Vinyl
Standard
A jazz journal for serious listeners, written slowly and on purpose. Eighty-two artists, thirteen hundred records, every one of them played all the way through.
A love letter
to jazz.
Vinyl Standard is an independent jazz journal dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich history of jazz music. From the smoky clubs of 1940s New York to the global stages of today, we cover it all, deeply, honestly, and with love for the music.
The data behind the reviews is open: albums, musicians and labels as JSON →
♪ See My Top 25 Favorite Jazz Songs ›Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.Nina Simone
Featured Artists
Miles Davis
Signature: Kind of Blue (1959)
The Prince of Darkness reinvented jazz multiple times, from cool jazz to fusion. His restless genius reshaped the art form forever.
Explore Miles →John Coltrane
Signature: A Love Supreme (1964)
From Soultrane to A Love Supreme, no one in jazz burned hotter or evolved faster. Thirty-five essential records across three eras.
Explore Coltrane →Bill Evans
Signature: Waltz for Debby (1961)
Impressionistic, lyrical, deeply introspective. Evans redefined the piano trio with a touch unlike anyone else, from Riverside through Keystone Korner.
Explore Evans →Thelonious Monk
Signature: Brilliant Corners (1957)
With angular melodies and deliberate dissonance, Monk crafted a harmonic language entirely his own. From Blue Note through the London sessions.
Explore Monk →Benny Golson
Signature: Meet the Jazztet (1960)
The man who wrote Whisper Not, Stablemates, and Killer Joe is one of the most important composer-saxophonists in jazz. Six decades, every one worth your time.
Explore Golson →Gene Ammons
Signature: Boss Tenor (1960)
Known as Jug, Ammons had one of the biggest and warmest sounds in jazz history. Four eras, from Mercury 78s through the posthumous Gentle Jug comp.
Explore Ammons →Dave Brubeck
Signature: Time Out (1959)
Brubeck brought jazz to college campuses and then rewrote the rulebook on rhythm. Six decades, from the Fantasy Octet through Indian Summer.
Explore Brubeck →Cannonball Adderley
Signature: Somethin' Else (1958)
Cannonball arrived in New York and immediately owned the room. From his EmArcy debut through Somethin' Else with Miles, the rise of a hard bop voice.
Explore Adderley →
The Tokyo
Jazz Story,
1923 to 1989
Japan absorbed jazz with an intensity unlike anywhere else on earth. From prewar dance halls to the audiophile masterworks of Three Blind Mice, through the avant-garde fire of Yosuke Yamashita and the fusion decade of the 1980s. This is the full history.
Landmark Albums
The Sideman Map
Jazz is a sideman music. Paul Chambers is on 71 of the records reviewed here, Philly Joe Jones on 48, and following them from date to date is how most of us found half the albums we love. The map turns every personnel block on this site into a clickable web: start with a player or a record, click anyone in the circle, and keep going. Or pick two musicians and trace the shortest chain of records between them.
Recent Articles
Cannonball Adderley: The Teacher Who Never Stopped Teaching
He sat in at the Cafe Bohemia in 1955 and woke up famous, then went home to Fort Lauderdale and finished the school year. The band director who kept teaching from a bandstand, and the horn his widow sold to a teacher.