7. The Cannonball Adderley Quintet: “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” (Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at “The Club”; Capitol, 1967)

The only recording on this list that’s more impossible to ignore than Kind of Blue. There’s a reason that Joe Zawinul’s composition came within inches of cracking the Top 10 in the spring of 1967. (Even if you don’t know it, you probably know it: It was the basis for a Buckinghams hit and a frequent presence in movies and TV.) The medium-slow drag has a tremendous swagger in its mellowness, so that when its big crescendo hits you’re already waiting for it (though it’s no less welcome). Granted, this is a feature for Zawinul, one that hastened the rise of the electric piano in jazz. Yet—not to take credit away from the keyboard legend—there’s a reason he debuted the tune in this band. The aesthetic, the mood, the flavor is all Cannon.