Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Moanin' - Blue Note Records 

More than any other album in the canon of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, 1958’s Moanin’—featuring the great drummer with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt—was the perfect crystallization of the band’s bluesy, soulful sound, and it still stands today as perhaps the most quintessential hard bop recording of all-time. Originally self-titled, the album was later renamed Moanin’ due to the popularity of Timmons’ unforgettable opening track. The album also introduced several indelible Golson compositions that would become standards of the jazz songbook including “Along Came Betty” and “Blues March.”

Wayne Shorter - Speak No Evil - Blue Note Records

1964 was one of the most momentous years in the musical life of Wayne Shorter. Early in the year the saxophonist was still a member of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, appearing on classic Blue Note albums like Free for All and Indestructible. Shorter made his own auspicious label debut that spring with Night Dreamer and quickly recorded the impressive follow-up JuJu. That summer he joined the Miles Davis Quintet, cementing a line-up that would become one of the seminal bands in jazz history. And when Shorter entered Van Gelder Studio with Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Elvin Jones on Christmas Eve 1964 they created a masterpiece with Speak No Evil, a transcendent set of six Shorter originals including the swinging title track, “Witch Hunt,” and sublime ballad “Infant Eyes.”