Though he was deep into his twilight years when he recorded this magnificent one-off album for Atlantic, the 71-year-old Duke Ellington proved that his creative powers were far from spent. Best Atlantic Records Jazz Albums: 20 Classics That Shaped Modern Jazzĥ: Duke Ellington: ‘New Orleans Suite’ (1970) The label was instrumental in launching the careers of several groundbreaking musicians who would shape the course of jazz in the 60s and 70s, among them Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett – all of whose work features in this countdown of the 20 best Atlantic Records jazz albums. But what’s sometimes forgotten is that Atlantic was also an important label in the history of jazz music, especially from 1955 onwards, when Ahmet’s older brother, Nesuhi, was hired to run the company’s jazz department. That’s because the label introduced the world to some of the biggest names in that genre – everyone from Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin to The Drifters, Ruth Brown, Solomon Burke and Donny Hathaway. One of the most iconic record labels in the history of popular music, New York City’s Atlantic Records, founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun, a Turkish diplomat’s son, and Herb Abramson, a Jewish dental student, is largely synonymous with soul and R&B music.

Atlantic records stealing souls