Help Where to start with jazz?????

Bassie Jam is a MUST have.

Try to find some various artists complilations and then buy individual albums by the artists you like best. See where it leads, I think discovering music that is new to you is the best part of this hobby.

i agree with many above, but 'must starts' to add:

dave brubek - time out

sonny rollins - saxaphone colossus

herbie handcock - headhunters (this may stretch your limits at first, but i would bet you grow to love it in time).

enjoy...

"The Sound of Jazz" an album on Columbia that was an outshoot of one-of TV show in the late fifties should give you some insight into various jazz performers of the period. A visit to the bookshop to pick up one of the guides to Jazz would be a great help also. Not to be difficult, but the world of Jazz is really big so don't get upset if you go down a few paths that don't lead to something you like; double back and go another way until you find a style or artists that you connect with. Good luck.

Not that I disagree with any of the suggestions, but whenever someone asks for where to start in jazz, and it is a frequent question, why are all the suggestions post 1950 music? The 50s and 60s were great and innovative years for jazz, but by then jazz had already become a niche music category catering to a small, but loyal fan base. The real glory days for jazz were the 30s and 40s when jazz was America's popular music. If you really want to understand jazz you have to go back to this period.

Pretty much all modern jazz starts with Louis Armstrong. You might then move on to Duke Ellington and then sample some bebop. Enjoy!