As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonicimprovisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swingbig bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines.
The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in the 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz. (Full article...)
Afro-Cuban jazz is the earliest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cubanclave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban music has deep roots in African ritual and rhythm. The genre emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo "Machito" in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans in New York City. In 1947, the collaborations of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, such as the tumbadora and the bongo, into the East Coast jazz scene. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as "Manteca" and "Mangó Mangüé", were commonly referred to as "Cubop" for Cuban bebop.
During its first decades, the Afro-Cuban jazz movement was stronger in the United States than in Cuba. In the early 1970s, Kenny Dorham and his Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, and later Irakere, brought Afro-Cuban jazz into the Cuban music scene, influencing styles such as songo. (Full article...)
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16- to 18-piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 1950s, the band survived long past the big band era itself and the death of Basie in 1984. It continues under the direction of trumpeter Scotty Barnhart.
Birth of the Cool is a compilation album by the American jazz trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis, released in February 1957 by Capitol Records. It compiles eleven tracks recorded by Davis's nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950.
Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consisted of innovative arrangements influenced by Afro-American music and classical music techniques, and marked a major development in post-bebop jazz. As the title suggests, these recordings are considered seminal in the history of cool jazz. Most of them were originally released in the 10-inch 78-rpm format and are all approximately three minutes long. (Full article...)
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The earliest jazz recordings were made by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. Their composition "Tiger Rag" has become a popular jazz standard.Jazz standards are musical compositions that are widely known, performed and recorded by jazz artists as part of the genre's musical repertoire. This list includes compositions written before 1920 that are considered standards by at least one major fake book publication or reference work. Some of the tunes listed were instant hits and quickly became well-known standards, while others were popularized later. The time of the most influential recordings of a song, where appropriate, is indicated on the list.
From its conception at the change of the twentieth century, jazz was music intended for dancing. This influenced the choice of material played by early jazz groups: King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, New Orleans Rhythm Kings and others included many Tin Pan Alleypopular songs in their repertoire, and record companies often used their power to dictate which songs were to be recorded by their artists. Certain songs were pushed by recording executives and therefore quickly achieved standard status; this started with the first jazz recordings in 1917, when the Original Dixieland Jass Band recorded "Darktown Strutters' Ball" and "Indiana". Originally simply called "jazz", the music of early jazz bands is today often referred to as "Dixieland" or "New Orleans jazz", to distinguish it from more recent subgenres. (Full article...)
The recordings on Coltrane for Lovers initially received criticism for Coltrane's stylistic move from complex jazz compositions of the free jazz form to a simpler formula of ballads and blues. In the years since, they gained a legacy as one of Coltrane's most popular recordings and significant in the romantic jazz mode. For their inclusion on Coltrane for Lovers, the tracks were selected by producer Richard Seidel and remastering engineer Allan Tucker at Foothill Digital in New York City. (Full article...)
The band's music is a fusion of Delta blues, gypsy jazz, 1930s–era swing, klezmer, and other styles. They found commercial success during the swing revival of the late 1990s with their 1996 single "Hell", written by Tom Maxwell. After a hiatus of several years, the original band members reunited and performed in 2007, playing in the U.S. and Canada. (Full article...)
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Industrial Zen is a studio album recorded by English jazz musician John McLaughlin in 2006. It was released on 22 May 2006 by Verve Records as a compact disc. Following the release of Thieves and Poets (2003), he began creating an album that was more ambitious and one that he could consider unique to him. He collaborated with various musicians for the project, such as vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, saxophonist Bill Evans, and tabla player Zakir Hussain. A jazz fusion and electric jazz album, Industrial Zen features the use of several instruments, including drums, keyboards, the electric bass, and the tabla. Additionally, McLaughlin wrote and produced all eight songs that appear on the record.
The album was generally well received by music critics for being musically diverse. One critic also pointed out that it resembled some of McLaughlin's work that he released in the 1970s. Commercially, the album fared well on two jazz music Billboard charts, peaking at numbers 9 and 14 on the Top Jazz Albums and Jazz Albums charts, respectively. (Full article...)
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Trumpeter, bandleader and singer Louis Armstrong was an important innovator of early jazz. He introduced many contemporary popular songs to the jazz world that are now considered standards.Jazz standards are musical compositions that are widely known, performed and recorded by jazz artists as part of the genre's musical repertoire. This list includes compositions written in the 1920s that are considered standards by at least one major book publication or reference work. Some of the tunes listed were already well-known standards by the 1930s, while others were popularized later. The time of the most influential recordings of a song, where appropriate, is indicated on the list.
A period known as the "Jazz Age" started in the United States in the 1920s. Jazz had become popular music in the country, although older generations considered the music immoral and threatening to old cultural values. Dances such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom were very popular during the period, and jazz bands typically consisted of seven to twelve musicians. Important orchestras in New York were led by Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman and Duke Ellington. Many New Orleans jazzmen had moved to Chicago during the late 1910s in search of employment; among others, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band and Jelly Roll Morton recorded in the city. However, Chicago's importance as a center of jazz music started to diminish toward the end of the 1920s in favor of New York. (Full article...)
Influenced in part by Evans, who had been a member of the ensemble in 1958 and was called back for this album, Davis departed further from his early hard bop style in favor of greater experimentation with musical modes, as on the title track of his previous album, Milestones (1958). Basing Kind of Blue entirely on modality, he gave each performer a set of scales that encompassed the parameters of their improvisation and style and consequently more creative freedom with melodies; Coltrane later expanded on this modal approach in his own solo career. (Full article...)
The music of New Orleans assumes various styles of music which have often borrowed from earlier traditions. New Orleans, Louisiana, is especially known for its strong association with jazz music, universally considered to be the birthplace of the genre. The earliest form was dixieland, which has sometimes been called traditional jazz, 'New Orleans', and 'New Orleans jazz'. However, the tradition of jazz in New Orleans has taken on various forms that have either branched out from original dixieland or taken entirely different paths altogether. New Orleans has also been a prominent center of funk, home to some of the earliest funk bands such as The Meters. (Full article...)
The word "trombone" derives from Italian tromba (trumpet) and -one (a suffix meaning "large"), so the name means "large trumpet". The trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like the trumpet, in contrast to the more conical brass instruments like the cornet, the flugelhorn, the baritone, and the euphonium. The most frequently encountered trombones are the tenor trombone and bass trombone. These are treated as non-transposing instruments, reading at concert pitch in bass clef, with higher notes sometimes being notated in tenor clef. They are pitched in B♭, an octave below the B♭ trumpet and an octave above the B♭ bass tuba. The once common E♭ alto trombone became less common as improvements in technique extended the upper range of the tenor, but it is regaining popularity for its lighter sonority. In British brass-band music the tenor trombone is treated as a B♭ transposing instrument, written in treble clef, and the alto trombone is written at concert pitch, usually in alto clef. (Full article...)
The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works (songs or albums) containing quality contemporary jazz performances. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by The Recording Academy to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
Originally called the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance, the award was first presented to the Manhattan Transfer in 1992. From 1993 to 1994 the category was known as Best Contemporary Jazz Performance (Instrumental), from 1995 to 2000 the name changed to Best Contemporary Jazz Performance, and since 2001 the name of the category has been Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Until 2001, both albums and singles were eligible for this award. According to the category description guide for the 52nd Grammy Awards, the award is presented for albums containing "at least 51% playing time of newly recorded contemporary jazz instrumental tracks". Beginning in 2001, award recipients included the producers, engineers, and/or mixers associated with the nominated work in addition to the recording artists. (Full article...)
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'Round About Midnight is a studio album by the jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis with his quintet. It was released through Columbia Records in March 1957, and is Davis's first record on the label. The recording took place at Columbia's New York studio in three sessions between October 1955 and September 1956. (Full article...)
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"Ory's Creole Trombone" is a jazz composition by Kid Ory. Ory first recorded it in Los Angeles in 1921 (or 1922, according to other sources). The band included Ory on trombone, Mutt Carey on cornet, Dink Johnson on clarinet, Fred Washington on piano, Ed Garland on bass and Ben Borders on drums. The recording of "Ory's Creole Trombone" was released by John and Reb Spikes' short-lived Sunshine Records label. It was the first issued recording session by an African American jazz band from New Orleans. (Contrary to sometimes repeated misinformation that it marked the first jazz recording made by a black orchestra that honor goes to Wilbur Sweatman. ) Other numbers recorded the same day included "When You're Alone Blues", "Krooked Blues", "Society Blues", "That Sweet Something Dear", "Maybe Some Day" and "Froggie Moore".
Ory's band was called Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra, but they used the name "Spike's Seven Pods of Pepper Orchestra" for the Sunshine recordings. The label also released the same records credited to the Sunshine Band. According to Reb Spikes, recording studio owner Arne Nordskog first put his own Nordskog labels on the produced records; Spikes then had to paste the Sunshine label over Nordskog's. The original records have become collector's items. In many cases the Sunshine label has eroded and parts of the Nordskog label can be seen beneath it. (Full article...)
Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical approach and purity of tone, with such clarity of sound that one contemporary famously described it like "shooting bullets at a bell”. His solos on seminal recordings such as "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927) demonstrate a gift for extended improvisation that heralded the jazz ballad style, in which jazz solos are an integral part of the composition. Moreover, his use of extended chords and an ability to improvise freely along harmonic as well as melodic lines are echoed in post-WWII developments in jazz. "In a Mist" (1927) is the best known of Beiderbecke's published piano compositions and the only one that he recorded. His piano style reflects both jazz and classical (mainly impressionist) influences. All five of his piano compositions were published by Robbins Music during his lifetime. (Full article...)
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Publicity portrait, c. 1940s
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. (Full article...)
He was the leader of the Pat Metheny Group (1977–2010) and continues to work in various small-combo, duet, and solo settings, as well as other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, latin jazz, and jazz fusion. He has three gold albums and 20 Grammy Awards, and is the only person to have won Grammys in 10 categories. (Full article...)
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Davis in his New York City home, c. 1955–1956; photograph by Tom Palumbo
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.
Born into an upper-middle-class family in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis started on the trumpet in his early teens. He left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records, and recorded the album 'Round About Midnight in 1955. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish music-influenced Sketches of Spain (1960), and band recordings, such as Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959). The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, having sold over five million copies in the U.S. (Full article...)
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Jarrett in August 1975
Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also been a group leader and solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, including Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.
His album The Köln Concert, released in 1975, is the best-selling piano recording in history. In 2008, he was inducted into DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll. (Full article...)
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Miller in 2004
Mulgrew Miller (August 13, 1955 – May 29, 2013) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by Ramsey Lewis and then Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in his playing, but he added the greater harmonic freedom of McCoy Tyner and others in developing as a hard bop player and then in creating his own style, which influenced others from the 1980s on.
After leaving university he was pianist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for three years, then accompanied vocalist Betty Carter. Three-year stints with trumpeter Woody Shaw and with drummer Art Blakey's high-profile Jazz Messengers followed, by the end of which Miller had formed his own bands and begun recording under his own name. He was then part of drummer Tony Williams' quintet from its foundation, while continuing to play and record with numerous other leaders, mostly in small groups. (Full article...)
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Richard Powell (September 5, 1931 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He was not assisted in his musical development by Bud, his older and better known brother, but both played predominantly in the bebop style.
After early work around Philadelphia and New York City, Richie Powell played in the bands of Paul Williams (1951–52) and Johnny Hodges (1952–54). He switched in the spring of 1954 to being pianist and arranger for the quintet co-led by trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummer Max Roach. This band toured extensively across the U.S. for two years, and released both studio and concert recordings, including the Grammy Hall of Fame inductee Clifford Brown & Max Roach. (Full article...)
Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As of June 2024, he has won 27 Grammy Awards and was nominated 72 times for the award. (Full article...)
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Reinhardt in 1946
Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django (French:[dʒãŋɡoʁɛjnaʁt] or [dʒɑ̃ɡoʁenɑʁt]), was a Belgian-French Manouche or Sinti jazz guitarist and composer. Since he was born on Belgian soil, in Liberchies, he is also often named a Belgian musician. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most significant exponents.
With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. The group was among the first to play jazz that featured the guitar as a lead instrument. Reinhardt recorded in France with many visiting American musicians, including Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter, and briefly toured the United States with Duke Ellington's orchestra in 1946. He died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in 1953 at the age of 43. (Full article...)
Mehldau studied music at The New School, touring and recording while still a student. He was a member of saxophonist Joshua Redman's quartet in the mid-1990s, and has led his own trio since the early 1990s. His first long-term trio featured bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy; in 2005 Jeff Ballard replaced Rossy. These bands have released more than a dozen albums under the pianist's name. (Full article...)
After graduating from Oxford University in 1943 with a first in English Language and Literature, Larkin became a librarian. It was during the thirty years he worked with distinction as university librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull that he produced the greater part of his published work. His poems are marked by what Andrew Motion calls "a very English, glum accuracy" about emotions, places, and relationships, and what Donald Davie described as "lowered sights and diminished expectations". Eric Homberger (echoing Randall Jarrell) called him "the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket"—Larkin himself said that deprivation for him was "what daffodils were for Wordsworth". Influenced by W. H. Auden, W. B. Yeats, and Thomas Hardy, his poems are highly structured but flexible verse forms. They were described by Jean Hartley, the ex-wife of Larkin's publisher George Hartley (the Marvell Press), as a "piquant mixture of lyricism and discontent". Anthologist Keith Tuma writes that there is more to Larkin's work than its reputation for dour pessimism suggests. (Full article...)
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Parker at the Three Deuces jazz club, New York, 1947
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazzsaxophonist, bandleader, and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. He was a virtuoso and introduced revolutionary rhythmic and harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Parker was primarily a player of the alto saxophone.
Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer. (Full article...)
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Spanier performing at Nick's Tavern, New York, c. June 1946
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (/ɡɪˈlɛspi/gil-ESP-ee; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazztrumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality have made him an enduring icon.
This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk·contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged or categorized (e.g. Category:WikiProject Jazz articles) correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.
Afro-Cuban jazz is the earliest form of Latin jazz. It mixes Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban music has deep roots in African ritual and rhythm. The genre emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauzá and Frank Grillo "Machito" in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans in New York City. In 1947, the collaborations of bebop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, such as the tumbadora and the bongo, into the East Coast jazz scene. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as "Manteca" and "Mangó Mangüé", were commonly referred to as "Cubop" for Cuban bebop.
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