I work with a guy who's in his 50's and doesn't like music. I caught him watching Michael Buble on YouTube.

Opera?  Any form of longhair music?

There are far too many pretentious listeners who like to either show-off their knowledge, often quoting catalogue numbers and personnel details or talk about obscure recordings that are typically shit. One up man ship for people who are socially awkward.

The late Tommy Chase despised these types, he loved the young audiences that would either appreciate Jazz music for what it is or would just get up and dance.

AFS,
Soul?
Depends on what type. Can't talk for the Northern lot but Soul Funk guys all about good times, dancing and fun.
No one up man ship. Record shops were all about sharing.If you like- this try this attitude.
DJ's didn't do cover ups either.

No Bobby Short was treated like a prince by The Carlyle. He asked for and was paid handsomely. How many cabaret singers can afford their own house in the South Of France ?

The scene in Annie Hall was at the Cafe Carlyle and believe me if you could afford their prices you would listen to every word.

I was listening to Coltrane and Davis blowing notes just for the sake of it around five o'clock.

I guess I was just wasting my time.

To each their own AFS, no offense intended by it. Cool jazz just leaves me exactly that, cold. I own one or two of the better known albums from that style, the kind that appear on lists of “fifty jazz albums you must hear??  and some of it fancies my tickle and an awful lot of it doesn’t. Possibly because I don’t understand it, possibly because I’m too bone idle to try and understand it and possibly because some of it has all the musical merit of blowing farts with an empty ketchup bottle.

Mm, 'Birth Of The Cool' doesn't do much for me - I'll admit that much.  Those lists you mention ought to be completely ignored.  They're of no merit, like lists of '100 Great Movies You Must See Before You Die' etc.  'Citizen Kane' always stands at Number One, often followed by a popcorn movie like 'The Shawshank Redemption'.  But, as Andrew Sarris once asked, who has actually seen 'Citizen Kane'?  And who, having watched it once, wants to watch it again?

Personally I’d consider Salt Peanuts one of the examples of early hard bop, or even proto hard bop rather than just bebop and to me the zenith version of that is the version with the scatted intro - alas I forget which album but possibly The Champ?

Bebop, I'd say.  I remember my father playing it many times when I was young.  Highly enjoyable.

Also, I didn’t mention any specific Albums because I’m far from any kind of expert when it comes to it. Certainly I don’t consider Kind of Blue to fall into that vein. I’d rather listen to Workin’ or Cookin’ or Struttin’ if I were to listen to Mr Davis however, just personal preference. There is no right or wrong when it comes to music in my opinion, it’s purely down to personal taste and just because you may not like what I enjoy and vice versa doesn’t make either of us wrong.

Apologies to Tim.  It was getting late and I was feeling irritable.  It comes (perhaps) with advancing age.  I have to take my five year old grandson to see the skeleton of a tyrannosaurus rex at the end of the month and am not exactly looking forward to my unasked for 'old fart' duties. 
All must listen to what they will, whether jazz or any other form of music.  Of course they must.  I simply don't like hard bop.  I'm even fairly indifferent to much bebop nowadays.  As a younger man it was all bebop pretty much.  But I noted the same changes in my father, exemplified (if that's the word I'm looking for) by the shift from Parker to Lester Young and Ben Webster.

I love hard bop. It's my favourite form of straight jazz. Art Blakey remains a  firm favourite.If anyone ever has a chance to listen to any of his later recordings on Timeless when Blakey was pretty old will be genuinely bowled over by the quality.

I think Salt peanuts is more straight ahead be-bop than hard bop. although as hard bop is a natural extension of be-bop I can see the confusion. I also see scat singing as belonging to Be-Boppers.

I'm not a massive fan of Parkers apart from the album with strings.

I also associate hard bop with a blues edge to it. Sharper.

Clifford Brown and Max Roach are superb.I don't think they recorded a bad album.

As for Miles Davis his albums of the the fifties Prestige/Columbia cover a number of bases.

Jesus. How many kids of 'Bop' are there?  No wonder I never made any headway with Jazz!

Thinking back, I'm pretty sure that having checked out and loved Tubby Hayes, Brubeck and Sonny Rollins' Alfie, I dashed headlong into what I thought was 'cooler' stuff (Miles, Dexter Gordon) and to be honest, thought it was a self indulgent racket. So I turned left and bought some Blue Note instrumental stuff, to find myself nodding off to hours of sleepy hammond noodling. So I investigated some vocal stuff and got assaulted by crazy ladies 'Shoo be shoo bee doobying' in my face. At which point I needed something calmer, and ended up with what I think you'd call middle class, middle of the road, after dinner jazz.

So I quietly backed away and haven't been back since. Maybe I should start again at square one?