How many jazz albums have hit number one in the charts?
When Ezra Collective stood on stage to collect their Mercury Prize in 2023, they proudly exclaimed, “If a jazz band winning the Mercury prize doesn’t make you believe in God, nothing will.”
I couldn’t help but disagree with the underdog statement. Firstly, Ezra Collective had undeniably become one of the best bands in Britain come 2023. A mainstay of the festival roadshow for the previous five years, and a band who never once dropped the standards of their live show, they were the embodiment of sonic joy, every time they took the stage.
Moreover, their records matched that, but crucially added something else. The studio was used to create something that would feed the appetite of introspective music fans, and while it was as joyful as the live show, it was textured and considered, showcasing songs that were arranged in the highest quality.
So their brilliance as a band got half of the writing on the wall, while the rest was filled in by historic destiny. Despite Femi Koleoso’s inspiring outcry, modern audiences are tuned into jazz being one of the highest musical art forms. After breaking through decades of systematic oppression, it became a genre that garnered a much-deserved respect in the late 20th century. As pop welcomed in the burgeoning new genres of the era, jazz represented something alternative, intellectual and esteemed.
So, for an awards ceremony that markets itself as the purest representation of artistic authenticity, well then, it was only right that jazz took home the glory. In fact, the Mercury Prize feels like the natural home for a jazz album, firstly because the Mercury recognises the album as a whole, which, given its run time, is most definitely the platform in which jazz ideas are understood best. And secondly, and most importantly, it is because in all of this, it positions itself as the antithesis of the charts.
Proof of that? Despite winning the award, Ezra Collective’s album in question, You Can’t Steal My Joy, only peaked at number 70 on the UK album charts.
So, have any jazz albums hit number one?
Well, the very fact that the data around this question is hard to find just goes to prove that jazz is the ugly duckling of the commercial family. Most records found for albums that have experienced chart success are only in reference to both the UK’s and the US’s Jazz and Blues charts.
Even iconic albums of the genre, Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue and Ella Fitzgerald’s Ella at Zardi’s, have never officially reached number one on the general album charts. The closest album to representing any sort of general chart success was Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me, which peaked at number one on the UK charts for a week, but it would be a stretch to outrightly label that record as a jazz record.
So the picture of commercial jazz still looks relatively bleak, and I suppose that is what inspired Koleoso’s statement. But ultimately, the point remains, and if anything, jazz’s neglect in the mainstream charts only confirms the fact that it is the true musician’s genre.
