Public Domain Jazz Samples, Cleared
Public domain, CC0 & CC-BY — with a license certificate per download
Jazz is the most-sampled genre in hip-hop history — the warm horns, upright bass, and brushed drums that built whole eras of beats. The catch has always been clearance: the famous records are owned by major labels, and a single uncleared jazz flip can cost five or six figures. But a huge share of early jazz and ragtime — recordings published before 1926 — is in the public domain, free to sample with nothing owed to anyone.
Hear public-domain jazz samples
Looking for modern sounds too?
Public domain mostly means older, vintage recordings — a lot of it from before 1926. If you're after newer, modern-sounding jazz instead, we've got that too: contemporary tracks with a fresh, current sound, free to use just the same. Same library, newer character.
What “cleared” means here
Every jazz sample in the Selekt catalog comes from a named, verified source — public domain, CC0, or CC-BY — not an anonymous “royalty-free” upload. Each download ships with a license certificate naming the source, the exact license, and any attribution required, and samples from less-authoritative sources are fingerprint-screened against 150M+ commercial recordings. So you can chase the same dusty, harmonically rich source material the greats used, from recordings that are genuinely free to build on — with documentation you can keep, not just a label that says “cleared.”
How to flip jazz samples
Cleared source is only half of it. Every track is analyzed for BPM, key, and mood, separated into stems (vocals, drums, bass, and more), and ready for the free browser tools — chop it, re-pitch it, build a beat in the Drum Kit, or re-voice a melody in Stem Lab. And modifying melodic loops is good practice anyway — it lowers the odds of an automated Content ID match (more in our guide to avoiding Content ID claims).
Notable public-domain jazz recordings by year
Early jazz recordings now in the U.S. public domain (1925 and earlier, as of 2026). What matters for sampling is the recording date — these specific recordings are free, not just the songs.
| Year | Recording | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1917 | Original Dixieland Jass Band — “Livery Stable Blues” / “Dixieland Jass Band One-Step” | The first jazz records ever released. |
| 1923 | King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band — Gennett & OKeh sessions | Chicago sessions featuring a young Louis Armstrong on second cornet. |
| 1923 | Bessie Smith — “Downhearted Blues” | Her breakout side and one of the best-selling blues records of the era. |
| 1923–24 | Jelly Roll Morton — early Gennett solo piano & band sides | Foundational stride and New Orleans jazz piano. |
| 1925 | Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong — “St. Louis Blues” | The iconic vocal-and-cornet pairing. |
| 1925 | Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five — first sessions (Nov 1925) | Only the 1925 sides are public domain so far; the rest phase in year by year. |
Browse cleared jazz samples
Listen, filter by BPM and key, and download with a license certificate per track.
How to verify jazz samples before release
A few minutes of due diligence saves headaches later: how to verify a sample is really cleared, royalty-free vs public domain vs CC0, and screen your finished mix against 150M+ commercial recordings for a signed audit log.
