A Dozen Tunes For International Jazz Day

In honor of International Jazz Day, I'm posting a dozen jazz songs. Limiting the list to a dozen means leaving lots of worthy artists out... The choice to include a word jazz track (Ken Nordine's "Brown") instead of, say, a classic tune by Duke Ellington may seem eccentric. I prefer the term "colorful".

Bix Beiderbecke - Singin' the Blues (available on Bix Beiderbecke, Vol. 1: Singin' the Blues)

Ella Fitzgerald - Everyone's Wrong But Me (available on The Great Ella Fitzgerald set)

Billie Holliday - You've Changed (available on Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Billie Holiday)

Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser (available on Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Thelonious Monk)

Dizzy Gillespie - Salt Peanuts (available on Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Dizzy Gillespie)

Dinah Washington - I've Got You Under My Skin (available on Night And Day: The Cole Porter Songbook)

Louis Armstrong - La Vie En Rose (available on Paris For Lovers)

Diana Krall - Almost Blue (covering a song by her husband, Elvis Costello; available on The Girl In The Other Room)

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Take Five (available on Time Out)

Ken Nordine - Brown (available on Colors)

Herbie Hancock - Cantaloupe Island (available on Cantaloupe Island)

Arturo Sandoval - Stella By Starlight (available on Ritmo De La Noche: Very Best of Latin Jazz)