Here's the link to my list of recommendations to build your Jazz collection at Amazon.com: Amazon.com: "Begin a diversified Jazz collection - for jazz newbies!", with reviews for each recording.
Other recordings beyond the list are also mentioned, but the initial list suggests how you should build your jazz collection...in order.
Here's the list:
- Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
- Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage
- Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out
- John Coltrane - Blue Train
- Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
- Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus
- Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
- Charlie Parker - With Strings (The Master Takes)
- Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool
- Clifford Brown & Max Roach (eponymous)
- Louis Armstrong - The Hot Fives & Sevens
- Eric Dolphy - Out to Lunch
- Matthew Shipp - Harmony & Abyss
- Frank Sinatra with Count Basie - Sinatra at the Sands
- Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie - Complete Jazz at Massey Hall
- Billie Holiday & Lester Young - A Musical Romance
- Wynton Marsalis - Live at the Village Vanguard
- Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz
- John Coltrane - Giant Steps
- Jaco Pastorius (eponymous)
- Dave Holland - Live at Birdland
- Wayne Shorter - Adams Apple
- McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy
- The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
- Thelonius Monk - Straight No Chaser
- Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers - A Night in Tunisia
- Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else
- Jason Moran - The Bandwagon
- Modern Jazz Quartet - Django
- Miles Davis - Bags' Groove