# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published September 3, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-19-greatest-jazz-compositions-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **'Round Midnight** — score 1000/1000
   Thelonious Monk's ballad, the most recorded composition ever written by a jazz musician.
2. **Giant Steps** — score 551/1000
   John Coltrane's 1959 harmonic obstacle course, still the standard test of a soloist's nerve.
3. **Sing, Sing, Sing** — score 551/1000
   The Louis Prima tune Benny Goodman turned into a twelve-minute Carnegie Hall showpiece in 1938.
4. **Take the A Train** — score 551/1000
   Billy Strayhorn's 1939 theme for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and its signature for three decades.
5. **Watermelon Man** — score 551/1000
   Herbie Hancock's 1962 hard bop tune, remade in 1973 as the funk track that outsold everything else he wrote.
6. **A Love Supreme** — score 466/1000
   Coltrane's four-part 1964 suite, a devotional work built from a four-note cell.
7. **Blue in Green** — score 466/1000
   The 1959 ballad credited to Davis and long claimed by Bill Evans, a ten-bar form that refuses to resolve.
8. **Naima** — score 466/1000
   Coltrane's 1959 ballad for his first wife, the piece he kept in the book long after his style had moved on.
9. **All Blues** — score 466/1000
   Davis's 6/8 blues from 1959, a twelve-bar form that never sounds like a blues.
10. **Birdland** — score 466/1000
   Joe Zawinul's 1977 tribute to the New York club, the fusion tune that crossed over to pop radio.
11. **Body and Soul** — score 363/1000
   The 1930 ballad that became jazz's most recorded standard after Coleman Hawkins rebuilt it in 1939.
12. **Song for My Father** — score 363/1000
   Horace Silver's 1964 bossa-inflected theme, later borrowed wholesale by Steely Dan.
13. **My Favorite Things** — score 363/1000
   The Rodgers and Hammerstein waltz Coltrane turned into a modal vehicle in 1960 and never gave back.
14. **Autumn Leaves** — score 363/1000
   The French chanson that became the most-played jam session vehicle in the repertoire.
15. **Footprints** — score 363/1000
   Wayne Shorter's 1966 minor waltz, the post-bop theme that survives any tempo you throw at it.
16. **Salt Peanuts** — score 362/1000
   Dizzy Gillespie's 1942 bebop line, an octave leap that announced a whole new vocabulary.
17. **Maiden Voyage** — score 233/1000
   Herbie Hancock's 1965 suspended-chord theme, the sound of post-bop drifting off its moorings.
18. **So What** — score 233/1000
   Miles Davis's 1959 modal opener, built on two scales and a bassline that every jazz student learns first.
19. **Take Five** — score 233/1000
   Paul Desmond's 5/4 theme for the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the first million-selling jazz single.

Tags: music, jazz, compositions, standards