Recently in giving advice to someone new to jazz on this subreddit I asked if they would want some examples of the subgenres, and they and one other person did say they would appreciate that so I'm making this now. (Tagging them so that they can get this u/iamthewalrus999 u/maccartneylennon)

This is about in order of time period the style arised/dominated in. Also I won't be writing about latin jazz or afro-caribbean jazz because that is not my area at all.

Trad(itional) Jazz - This is one of the larger subgenres as it really just applies to any of the jazz of the early 20th century, the start of jazz. Sometimes called New Orleans Jazz because it has always been based out of that city, this music style is currently found mostly in bands or individuals that have come out of that city, and is really a realm of the music that is really not often talked about or found in just general jazz discussions, except when discussing history. Tubas and clarinets are not uncommon in this form of the music, while they are in other subgenres. Typically in this subgenre there are many horns playing lines over each other, sometimes fully orchestrated, but sometimes as a full collective improvisation. Note too that brass instruments had a much more prominent role than saxophones did, saxophones are mostly replaced by clarinets.

Examples: The Original Dixieland Jazz Band - St Louis Blues, Louis Armstrong - St James Infirmary, Sidney Bechet - Egyptian Fantasy

Swing - Swing came around in the 20s and was huge through the 20s and 30s in what is called the Swing era. This is when jazz was popular music, as it was the dance music of the time. This is also the time of the rise of the big band, a band with a bass, piano (and sometimes guitar), drums, and varying numbers of trumpets, trombones, and saxophones, though about 3-4 each, though its become more standard now to have more. This music has a real steady quick beat to it, and with so many horns tends to have some powerful horn lines written for them to play, since so much of the songs for this music are written and not improvised. Big bands are expensive and hard to manage though so the moment Swing started to fade just a bit lots of big bands had to shut down. At this point clarinets were still sometimes found in the music, though, by the later part of the swing era, it was mostly just sax players doubling on them. Note that not all swing was big bands though, many big band leaders had small bands they played with too.

Examples: Count Basie - Flight of the Foo Birds, Duke Ellington - Take the 'A' Train, Benny Goodman - Sing Sing Sing, Benny Goodman - Seven Come Eleven (example of small band swing)

Bebop - This is where we start to enter the type of music you hear about more on this sub and with other similar areas for jazz listeners. Bebop was the result of many things, but I'll just say Swing was starting to fade and small groups were taking its place that weren't making dance music, and those groups were the start of bebop. Because of WWII this music wasn't getting recorded as much at the start, so it was really just focused in New York without much of a public knowledge of it till half way through the decade. At this point the standard jazz instrumentation had been settled on, drums, bass, piano, 1 or 2 (at the time mostly 2) horns, typically a sax and a trumpet. This music showcased amazing skill from musicians, mostly horn players, where they took really fast amazing improvised solos over more difficult chords than before. Also just note that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie are often viewed as the two founders of bebop if there had to be 2 chosen founders, and many revere Charlie Parker as one of if not the best players in regards to technique ever. Also heroin was getting to be a problem in the music world at this time, and many bebop musicians died early because of it, like Bird (Charlie Parker's nickname). Bebop kept going for awhile, it never really truly faded, it lost its dominance as the biggest subgenre but it never really had a big drop off like swing.

Examples: Charlie Parker - Blues for Alice, Dizzy Gillespie+Sonny Rollins+Sonny Stitt - On the Sunny Side of The Street, Charlie Parker - Donna Lee

Cool Jazz - Bebop's pretty quick so Cool Jazz countered that with more luscious slower or just overall more calm pieces. Started in the early 50s and kind of stayed around for the next decade, it was just a more calm relaxed form of the music, even when it's fast it's relaxed.

Examples: Miles Davis - Jeru, Red Garland - A Foggy Day, Dave Brubeck - Take 5

Hard Bop - We've now reached the first subgenre that's one of my favorites. Hard Bop is jazz with a slight influence from the R&B and gospel of the 50s and early 60s. The drumming tends to be more aggressive, the solos are quite bluesy and hit hard, almost everybody in the group (groups tended to be 5-6 people) tended to solo, including the drums. This subgenre was really pushed forward by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, a group that lasted through the 80s, where the only constant member was Blakey, and all the alumni went on to be amazing players in their own right and further the subgenre.

Examples: Art Blakey - Hammerhead, Art Blakey - Moanin, Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder

Modal - Modal jazz is defined in a way that is very clear for musicians to understand but doesn't really tend to make sense to non-musicians, even the name modal jazz, can't be explained without explaining some music theory, so I'll just say that the songs are more open to allow soloists to have more space to explore their own voice and try different ways of approaching songs than the previous subgenres. Miles Davis pioneered this, listen to his album Kind of Blue, one of the most famous albums in all of jazz and certainly all of history to get a sense of what I'm talking about, that album truly pioneered modal jazz. Listen to the way that on a song like So What the difference in each of the 3 horns soloing is much larger than the difference in the solos of the horns on a hard bop or bebop song. This style started at the end of the 50s.

Examples: Miles Davis - So What (listen to all of Kind of Blue if interested in Modal Jazz, it's one of the harder subgenres to show with just one or two songs), Wayne Shorter - Footprints (not the Miles Davis release, we'll get to that), John Coltrane - My Favorite Things

Free Jazz - These are starting to get really hard to give examples of that convey the whole subgenre. Free Jazz is huge and has no strict definition. It started in 59 by Ornette Coleman and grew to just encompass any form of the music where there aren't set chords for the rhythm section to play. This pretty much means everybody is just free to play whatever they want. The early free jazz recordings tended to not have pianists. Don't enter this subgenre with too many preconceptions, and also don't assume any one song shows the entire genre. This stuff can range from absolute chaos (see Peter Brotzman's album Machine Gun) to absolutely serene beautiful music (see the Wayne Shorter Quartet's free-er pieces).

Examples: Ornette Coleman - Lonely Woman, Cecil Taylor - Bemsha Swing, Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz (this is a full half hour album, however there are no individual songs on it, just one full half hour take)

Bossa Nova - I have to include this but I know very little about it. I'll keep this short and just say what I know for sure. It's brazilian, it's calm, often there are vocals, small groups, tends to be guitars.

Examples: Astrud Gilberto - Corcovado, Stan Getz+Joao Gilberto - The Girl From Ipanema

Spiritual Jazz - Finally, my favorite. This is a subgenre where the name spiritual jazz is not really the fully accepted codified term, but it works. This was late 60s through 70s stuff. Musicians who were getting really into the spiritual side of music were putting out this stuff, it tends to have pretty long songs, from 10 to 30 minutes. Often there is a lot of influence from the music of the continents of africa or asia. Typically this stuff can be pretty free, and could be called free jazz, but tends to have a different sound. Very powerful, the artists were always really trying to express something related to their spirituality. Also John Coltrane was really the first to push this stuff with A Love Supreme.

Examples: John Coltrane - A Love Supreme, John Coltrane - Ascension, Pharaoh Sanders - The Creator Has a Master Plan, Alice Coltrane - Turiya and Ramakrishna

Post Bop - Post Bop is 60s stuff, its similar to modal jazz but not quite. There's a lot of freedom in it, but it still has set chords and everything. Just the pianist might play some super weird voicings for chords, and just overall its just weird from a musicians perspective. The musicians are just kind of free to do weird stuff with the music. It tends to have a moderate tempo, and there's a lot of interaction between players in the bands. Miles Davis's second great quintet pioneered this music.

Examples: Miles Davis - Footprints (from the album Miles Smiles), Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage, Wayne Shorter - Armageddon

Fusion - Another one of my favorites. Fusion is short for Jazz-Rock Fusion. In the late 60s and early 70s Jazz musicians started turning to heavy rock influenced music, mostly lead by Miles Davis's recordings In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. The musicians from these albums (they each had tons of people on them, I can't remember exactly but above ten consistently) went on to found the big original fusion bands (I'll include one song from each of the groups I consider the large original fusion groups, and one Miles tune [except Herbie because he's coming up later, you'll see]). This was the first big shift in instrumentation in a while. Pianos were going to electric pianos and eventually synths. Guitars were shifting from the traditional jazz guitars to rock ones. Basses were shifting from double basses to electric basses, even fretless ones. Sometimes there were two drummers. Sometimes not horn players. Things were going crazy, and the jazz establishment was not happy, but the musicians shifting were because they were making tons of money.

Examples: The Mahavishnu Orchestra - Meeting of the Spirits, Weather Report - Black Market, Tony Williams Lifetime - Fred, Return to Forever - Spain, Miles Davis - Spanish Key

Jazz-Funk/Jazz-Funk fusion - This is sometimes looped in with jazz-rock fusion but the audience can be pretty different, so I split them up. Same as rock fusion but funk fusion instead. Herbie Hancock really helped push this one forward.

Examples: Herbie Hancock - Chameleon, Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay, Art Ensemble of Chicago - Theme de Yoyo

Smooth Jazz - Most people don't think this is really jazz. I agree, it's not jazz, it's 80s pop with saxophones and jazz guitars. That doesn't mean it's bad, though most people nowadays do think so, just it really has very little connection to jazz. Might as well include it here because people may think it is jazz. Time period: 80s and 90s, has definitely died out, ask any high schooler who Kenny G is they have no idea. I should probably describe the music itself, it's super cheesy, most of the time slow electric piano backing lines that sound very ethereal playing behind saxophones and guitars. It can be super cheesy. Not always though, sometimes it's really nice. Just to be clear this is not a subgenre of jazz, I'm only including it because it often is mistaken as one.

Examples: Kenny G - Songbird, Kenny G - Going Home, Najee - Rendezvous, Together Again - Dave Koz

Neo-Bop - In the 80s and for a while on a bunch of young musicians came up who played music which was kind of like a mix of hard bop, modal jazz, bebop, cool jazz, all of those straight-ahead forms of the music and it's called neo-bop. Sadly there had to be this conflict back then between the no-bop people and the avant-garde and fusion people where most people were just doing there thing, but some people (Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Crouch, James Mtume, among others) attacked the other side's music, in some cases pretty harshly. Know that nowadays most people think the anti-fusion, avant-garde side is absurd. But neo-bop and that debate have kind of been tied in many peoples minds since then, even though many of those neo-bop musicians have also done some fusion or avant-garde stuff and don't care. This is also just called contemporary straight ahead jazz sometimes.

Examples: Roy Hargrove - The Stinger, Wynton Marsalis - Black Codes, Nicholas Payton - A Touch of Silver

The new jazz-hip hop-r&b fusion thing that's happening mostly in LA - I came up with that name if you couldn't tell, but there's this thing going on in LA that doesn't really have name yet but it's been mostly black musicians incorporating elements of modern black musical culture with jazz.

Examples: Robert Glasper - Maiden Voyage/Everything in it's Right Place, Esperanza Spalding - I Know You Know, this video of a bunch of the LA folks playing the Miles Davis song Nardis mixed with the Kendrick Lamar song Untitled 05.

Finally I have to get to two people who are so unique I know that I and at least a few other people I know treat them as their own subgenre. Sorry if you feel I left people out, or if these two should be in certain subgenres but you're wrong.

Charles Mingus - Mingus is known mostly as a composer, though he was also an amazing bass player. He wrote some really unique music, often very deeply rooted in blues, traditional jazz, and other black music, while also having deep connections in the western classical tradition. He often composed for very specific ensembles, which is part of what makes him so unique.

Examples: Moanin (not Blakey's song of the same name, his), The Fisherman's Wife Has Some Jive-Ass Slippers, The Original Fables of Faubus

Thelonious Monk - He was a pianist who I don't know how to describe, very unique, played in what is technically the bebop tradition a lot of the time, but I had to separate him because of his unique style. Very interesting way of approaching the piano. I've heard it said he was like a child and a wise sage at the same time, at least in the way he played.

Examples: Monk's Dream, Straight no Chaser, Japanese Folk Song

Wow that took a few hours, but it was really fun. I apologize for any mistakes, and I hope this serves some people well. I'll definitely be linking this to people a lot, I hope other people use it as a resource like that too.

Edit: This blew up even bigger than I thought it would. I'm getting a lot of recommendations, and some I told people I'd include, but there are just too many, and I don't care anymore, the post is imperfect and I'm fine with that. If you feel your person, your subgenre, or your whatever was treated unfairly, that's fine, write it in the comments, but I'm not changing this post anymore. It took a few hours to make yesterday, and I'm not planning on spending another hour making it just right for everybody. I'm proud of my work and if I do something like this again I'll learn from your feedback. It's way higher quality than 99% of the shit I post on this website.