What're some really good Jazz players I should listen to?

I'm a young music head, looking for awesome music. :3 I need more Jazz on my iPod I already have Miles Davis, who else is there~?|||Pat Metheny- jazz guitarist, does quite a bit of different stuff.





Herbie Hancock- pianist, also shows quite a diverse range of styles. One of his most famous albums is "Headhunters", where he experimented with mixing groove-laden funk with bop to create a new subgenre now known as "jazz-funk". That album is probably a good starting point in his stuff, as he has a wide body of work in tons of styles.





Roy Hargrove- modern trumpeter, from the "Young Lions" phase of new jazz artists keeping the older genres alive. He plays a lot of 60s-style hard-bop/post-bop jazz similar to Lee Morgan (another great trumpet player from the 1960s). Lately Hargrove is doing quite a few different stuff, with his recent quintet album, "Earfood" (more classicist jazz with some modern touches), his RH Factor albums (a funk/hip hop/soul/groove thing), and "Emergence", a big band album. I would recommend "Emergence" to start. It is an excellent big band album and highly accessible for beginning jazz fans.





Speaking of big bands.





Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band- a virtuosic big band which plays a bunch of different styles. This group mainly exists to show off its chops with quite difficult (yet effortless sounding) songs. Check out the band's first album "Swingin' for the Fences" for a good idea of this group. They do anything really, from swing, to latin, to funk.





John Coltrane- one of the greatest sax players of all time. He revolutionized jazz by using a "sheets of sound" approach - a drone-like, hypnotic style - something never heard before. If you have the "Kind of Blue" album with Miles Davis, Coltrane is the tenor sax soloist on that record. A good solo album by John Coltrane to look into would be "A Love Supreme", generally held as one of the best jazz recordings of all time. It is more than just an album; many would classify listening to "A Love Supreme" as an experience, and it is quite so. Captivating and emotional, one can almost see into the depths of Coltrane's soul when listening.





Those are my big rants for now. I don't feel like leaving a huge spiel about each artist I list. So the rest will just be names of the artists, instrument, and style.





-Wynton Marsalis (trumpet, bop/classic jazz/big band)


-Branford Marsalis (saxophone, bop/modern jazz/post-bop. He did some interesting collaborations with Sting, on Sting's earlier, jazzier albums)


-Thelonious Monk (piano, bebop)


-Return To Forever (band, jazz fusion/jazz-rock)


-Chick Corea (piano, post-bop/jazz fusion)


-Freddie Hubbard (trumpet, jazz-funk/bop)


-JJ Johnson (trombone, bebop/hard bop)


-Duke Ellington (piano, big band/swing)


-Count Basie (piano, big band/swing)


-Bobby McFerrin (vocals, does a variety of styles. Quite a unique vocalist, who really uses his voice as an instrument)


-Incognito (band, jazz-funk/acid-jazz/R%26amp;B)


-Jimmy Smith (organ, soul-jazz)





That should be a good enough mix of everything. There's a lot more I could have listed, but these are some good starting points into jazz.|||Louis Armstrong, the father of jazz|||Ella Fitzgerald, in my opinion the greatest female jazz singer of all time.|||Chris Botti and Chuck Mangione for smooth laid back jazz


Rippingtons and Spyro Gyra for smooth fusion


Kurt Elling and Diana Krall for modern jazz voice