What are your top 5 favorite Jazz bands/players. Here are my favorites.
1. Allan Holdsworth (I.O.U. and Metal Fatigue)
2. Al Di Meola (Elegant Gypsy and Casino)
3. Miles Davis (Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain)
4. John Coltrane (anything)
5. Mahavishnu Orchestra (Birds of Fire)

1--GO--the all too short lived band that Stomu Yamashta assembled
2--Weather Report
3--Ornette Coleman
4--Return to Forever
5--Peter Apfelbaum & the Heiroglyphics Ensemble

One of my all time favorite albums is still the Benny Goodman & band 1939 Carnagie Hall concert

I'm not big on rating artists, its just to hard to do... especially with a style that I'm not an expert on. But I really love Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis... and I'm a big fan of a lot of fusion players like Frank Gambale, Allan Holdsworth, and Al Di Meola

Miles Davis

Duke Ellington

Cab Calloway

Louis Armstrong

The Skolinick Trio (Alex Skolinick the guitarist from the Thrash Metal band TestAmenT. After he left TestAmenT, he formed a Jazz band).