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It took me a long time - years, in fact - to gain an appreciation for this album. It's been in my collection forever, because it's always cited as a "work of genius", listed as one of the best jazz albums of all time, a core collection selection, etc, so it was one of the first jazz albums I bought all those years ago...but to be honest, at the time it just sounded like noise to me. But, after giving up on it for a few years, writing it off as one of those works of genius that must just go over my head, and then continuing to listen to more and more jazz of varying styles and complexities, I eventually came back to it, and learned to appreciate it. I still can't say for sure that I love it - there's quite a number of Avant-Garde/Post-Bop albums above it on my personal list of favorites - but at least anymore, I no longer just hear noise when I listen to it; instead, I've actually become able to hear the music in the madness, and have started to appreciate why so many people revere it, and now with every new listen I catch some aspect, some idea Dolphy was going for, that I hadn't picked up on before, and each time I get it a little bit more.

I definitely wouldn't suggest "Out to Lunch!" to a listener who is just beginning to explore the world of jazz, as this album is the equivalent of an advanced course, possibly even a post-graduate one. But, if you're someone who has listened to a great amount of jazz, both mainstream and avant-garde, then this is an album you're ready for. Just, in either case, don't expect to be snapping your fingers or tapping your toes to the catchy grooves because, for the most part, you won't find that kind of music on the menu here...but then again, it's really not the point, either.

One of the most sublime albums of all time, "Maiden Voyage" represents not only the pinnacle of Herbie Hancock's late 60s acoustic work, but quite possibly that of his entire career. Striking a perfect balance between mainstream Hard Bop and the more avant-garde jazz of the era, each track is a masterpiece that manages to combine melodious lyricism with levels of rhythmic and tonal complexity in a way that is virtually unrivalled even to this day, proving definitively that one needn't sacrifice accessibility on the altar of experimentation. Relaxing without being sedative, deep without being impenetrable, and tuneful without ever feeling condescending, "Maiden Voyage" is an absolutely essential album for every jazz aficianado to have in their collection, and as the title implies (whether intentionally or coincidentally), one that also makes a terrific point of entry for anyone unfamiliar with the genre who might be seeking a starting point from which to begin experiencing the world of jazz.

After a meteoric rise to fame in the 1950s, legendary tenor sax man Sonny Rollins had walked away from it all by the decade's end, embarking on an introspective, almost monastic three-year quest to improve his technique, during which time he would spend up to 16 hours a day playing his sax, alone, on New York City's Williamsburg bridge, and that solitary period of time spent practicing on the bridge is what gives this album its title. Although critical reception to the album was initially mixed, as many had hoped Rollins would have re-emerged from his sabbatical having developed some revolutionary new technique or with a markedly evolved style that differed more strongly from his earlier work, it was nonetheless a commercial success, and has since become regarded as one of his finest albums, even being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015. Featuring Rollins in a new quartet that also included Jim Hall on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Ben Riley on the drums, the album has a spare, subdued sound, which might be why the ballads are generally more evocative and memorable than the uptempo numbers, with Rollins' haunting take on the standard "God Bless the Child" being my pick for the standout track, as well as the one that probably best reflects what it must have been like to spend all that time playing alone on that bridge.

Although often overshadowed today by better known titles like "A Love Supreme" and "My Favorite Things", John Coltrane's 1962 Impulse! album "Coltrane" (not to be confused with the Prestige label release of the same name from 1957) is probably the one that best summarizes everything that made him arguably the greatest Jazz saxophonist of all time. Falling chronologically between his more accessible early work and his later avant-garde excursions, the music on this set manages to walk the precise middle ground between these two major phases of his career, capturing a near-perfect stage in his evolution where all his ideas and identities managed to be at play, and perfectly in balance with each other, all at once. If someone told me I could only have one Coltrane album in my collection, this would be the one I'd pick, because literally everything one thinks of when they think of John Coltrane - The trademark sheets of sound, the raga-like modality, the masterful balladry, the fiery, free blowing that borders on the frenetic, the yearning spirituality - it's all here in one sublime package.

As timeless as the classic riff that anchors its opener and best known track, "Stolen Moments", Oliver Nelson's "The Blues and the Abstract Truth" is the bandleader and saxophonist's crowning achievement. Working here with a much smaller ensemble relative to the big band work he was at the time best known for, Nelson gathered an all-star septet for this stunning, post-modern take on the Blues idiom. In addition to trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, multi-reedist Eric Dolphy, bassist Paul Chambers, and Nelson himself taking up both alto and tenor saxophone duties, it's notable that two of the key players on this album, pianist Bill Evans and drummer Roy Haynes, also played on Miles Davis' watershed "Kind of Blue", as it's clear that Nelson was taking the ideas for a modernist jazz re-interpretation of the blues that Davis laid out as a jumping off point from which to explore those concepts and expand upon them. The result is a Post Bop classic, full of slinking grooves and infectious hooks, the accessibility of which allows it to also be replete with knotty solos and flourishes of avant-garde dissonance and atonality, helping to expose a mainstream audience to these more experimental concepts and sounds by wrapping them in song structures that are so tight and hook-heavy they defy any potential resistance, coaxing the listener into embracing them in a way they otherwise might not were they presented in a less seductive and melodically rich context.

Dexter Gordon's second Blue Note album recorded in Paris following his expatriation to Europe, "One Flight Up" is an almost criminally under-rated entry in his catalog that finds the tenor sax legend at his most confident and relaxed on three sprawling, mellifluous tracks of Modernist Hard Bop (four on most CD & digital reissues). Inspired by the freedom not just from racism, but also the incessant demands of touring and recording, that life in Europe granted to the African-American jazz musicians like Gordon who took up extended residencies in the clubs there, the tracks on "One Flight Up" (especially the epic opener "Tanya", which stretches out for over eighteen minutes, and its slightly edgier companion piece, "Coppin' the Haven", itself over eleven minutes in length) are more akin to live performances than they are to the more conventionally structured tracks found on most studio albums of the era, their open, modal frameworks giving free range to the soloists to improvise and express their ideas fully unhindered by the constraints of time and length.

The epitome of late-night jazz club cool, "Tanya", anchored by Taylor's unrelenting, asymmetrical groove, has rightly become a standard, its dueling melodic themes creating a tension and release that is embodied in Gordon's and Byrd's contrasting playing styles on it, with Gordon graciously taking on the role of the subdued, bluesy foil to Byrd's soaring, bright horn. "Darn that Dream" finds Gordon at his most introspective, on what is arguably one of the best ballads of his career, his lingering, wistful lines showcasing the emotional expressiveness that has always been at the heart of his style. Most digital reissues are bolstered by the addition of a fourth track, the loose, snappy "Kong Neptune", a Bop scorcher full of complex changes that features Gordon's fieriest playing of the set and a pair of nimble solos from Orsted and Taylor. Why "One Flight Up" isn't as revered today as "Go" and "Our Man in Paris" astounds me, as this is Gordon at his most poised and self-assured, an album that swings and swaggers with the freedom (both figurative and literal) he found upon moving to Europe that deserves to be ranked as one of his best works.

"Open Sesame" and "Ready for Freddie" might be better known and generally more highly acclaimed, but for me, "Blue Spirits" is the true peak of Hubbard's acoustic output. Lengthy playing times on a number of the tracks give him and his stellar assemblage of sidemen plenty of room to improvise while still maintaining the sinewy, brooding grooves that Hubbard was no doubt looking for when he said that he was trying to get a "dark sound" on this album, pushing the set just beyond the edges of Hard Bop, yet without succumbing to or being overwhelmed by disjointedness. Definitely a worthy addition to any collection.

John Coltrane's magnum opus, "A Love Supreme" is a spiritually-themed suite of four interelated movements, making it in an abstract way more akin to a symphony than a traditional jazz album. Considered by many to be not only Coltrane's finest album, but the greatest jazz album of all time, this is a record that must be listened to repeatedly, which is something that will be no chore because once you've heard it, you won't just want to listen to it over and over again for the rest of your life, you'll have to - because unless you are completely without a soul, this is music of such epic emotional intensity that it will touch you deep inside, on a spiritual level. The first jazz album I ever purchased, and nearly three decades later, it's still one that I return to again and again without ever tiring of it.

Arguably John Coltrane's most beloved and commercially successful album, "My Favorite Things" more than earns its vaunted reputation by reworking a group of standards, deconstructing them and grafting new avant-garde concepts to their framework, transforming them into masterpieces that transcend their source material in the process. The legendary title track starts things off, turning a simple standard with an irrepressibly catchy hook into a hypnotic, nearly fourteen minute long showcase for intricate modal soloing by both Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, flavored with a far eastern influence that reflects both men's then-burgeoning interest in Asian music and cultures. A rendition of Cole Porter's "Everytime We Say Goodbye" has new life breathed into it with a number of exquisite runs by Coltrane on his new soprano sax, which had only been given to him by Miles Davis a year earlier, demonstrating just how quickly he was able to not only pick up the new instrument, but immediately make it sound uniquely his own. "Summertime", from Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess", gets turned into a fervid musical personification of a summer storm, with Coltrane's famous "sheets of sound" coming in like lightning and thunder, which is then cooled like a summer rain by Tyner's cascading chords, followed by an extended drum and bass interlude by Davis and Jones, before Coltrane comes in like a Tempest again at the end. Another Gershwin classic, "But Not For Me" closes things out with an appliqué of his trademark Coltrane changes that adds new layers of texture to the harmony as it plays out over an extended modal coda. Absolutely essential listening that manages to be as complex as it is comforting.

Even if you've never listened to "Empyrean Isles" before, you already know the track "Cantaloupe Island" off of this album, which together with its follow-up "Maiden Voyage", comprises the pinnacle of Hancock's acoustic 60s output. Listening to this set, it's almost hard to comprehend that it was recorded over fifty years ago, as it is still regularly being sampled and used in films, tv shows and commercials to this day, which is a testament to just how forward thinking this album was, and how fresh and contemporary it still sounds even today. An absolutely essential, core selection for every jazz fan's collection.