Jazz from 1957 to 1967 was the most definitive.

When you say someone is an "Audiophile", that conveys a certain type of person. In that decade, when you said "Jazz", you conveyed a certain type of music. Today, when you say "Jazz", that conveys a range of music so broad that it is not definitive, to say the least.
Before we get off on the wrong track, I am not comparing or making judgement, I am making two statements; one is in regard to definition, the other is that this decade was the most explosive and creative in the history of "Jazz"
I am going to give an example of this by discogrphy. Lee morgan "Candy", 1957: Cannonball Adderly "Something Else", 1958: Dave Bruebeck "Time Out", 1959: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers "A Night in Tunisia", 1960: Grant Green "Round Midnight" 1961. Each one of these albums contains sidemen who are stars in their own right.
Now that everyone can see where I am coming from, we can continue this conversation for the rest of the decade, as well as how it relates to today.

There are lots of great recordings from this period, to be sure. Most of Monk's most important recordings, as well as Miles, Trane, the bulk of the great Blue Note and Impulse catalogs... sure.

But it's too narrow a time frame. By limiting yourself to just those ten years you're cutting out Bird, Ellington at his peak, Louis Armstrong... I guess you can stay that narrow if you want - that era is exceptional - but you're missing an awful lot of good music.

Maybe Orpheus 10 is on to something here.You can feast from the largest musical buffet Jazz offered during this period...all the obvious in their prime and the not too be forgotten reemergence of the so called Mainstream like Buck Clayton,Vic Dickenson Pee Wee Russell,Bud Freeman,Bobby Hackett,Jimmy Rushing,Buddy Tate and many more.You can catch the last few years of Billie and Prez and the ongoing mastery of Coleman Hawkins.Basie and Ellington had marvelous bands and Louis still had the chops,voice and band to kill them all.Not to mention neglected masters who soared during this period-Booker Little,Lucky Thompson,Lennie Tristano and Warne Marsh,Scotty LaFaro and dozens of others.Art Pepper,Shelly Manne,Bob Cooper,Bill Perkins,Hampton Hawes,Harold Land in Los Angeles making incredible fresh music.
Not my choice to dwell in those ten years forever,but if i did i would be infinitely enriched.Those years when Rock swamped Jazz the 65-67 years in particular were dark days for a lot of talented players who could not get gigs or make records.Look at Jazz as a small country during those years,the citizens were impoverished and ripe for take over by the intruding forces of commercialism.Not everyone was as smart as Miles and put a bitch in their brew.Regardless of the era and the elasticity of the definition of Jazz,it is always worth talking about and fighting over this tender continent.

I'm definately NOT calling 1957-1967 " definitive" in any sense. Newbee, it should be noted that Ellington in his own time was accused of not playing "true" jazz. The head to " take the a train" was criticized for this as were his long format pieces. So much so that Duke exclaimed " what is this thing called jazz that it should take precedence over me". What I AM saying is that for me jazz has not advanced much recently because much of the jazz I love was based on the chord structures of the great american songbook which (let's face it ) has not had a Gershwin or Arlen etc. to move it along much recently. My mind is open to lots of new music and conformity to what I grew up with does not play a part. For the record I don't believe there is one definitive period or style. As to smooth " jazz" it contains no hints of jazz greats past nor does it break any new ground making it exceedingly uninteresting to me. I very much look forward to the next great jazz sound. In the meantime I will go enjoy Wynton M. this weekend in ATL. This is all my OPINION. No offense - Jim

IMHO, the one group of jazz supermen that could seemingly do anything and take the music anywhere, who played with such telepathy and total command of the idiom, that will always be copied but never quite duplicated, is Miles' Second Great Quintet. This group ran from roughly 1964 to 1968. When you fully understand Miles Smiles, you "get" jazz.