KPLU (out here near Seattle) had a listener poll to come up with the 100 "Quintessential Jazz Songs". It's an interesting list, if tending a bit towards the more traditional stuff.
http://kplu.org/post/listeners-pick-top-100-jazz-recordings-all-time (you can stream the music from there). And the list is in printed form at http://www.jazz24.org/jazz100.html
I'm not shocked that "Take Five" took the stop spot, although I am surprised that it got nearly twice as many votes as the 2nd place song. My vote for first place, "So What" from Kind of Blue, took that #2 spot. And all five songs from kind of Blue made the top 100 list, testament to just what a seminal album that was.
All in all it's not a bad primer for folks looking to get into jazz but unsure where to start. Having said that there are some artists I would have liked to see on the list - Charles Lloyd and Eric Dolphy come immediately to mind. And I would have liked to see some more fusion on the list personally.
