What is the best Blue Note album from the 1960s?

The 1960s were Blue Note Records' golden era, when hard bop, post-bop, and avant-garde jazz all found a home on the label. Which 1960s Blue Note album is the definitive classic?

1. 1
   Out to Lunch!

   Eric Dolphy's 1964 Blue Note album is the label's most radical masterpiece — free yet composed, with Bobby Hutcherson, Freddie Hubbard, and Tony Williams in a landmark of avant-garde jazz.
2. 2
   Speak No Evil

   Wayne Shorter's 1964 Blue Note session is a compositional triumph — six originals that synthesize hard bop and modal jazz with cinematic beauty and rhythmic sophistication.
3. 3
   Maiden Voyage

   Herbie Hancock's 1965 Blue Note album is a modal jazz masterpiece — its oceanic impressionism and flowing rhythms created a new model for jazz composition.
4. 4
   Empyrean Isles

   Herbie Hancock's 1964 Blue Note album features 'Cantaloupe Island' and four compositions of extraordinary harmonic and rhythmic invention from one of jazz's greatest pianists.
5. 5
   Point of Departure

   Andrew Hill's 1964 Blue Note album is the most intellectually demanding and rewarding of the label's '60s output — abstract, mysterious, and featuring Dolphy in his penultimate Blue Note appearance.
6. 6
   The Sidewinder

   Lee Morgan's 1964 Blue Note album produced the boogaloo title track that gave the label its biggest commercial hit — irresistibly funky hard bop that bridges jazz and R&B.
7. 7
   Soul Station

   Hank Mobley's 1960 Blue Note album opened the decade with the most perfectly crafted hard bop record ever made — four tracks of flawless musicianship.
8. 8
   Let Freedom Ring

   Jackie McLean's 1962 Blue Note album was a pivotal transition between hard bop and the avant-garde — McLean's raw alto saxophony pressing against conventional chord structures.
9. 9
   The Real McCoy

   McCoy Tyner's 1967 Blue Note album is the first great statement of the pianist's post-Coltrane career — sweeping, percussive, and rhythmically adventurous.
10. 10
    Go!

    Dexter Gordon's 1962 Blue Note comeback album is one of the era's most charismatic jazz recordings — relaxed yet burning, with a big, authoritative sound and unhurried swing.
11. 11
    Unity

    Larry Young's 1965 Blue Note album brought the Hammond organ into the post-bop era — abandoning Jimmy Smith's blues-based style for a more harmonically sophisticated, Coltrane-influenced approach.
12. 12
    Song for My Father

    Horace Silver's 1965 Blue Note album is the most melodically distinctive hard bop record of the decade — the title track's Afro-Cuban groove immediately recognizable to any jazz listener.
13. 13
    Free for All

    Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers' 1964 Blue Note album is the hardest-hitting, most ferocious of his many recordings — Wayne Shorter's compositions pushing the band to their absolute limit.