Would you help me build a music sampler for my kid?

If he is into Jazz, try these three:

Miles Davis (esp. Kind of Blue)
Dave Brubeck (“Take Five”)
Stan Getz (especially Getz/Glilberto, a classic smooth Brazilian samba jazz album)

My favorite Big Band era song is “I Can’t Get Started” by Bunny Berrigan

Anything by Duke Ellington. But his classic is “Take the ‘A’ Train”

Spyro Gyra “Morning Dance”.

Stan Kenton or Kai Winding both Big Band horn players.

https://youtu.be/EmwhJS2i7uk

Have you introduced him to symphonic music yet? Talk about big bands…

At your son’s age I was being exposed on an almost nightly basis sometimes to Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and uncounted other composers and orchestras… and I was so musically stupid at the time that I ran from that for years, until I finally started to enjoy it when I was in high school. (Yeah, right when it could really help me… not.)

If nothing else, have him listen to this short (~13 minutes) piece by Rossini. You will have heard the finale already, undoubtedly!, but he may not have yet. And you’ve probably already heard the middle section – it’s the “mood music” in a great many animated cartoons and some movies. It starts off low and slow; the payoff is nothing like the start!

And if he enjoys that, then there’s Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite (especially In the Hall of the Mountain Kings for a boy!) and a bunch of others that I could recommend, depending on the feedback.

If he’s not interested yet, then have him come back in 10 years or so, when he is. I’ll still be listening to this stuff.

Glenn Miller
More Glenn Miller
One of my favs Charlie Barnet
Jimmy Dorsey
Of course Benny Goodman
Some Glenn Miller
Si Zentner
And one more Glen Miller to get you in the mood

For late ‘50’s rock, I recommend the following tunes:

Lucille- Little Richard
Send Me Some Lovin’- Little Richard
Keep A-Knockin’ (But You Can’t Come In)- Little Richard

Summertime Blues- Eddie Cochran
Wild Weekend- Rockin’ Rebels
Del Vikings- Come Go with Me

For early ‘60’s R&R, R&B:

Image of a Girl- The Safaris
It’s Now or Never- Elvis Presley
Apache- Jørgen Ingmann
Duke of Earl- Gene Chandler
Surfin’ Safari- Beach Boys
I Sold my Heart to the Junkman- Patti LaBelle and Her Blue Belles
The One Who Really Loves You- Mary Wells
He’s a Rebel- The Crystals

Jazz:

Miles Davis- Time After Time
Spyro Gyra- Old San Juan
Al Di Meola- Love Theme from ‘Pictures of the Sea’
Dave Brubeck- Somewhere

The above tunes are mostly jazz-pop fusions.

If he’d like to listen to more free-form jazz:

Miles Davis- Miles Runs the Voodoo Down.
John McLaughlin- Dragon Song

John Coltrane’s Love Supreme
Linda Ronstadt’s cover of Thelonius Monk’s Round Midnight
Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade
Joe Jackson’s Jumping Jive cd
Tom Waits’ The Piano Has Been Drinking and Tom Traubert’s Blues
George Benson’s This Masquerade
Artie Shaw’s Begin the Beguine
The Squirrel Nut Zippers’ cd Hot, especially the song Hell.

BTW I also have a Pandora station I created, that ended up with over 2 million listeners.
It’s searchable as Torch Song Radio.

Explosive by Bond (or anything from the same title album).

Torn (redux) by Nathan Lanier from the ballet movie High Strung, from 2016. This is a great dance sequence too, with hip hop and ballet.

Gymnopédie No. 1 by Erik Satie.

Appalachia Waltz by Mark O’Connor.

Big Man on Mulberry Street by Billy Joel (note: you might notice the “tribute” dance scene is like one by Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse from the movie Singing in the Rain). You can see that here: Broadway Melody

Cha Cha by Chelo

Hanging at Tom and Rita’s from The Hellecasters.

Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli

The Lilting Banshee played by Todd Denham

Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me

Stardust