By the time we get to the 1950s, there are a lot of live jazz albums featuring many of the all time great jazz artists.
Below, you’ll find a list of the live albums featured on this website together with a readers poll to find the best live jazz albums.
Live Jazz Albums recorded in the 1950s include:
The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco 1959
Louis Armstrong The Columbia & RCA Victor Live Recordings 1947 1956
Louis Armstrong Satchmo At Pasadena 1951
Louis Armstrong Live at the University of North Carolina 1954
Louis Armstrong At The Crescendo 1955 Complete Edition
Louis Armstrong The Great Chicago Concert 1956 Complete
Louis Armstrong Live At The 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival
Count Basie Class of 54
Count Basie Lester Young And The Stars Of Birdland On Tour 1955
Count Basie At Newport 1957
Count Basie The Atomic Band Live In Europe 1959
Count Basie Complete Live At The Americana Hotel 1959
Count Basie The Complete Roulette Live Recordings of Count Basie and His Orchestra 1959-1962
Count Basie Corner Pocket
Art Blakey & Clifford Brown A Night At Birdland Vol 1 1954
Art Blakey Live in Zurich 1958
Clifford Brown Live at Music City 1955 & More
Clifford Brown / Max Roach Quintet More Live At Bee Hive Chicago June 30 1955
Dave Brubeck Quartet In Europe Live in Copenhagen March 5 1958
Ornette Coleman Complete Live at The Hillcrest Club 1958
Miles Davis Live Recordings 1948-1957
Miles Davis Birdland 1951
Miles Davis John Coltrane Miles & Coltrane 1955 1958
Miles Davis Live In St Louis 1956
Miles Davis John Coltrane Live In New York 1957 to 1963
Miles Davis At Newport 1958
Miles Davis Jazz At The Plaza Vol 1 1958
Duke Ellington Live At The Blue Note 1952
Duke Ellington The 1952 Seattle Concert
Duke Ellington Rare Live Recordings 1952 – 53
Duke Ellington The 1953 Pasadena Concert
Duke Ellington At Newport 1956
Duke Ellington Live at the Blue Note 1959
Ella Fitzgerald Ella In Rome The Birthday Concert 1958
Ella Fitzgerald Billie Holiday Carmen McRae At Newport 1957
Ella Fitzgerald At the Opera House 1957
Ella Fitzgerald Live At Mister Kelly’s 1958
Erroll Garner Concert by the Sea 1955
Stan Getz Chet Baker Quartet Live At The Haig 1953
Dizzy Gillespie At Newport 1957
Dizzy Gillespie A Night in Tunisia Big Band Live 1957
Dizzy Gillespie Cool Breeze Big Band Live 1957
Coleman Hawkins Roy Eldridge At Newport 1957
Coleman Hawkins Jamestown NY 1958
Billie Holiday Gee Baby Ain’t I Good To You Live Radio TV and Film Recordings 1934-1958
Billie Holiday Rare Live Recordings 1934 – 1959
Billie Holiday Jazz at the Philharmonic The Billie Holiday Story vol 1 1945 to 1958
Billie Holiday Banned From New York City Live 1948-1957
Billie Holiday At Storyville 1951 1953
Billie Holiday Lady Love Live in Basel 1954
Billie Holiday The Essential Billie Holiday Carnegie Hall Concert 1956
Billie Holiday At The Stratford Shakespearean Festival 1957 1958
Charles Mingus at the Bohemia 1955
Charles Mingus In Wonderland 1959
The Charles Mingus Quintet & Max Roach 1955
Modern Jazz Quartet At Music Inn Guest Artist Sonny Rollins 1958
Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane At Carnegie Hall 1957
Thelonious Monk John Coltrane Complete Live At The Five Spot 1958
Thelonious Monk In Action 1958
The Gerry Mulligan Quartets in Concert 1957 1962
Charlie Parker Complete Live Performances on Savoy September 29 1947 to October 25 1950
Charlie Parker Liveology 1948 to 1952
Charlie Parker Bird At St. Nick’s 1950
Charlie Parker Complete Live at Cafe Society 1950
Charlie Parker Complete Live at Birdland May 17 1950
Charlie Parker Live with the Big Bands 1951-1954
Charlie Parker At Jirayr Zorthian’s Ranch, 14 July 1952
Charlie Parker Boston 1952 1954
Charlie Parker The Washington Concerts 1953
Charlie Parker Complete Bird at The Open Door 1953
Charlie Parker At Storyville 1953
Charlie Parker Complete Live At The Rockland Palace 1950 to 1952
Charlie Parker The Washington Concerts 1953
Charlie Parker Chet Baker Bird & Chet Live at the Trade Winds 1952
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie Complete Live at Birdland
The Oscar Peterson Trio At The Stratford Shakespearean Festival 1956
The Oscar Peterson Trio at Zardi’s 1955
Bud Powell Jazz At Massey Hall Vol 2 1953
The Quintet Jazz At Massey Hall 1953
Sonny Rollins A Night At The Village Vanguard 1957
Nina Simone At Town Hall 1959
Lester Young Boston 1950
Lester Young In Washington DC 1956 Vol 1
Lester Young In Washington DC 1956 Vol 2
Lester Young In Washington DC 1956 Vol 3
Lester Young In Washington DC 1956 Vol 4
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I don’t have a readers poll to find the best live albums of the 1950s but there is a poll to find the all time best live jazz albums with plenty of albums from the 1950s included:
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1930s – 1940s – 1950s – 1960s – 1970s – 1980s – 1990s – 2000s – 2010s
Live Album Polls For The Great Jazz Artists
I have polls for the following artists: – Louis Armstrong – Count Basie – John Coltrane – Miles Davis – Eric Dolphy – Duke Ellington – Dizzy Gillespie – Billie Holiday – Charles Mingus – Thelonious Monk – Charlie Parker – Lester Young –
Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane At Carnegie Hall is a live album.
It was recorded on 29 November 1957 in New York as part of a benefit concert for the Morningside Community Center in Harlem.
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Continue reading Thelonious Monk Quartet With John Coltrane At Carnegie Hall 1957
Concert by the Sea is a live album by jazz pianist Erroll Garner.
It is a recording from a concert in a converted church on a military base near Carmel, California on September 19, 1955. It was originally an unofficial recording and the sound is not to standard.
However the playing of Erroll Garner shines through.
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Ella in Rome The Birthday Concert is a live album by Ella Fitzgerald.
It was recorded on April 25, 1958 in Italy with a jazz trio led by Lou Levy. The last track Stompin’ at the Savoy has Ella backed by the Oscar Peterson trio. It was released ion 1988.
This was Ella’s 41st birthday.
Continue reading Ella Fitzgerald Ella In Rome The Birthday Concert 1958
Jazz At Massey Hall is a live album by The Quintet. It is a recording of the concert at Massey Hall in Toronto 15 May 1953.
This begs the question “who are the Quintet?”
Just possibly the greatest assembly of jazz talent ever put together on one stage… Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach.
I understand that this was the last time that Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker ever recorded together because of bad feelings between them.
An extended recorded version of this concert has also been released with 14 songs but half of them don’t include Parker and Gillespie. The purist in me thinks that you should go straight for the longer concert but it’s live Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie that attracts me.
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Ellington At Newport is a famous live album by Duke Ellington and his band. It was recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956 and was released later the same year.
In 1999, a CD was released that brought us the complete recordings spread over two CDs together with some bonus songs.
By the 1950s, big bands had gone out of fashion and Duke Ellington no longer had a recording contract. This re-energised his career and is one of the most famous “live” jazz albums.
The most famous part of the album is the 27 bar saxophone solo in Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue by Paul Gonsales and that was recorded into the wrong microphone, going out to Voice of America listeners but not properly captured on the Columbia recording. It obviously needed to be fixed.
It turns out that the original At Newport album was not as we thought. It’s said that only about 40% of the album came from the live performance with the remainder recreated in the studio to correct playing and recording problems and with crowd noise mixed back in to create the live atmosphere.
Modern recording techniques finally meant that the performance could be recreated from the original tapes of both of the recordings made for Columbia Records and the Voice Of America radio show and that’s what happened in 1999 when the CD emerged.
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