Well, with due respect, most of the time folks discuss jazz, they're not really jazz fans, not straight ahead fans, that is. When artists as diverse as Duke Ellington and Boney James are included in the forum, it's like, well, talking about the merits of Johnnie Walker Red in chat about Bowemore-like single malts...
And anyway, this topic is the stuff of doctoral candidates. It's almost like asking for recommendations on high-fi cables and interconnects, where you'll get lots of opinions ("...the cables created a new sense of brightness and clarity while enhancing a greater sense of a total black background...") and even some science thrown in ("...the interconnects created an enhanced sound stage...") (the last part about science was tongue in cheek). So with that, in order to get past the mind numbing 'what is jazz?' stuff, just keep in mind, for technical 'definition' purposes a jazz composition has a beginning, middle and end. The start and finish are the central melody, known as the "head." The middle is generally the improvisation built around the head. Jazz is not, with all deference: Windham Hill, Smoothe Jazz radio stations, Tuck and Patty, the veritable cornacopia of Latin artists who play folk music but get air play on left-end-of-the-FM-dial-as-jazz-artists, Boney James, Najee, Kenny G, everything Grover Washington did post 1973 (God rest his soul), and not Diana Krall. Sorry.
Anyway, if you are into sterling recordings that cover the range of the birth of Cool in the 50s up to the fusion era of the early 70s, try these:
-Mile Davis "Kind of Blue"
-Art Blakey "Album of the Year" (pressed in Amsterdam in the early 80s. Bobby Watson, Charles Pierce, Wynton Marsalis-- when he was around 18 yrs old--an incredible recording. And good luck in finding it)
-Joe Henderson "Mode for Joe"
-Herbie Hancock "Maiden Voyage"
-Wayne Shorter "Speak No Evil" (1998 remastering by Rudy Van Gelder, contains alternate take of "Dance Cadaverous")
-Woody Shaw "Two More Pieces of the Puzzle"
-John Coltrane "A Love Supreme" (no, actually, get the entire Classic Quartet collection)
-Chick Corea "Three Quartets" and "I rememer Bud (Powell)"
-Frank Zappa "Hot Rats" ("Son of Mr Greenjeans" and "It Must Be a Camel" are among the best jazz compositions of all times)
-Weather Report "Heavy Weather" and "Mr Gone"
-Anything by: Bill Evans, Stan Getz, MyCoy Tyner and Tony Williams.
