltrane turned into a modal vehicle in 1960 and never gave back.
    363pts
14. 14
    Autumn Leaves

    The French chanson that became the most-played jam session vehicle in the repertoire.
    363pts
15. 15
    Footprints

    Wayne Shorter's 1966 minor waltz, the post-bop theme that survives any tempo you throw at it.
    363pts
16. 16
    Salt Peanuts

    Dizzy Gillespie's 1942 bebop line, an octave leap that announced a whole new vocabulary.
    362pts
17. 17
    Maiden Voyage

    Herbie Hancock's 1965 suspended-chord theme, the sound of post-bop drifting off its moorings.
    233pts
18. 18
    So What

    Miles Davis's 1959 modal opener, built on two scales and a bassline that every jazz student learns first.
    233pts
19. 19
    Take Five

    Paul Desmond's 5/4 theme for the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the first million-selling jazz single.
    233pts