My favorite pop/rock music era's, I guess, have been the 60-80s. Outside of that, I've like select types of jazz, vocals, classical. Artists after the 80s have largely been unpalatable and so I've largely stopped buying music since then; I've just listened to what I had and ignored 'modern' music. Old fogey before my time, in some respects.

Recently (past couple of years through now), I've been rediscovering music. Still don't like the 'modern' pop/rock/rap/hiphop kind of stuff - I'm sticking to 60-80s there. I'm rediscovering old favorites and that's leading to expanding my breadth and depth of classical and jazz.

From Patricia Barber I've discovered new (to me) artists that I like, for example, Katie Thiroux, Anne Phillips, Sarah Mckenzie and many more. Who knew that jazz / vocals is alive and well? Well, I'm sure you guys did; I'm just now catching up. Seems like there is much to discover.

I like a lot of Jazz, and grew up with 60's vintage stuff played often in the house,

the biggest artist I recall was Brubeck and I did go see him live once,


I also like some 80's Fusion, tho that has not all aged well,


FWIW, when I had XM, the jazz channel (cannot remember which) played a lot of Blue Note jazz, from the late 50's to 60's and it was fantastic,

still my favorite era for Jazz

meanwhile, while the 70's and 80's punk / ska / new wave will always be my go to, Jazz is a close second,



also, google on the youtube some pomplamoose , they do a few jazz type mashups that are really good,

Coltrane, Pepper and Parker. The law firm of Jazz for me

If it is only your tastes changing - that is normal, or at least for me.
If you are just now starting to enjoy listening to music then that might be considered a late bloomer.
I have my favorite genres and for example in the 80's I was more into jazz (still am) but only recently started listening to metal of the 80's (Metallica, etc).
It's kind of refreshing to change it up but at heart good old 70's Rock is my favorite.

Far from jazz, but related a bit...King Crimson...the early years. I think about the drumming of Michael Giles and it's very jazzy and improvisational. That prompted me to get the CD, McDonald and Giles, two of the founders of King Crimson who left after the first album. Besides having a jazzy flavor at times, there is also a very classical sound. You sure don't hear music like this anymore.

Contemporary jazz vocals...I've mostly listen to female singers, mainly because I'd rather have a woman singing at/to me that some dude crooning. Karrin Allyson, Barber, Madeleine Peyroux, Sophie Milman, Norah Jones, Dianne Reeves, Eliane Elias, Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, etc...even more popish stuff from Sade. My wife likes Michael Buble and Harry Connick, Jr. a lot, so I guess I hafta listen to that as well, and I admit some of it is actually pretty good. However it's a little different when I go back in time a few decades or so to the era of the Rat Pack, but then it was the time of the REAL crooners.

As for jazz musicians' music, I tend to listen to what I grew up with in and/or was inundated with in music classes the 70s. Prog jazz like Return to Forever, Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Jaco, DiMeola, Chick, Clarke. I also listen to bebop from time to time, with a preference to the grittier, gutsier East Coast vibe over the lighter L.A. sound. But 70s funk jazz flavored in a blatty tenor sax is my soft spot. Grover Washington, Jr., Stanley Turrentine, Michael Brecker, Sonny Rollins, etc. I collected a lot of the old CTI Records catalog at time so a lot of that music (when available) winds up in a couple of my Spotify playlists.

Art Pepper Winter Moon (with strings) and Goin’ home (sax and piano).

For several years i tried to find as many sax-piano duos as possible. Very introspective.

Jazz trios are a must and quartets require more attention when picking,IMO.
Not so hot about Quintets and above. Too much elbowing for the hotspot.

Orchestras are Ellington and Gershwin turf, says the ignorant. Have no love for Basie.

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There are quite a few songwriters and performers who are not mainstream, and are much better than what you hear on the radio.

Two of my favorites are Craig Carothers and Chuck Cannon. Both have some big hits performed by major artists, but their best stuff is what they record themselves. They would be solid late 60's early 70's acoustic to acoustic rock style, but a bit modernized in sound.