My original idea here was to pull out 50 albums from my 1960s Jazz list, but my first pass snapping up the A/A+ records exceeded 50, and that didn't include anything by such important players as Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, or Wayne Shorter. So, I figured I might as well go for 100. Still no Shorter (Night Dreamer would have been my pick), but the 100 gives you a better sense of the decade, and still only works out to 10 per year.

I avoided compilations and multi-disc boxes -- three 2CD sets below, only one of those (the Fitzgerald/Ellington) assembled well after the fact (and much shorter than the 8CD box version. In two cases I actually prefer longer versions: Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard is available in a 4CD set, and Davis's Plugged Nickel sets total 7CD. Both are defining instances of "more is more" -- rare cases where reiteration adds depth. I don't know about the 2CD Armstrong/Ellington option, but imagine it would hold up fine. A few twofers appear below: I'm not trying to cram (otherwise I'd list some more), but they happen to be the configurations I know. I've generally tried not to dwell too long on individual artists: Coltrane gets 7 mentions, Ellington 6 (including Armstrong and Fitzgerald), Davis and Mingus 3, several others 2 (Coleman, Hines, Hodges, Kirk, Montgomery, Peterson, Roach, Rollins, Smith, and Taylor). Some others held to a single record could have been expanded greatly, especially Blakey (6 A- records), Getz (+5), Hill (+8), McLean (7), and Monk (7).

The year breakdown is strongly skewed toward 1960-65 (15, 14, 12, 11, 13, 15) and against 1966-69 (5, 6, 3, 6). While I'm not unfriendly to the avant-garde recordings of the late 1960s, what I like even better are the last magnificent efforts of the pre-bop generation -- a group that faded as the decade progressed. But also the early 1960s were a golden age for Blue Note and Impulse, and a strong period for Verve and Prestige, all of which declined over the course of the decade -- as did nearly every prominent label.

The 1960s were an era when black musicians still dominated jazz, at least at the top ranks: I count 82/100 black artists below, with 5/16 of the whites from Europe (Amalgam, Beck, Komeda, McLaughlin, Riley), 1 from Canada (Bley). US count was 92/100 (one black, Harriott, was from Jamaica). (Some guesswork lies behind these numbers, including arbitrarily splitting up groups.) I wouldn't know how to begin dividing them by genre or style.

The core list, sorted alphabetically by artist, follows. Sorry I don't have time to annotate: much of it I could do off the top of my head, but doing it all adequately would turn into a huge time sink.

1. Amalgam: Prayer for Peace (1969, FMR)
2. Gene Ammons: Boss Tenor (1960, Prestige)
3. Louis Armstrong: The Complete Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington Sessions (1961, Roulette)
4. Albert Ayler: Spiritual Unity (1964, ESP-Disk)
5. Gordon Beck: Experiments With Pops (1967, Art of Life)
6. Art Blakey: Roots and Herbs (1961, Blue Note)
7. Paul Bley: Closer (1965, ESP-Disk)
8. Tina Brooks: True Blue (1960, Blue Note)
9. Marion Brown: Why Not? (1966, ESP-Disk)
10. Oscar Brown Jr.: Sin and Soul . . . And Then Some (1960, Columbia)
11. Dave Burrell: High Won -- High Two (1968, Black Lion)
12. Benny Carter: Further Definitions (1961, Impulse)
13. Don Cherry: Complete Communion (1965, Blue Note)
14. Sonny Clark: Leapin' and Lopin' (1961, Blue Note)
15. Buck Clayton/Buddy Tate: Buck and Buddy Blow the Blues (1961, Prestige)
16. Ornette Coleman: This Is Our Music (1960, Atlantic)
17. Ornette Coleman: At the Golden Circle, Stockholm: Volume 1 (1965, Blue Note)
18. John Coltrane: My Favorite Things (1960, Atlantic)
19. John Coltrane: Olé Coltrane (1961, Atlantic)
20. John Coltrane: Ballads (1962, Impulse)
21. John Coltrane: Live at the Village Vanguard (1961, Impulse)
22. John Coltrane: Live at Birdland (1963, Impulse)
23. John Coltrane: Crescent (1964, Impulse)
24. John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (1964, Impulse)
25. Miles Davis: Cookin' at the Plugged Nickel (1965, Columbia)
26. Miles Davis: In a Silent Way (1969, Columbia)
27. Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (1969, Columbia, 2CD)
28. Paul Desmond/Gerry Mulligan: Two of a Mind (1962, RCA)
29. Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch! (1964, Blue Note)
30. Duke Ellington/Charles Mingus/Max Roach: Money Jungle (1962, Blue Note)
31. Duke Ellington: Meets Coleman Hawkins (1962, Impulse)
32. Duke Ellington: The Far East Suite (1966, RCA)
33. Duke Ellington: His Mother Called Him Bill (1967, RCA)
34. Booker Ervin: The Freedom Book (1963, Prestige)
35. Bill Evans: Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961, Riverside)
36. Ella Fitzgerald/Duke Ellington: Ella and Duke at the Côte D'Azur (1966, Verve, 2CD)
37. Eddie Gale: Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music (1968, Blue Note)
38. Stan Getz: Focus (1965, Verve)
39. Dexter Gordon: Our Man in Paris (1963, Blue Note)
40. Grant Green: Idle Moments (1963, Blue Note)
41. Herbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage (1964, Blue Note)
42. Joe Harriott: Free Form (1960, Redial)
43. Coleman Hawkins: Today and Now (1963, Impulse)
44. Roy Haynes: Out of the Afternoon (1962, Impulse)
45. Joe Henderson: Inner Urge (1964, Blue Note)
46. Woody Herman: Woody's Winners (1965, Columbia');
47. Andrew Hill: Black Fire (1963, Blue Note)
48. Earl Hines: Up to Date (1964, RCA)
49. Earl Hines: Live at the Village Vanguard (1965, Columbia)
50. Johnny Hodges: Everybody Knows Johnny Hodges (1964, Impulse)
51. Johnny Hodges: Triple Play (1967, RCA)
52. Freddie Hubbard: Ready for Freddie (1961, Blue Note)
53. Bobby Hutcherson: Dialogue (1965, Blue Note)
54. Budd Johnson: Let's Swing (1960, Prestige)
55. Sheila Jordan: Portrait of Sheila (1962, Blue Note)
56. Rahsaan Roland Kirk: We Free Kings (1961, Mercury)
57. Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Rip, Rig and Panic/Now Please Don't You Cry, Beautiful Edith (1965-67, Emarcy)
58. Krzysztof Komeda: Astigmatic (1965, Power Bros)
59. Lee Konitz: Motion (1961, Verve)
60. Steve Lacy/Roswell Rudd: School Days (1963, Hat Art)
61. Charles Lloyd: Of Course, Of Course (1964-65, Columbia)
62. John McLaughlin: Extrapolation (1969, Polydor)
63. Jackie McLean: Let Freedom Ring (1962, Blue Note)
64. Joe McPhee: Underground Railroad/Live at Holy Cross (1968-69, Atavistic)
65. Charles Mingus: Mingus at Antibes (1960, Atlantic)
66. Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963, Impulse)
67. Hank Mobley: Soul Station (1960, Blue Note)
68. Modern Jazz Quartet: Dedicated to Connie (1960, Atlantic, 2CD)
69. Thelonious Monk: It's Monk's Time (1964, Columbia)
70. Wes Montgomery: Incredible Jazz Guitar (1960, Riverside)
71. Wes Montgomery/Wynton Kelly: Smokin' at the Half Note (1965, Verve)
72. Lee Morgan: Search for the New Land (1964, Blue Note)
73. Gerry Mulligan: Jeru (1962, Columbia)
74. Oliver Nelson: Blues and the Abstract Truth (1961, Impulse)
75. Art Pepper: Smack Up (1960, Contemporary)
76. Oscar Peterson: Night Train (1962, Verve)
77. Oscar Peterson: Oscar Peterson Trio + One: Clark Terry (1964, Emarcy)
78. Howard Riley: Angle (1968, Columbia)
79. Sam Rivers: Fuschia Swing Song (1964, Blue Note)
80. Max Roach: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (1960, Candid)
81. Perry Robinson: Funk Dumpling (1962, Savoy)
82. Sonny Rollins: On Impulse! (1965, Impulse)
83. Sonny Rollins: Alfie (1966, Impulse)
84. Jimmy Rushing: Every Day I Have the Blues (1967, Impulse)
85. George Russell: Ezz-Thetics (1961, Riverside)
86. Sonny Sharrock: Black Woman (1969, Vortex)
87. Archie Shepp: Fire Music (1965, Impulse)
88. Horace Silver: The Jody Grind (1966, Blue Note)
89. Jimmy Smith: Back at the Chicken Shack (1960, Blue Note)
90. Jimmy Smith/Stanley Turrentine: Prayer Meetin' (1960-63, Blue Note)
91. Sonny Stitt/Paul Gonsalves: Salt and Pepper (1963, Impulse)
92. Sun Ra: Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy/Art Forms for Dimensions Tomorrow (1961-63, Evidence)
93. Cecil Taylor: The World of Cecil Taylor (1960, Candid)
94. Cecil Taylor: Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come (1962, Revenant)
95. Lucky Thompson: Lucky Strikes (1965, Prestige)
96. McCoy Tyner: The Real McCoy (1967, Blue Note)
97. Kid Thomas-George Lewis Ragtime Stompers (1961, GHB)
98. Ben Webster/Harry Eddison: Ben and Sweets (1962, Columbia)
99. Tony Williams: Life Time (1964, Blue Note)
100. Larry Young: Unity (1965, Blue Note)

Let me also include a short list of historically important albums that I don't like well enough to include in the above:

1. AMM: AMMusic 1966 (1966, Matchless)
2. Anthony Braxton: For Alto (1968, Delmark)
3. Peter Brötzmann: Machine Gun (1968, FMP)
4. John Coltrane: Ascension (1965, Impulse)
5. Jimmy Giuffre: Free Fall (1962, Columbia)
6. Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra (1969, Impulse)
7. Grachan Moncur III: Evolution (1963, Blue Note)
8. Sonny Rollins: East Broadway Run Down (1966, Impulse)
9. Horace Tapscott: West Coast Hot (1969, Jive/Novus)
10. Cecil Taylor: Unit Structures (1966, Blue Note)

Other artists with A- records during the 1960-69 decade: Nat Adderley, Curtis Amy/Dupree Bolton, Count Basie, Dave Brubeck, Kenny Burrell, Jaki Byard, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis/Johnny Griffin, Lou Donaldson, Teddy Edwards/Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge, Don Ellis, Gil Evans, Frank Foster, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Burton Greene, Edmond Hall, Tubby Hayes, Jimmy Heath, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Helen Humes, Illinois Jacquet, Ahmad Jamal, Keith Jarrett, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Duke Jordan, Shelly Manne, Les McCann/Eddie Harris, Blue Mitchell, New York Art Quartet, Horace Parlan, Big John Patton, Bud Powell, Ike Quebec, Freddie Redd, Dizzy Reece, Pee Wee Russell, Shirley Scott, Tony Scott, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Simmons, Frank Sinatra, John Surman, Ralph Sutton, René Thomas, Bobby Timmons, Charles Tolliver.