My streaming library is full of one-song playlists.
Mostly they’re playlists I’ve made to share with students, but many are also for myself.
All music is an oral tradition. It’s especially true for jazz, but it’s true for all styles. Our interpretation must be informed by the interpretations that came before. The best way to be informed is to listen. And not to just one recording, but to ten or fifteen.
By listening to a range of interpretations of the same piece, we can come to see what is consistent across all of them, and what changes. We can also start to zero in on our interpretation, and how it intersects with the others.
Listening is a necessary precursor to interpretation.