1961 in jazz

June

25 – Bill Evans Trio records Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby during a two-week stay at The Village Vanguard in New York. The recording was made from five sets they played on June 25 and was the last time the trio would play before virtuoso bassist Scott LaFaro's death 10 days later.

30 – The 7th Newport Jazz Festival started in Newport, Rhode Island (June 30 – July 3).

August

4 – The very first Moldejazz started in Molde, Norway (August 4 – 6).

November

1 – John Coltrane begins recording his first live record Live! at the Village Vanguard.

Unknown dates

Bengali Indian sitar player and composer Ravi Shankar and western jazz musicians Gary Peacock and Bud Shank collaborate on the album Improvisations. The album combines the use of sitar and jazz music and is considered an early example of fusion experiments with jazz and Indian classical music. In early 1961 John Coltrane begins listening to North Indian music and the music of Shankar becomes influential in his development as a musician.

John Coltrane sells an estimated 30,000 copies of My Favorite Things in its first year of release.

Album releases

Basie at Birdland - Count Basie Orchestra (Roulette)

A Jazz Hour with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers: Blues March - Art Blakey (Movieplay)

Mosaic - Art Blakey (Blue Note)

Pisces - Art Blakey (Blue Note)

Time Further Out - The Dave Brubeck Quartet (Columbia)

Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation - Ornette Coleman (Atlantic)

Coltrane Jazz - John Coltrane (Atlantic)

My Favorite Things - John Coltrane (Atlantic)

Live in Stockholm 1961 - John Coltrane (LeJazz)

Whistle Stop - Kenny Dorham (Blue Note)

American Freedom - Duke Ellington & Louis Armstrong (Blue Note)

Out of the Cool - Gil Evans Orchestra (Impulse!)

Focus - Stan Getz (Verve)

1961 - Jimmy Giuffre 3 (ECM)

Out Front - Booker Little (Candid)

All The Sad Young Men - Anita O'Day (Verve)

The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra - Sun Ra and his Arkestra (Savoy Records)

We Are In the Future - Sun Ra and his Arkestra (Savoy Records)

We Travel the Spaceways - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra

Secrets of the Sun - by Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra (El Saturn Records)

Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra

Bad and Beautiful - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra (El Saturn Records, Impulse!)

Fate in a Pleasant Mood - Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra (El Saturn Records, Impulse!)

Percussion Bitter Sweet - Max Roach (Impulse!)

Forbidden Fruit - Nina Simone (Colpix)

Deaths

Scott LaFaro, bassist

Nick LaRocca, New Orleans cornetist, trumpeter

Wilber Sweatman, clarinetist

Booker Little (2 April 1938 – 5 October 1961)

Births

Arturo O'Farrill, pianist

Audun Kleive, Norwegian drummer

Cris Barber, vocalist

David Kikoski, pianist

Eivind Aarset, Norwegian guitarist

Everette Harp, saxophonist

Franck Amsallem, pianist

Harald Dahlstrøm, Norwegian pianist

Ivan Božičević, pianist

Karl Seglem, Norwegian saxophonist and goat horn player

Kenneth Sivertsen, Norwegian composer and guitarist

Knut Reiersrud, Norwegian guitarist

Mornington Lockett, tenor saxophonist

Paul Hanmer, pianist

Rachelle Ferrell, vocalist

Awards

Grammy Awards of 1961

Best Jazz Performance Solo or Small Group

André Previn for West Side Story

Best Jazz Performance Large Group

Henry Mancini for Blues and the Beat

Best Jazz Composition of More Than Five Minutes Duration

Gil Evans & Miles Davis for Sketches of Spain

Music criticism

Dan Morgenstern, Jazz Journal (1958–1961), Metronome (1961)