- Maxi Jazz
Maxi Jazz (born Maxwell Fraser on 14 June, 1957 in London) is an English Soka Gakkai Buddhist rapper. He is best known for being the lead vocalist in Faithless - Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse (born 14 September, 1983) is an English soul, jazz and R&B singer and songwriter. Her debut album, "Frank" (released in 2003) was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Winehouse is a two-time Ivor Novello Award winner; once in 2004 for her debut single "Stronger than Me" and again in May 2007 for the first single "Rehab" from her 2006 internationally acclaimed second album "Back to Black". - Jazz
Jazz is a fictional character Transformer who has appeared in multiple toy lines and series. For trademark reasons, Jazz is sometimes referred to as Autobot Jazz or Meister, his Japanese name. - Jazz
"Jazz" (1947) is a book of about one hundred prints based on paper cutouts by Henri Matisse. Tériade, a noted 20th century art publisher, arranged to have Matisse's cutouts rendered as pochoir (stencil) prints. - Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 - September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, widely considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. A trumpeter, bandleader and composer, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s. He played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz records. He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, … - Marian McPartland
Marian McPartland (b. March 20, 1918), born Margaret Marian Turner, is a jazz pianist, violinist and host of Mary McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio born in Slough, England. High-profile jazz critic Scott Yanow has said that McPartland is "...a harmonically sophisticated improviser, open to the influence of later stylists including Bill Evans." - Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, and poet who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most recognized work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal documentarian and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", … - Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was an African American jazz composer, pianist, and band leader who has been one of the most influential figures in jazz, if not in all American music. As a composer and a band leader especially, Ellington's reputation has increased since his death, with thematic repackagings of his signature music often becoming best-sellers. A man of suave demeanor and puckish wit that masked occasional brusqueness, … - Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong (4 August, 1901 - July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo and Pops, was an American jazz musician. Armstrong was a charismatic, innovative performer whose inspired improvised soloing was the main influence for a fundamental change in jazz, shifting its focus from collective melodic playing, often arranged in one way or another, to the solo player and improvised soloing. One of the most famous jazz musicians of the 20th century, … - Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12 1940 in Chicago, Illinois) is an Academy Award and multiple Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer. Hancock is one of jazz music's most important and influential pianists and composers. He embraced elements of rock, funk, and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet", Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, … - John Coltrane
John William Coltrane, nicknamed Trane, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Although recordings of his work from as early as 1946 exist, Coltrane's recording career did not begin in earnest until 1955. From 1957 onward he recorded and produced dozens of albums, many of them not released until years after his death. - Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 - May 14, 1998) was an American jazz oriented popular singer and Academy Award-winning actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid 1940s, being the idol of the 'bobby soxers'. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. - Neil Young
Neil Percival Young OM (born November 12, 1945, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and film director from Omemee, Ontario. His work is characterized by deeply personal lyrics, distinctive guitar work, and an instantly recognizable nasal tenor (and frequently alto) singing voice. - Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Hendrix is considered one of the greatest and most influential guitarists in rock music history. After initial success in England, he achieved worldwide fame following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival before his death in 1970, at the age of 27. A self-taught guitarist, … - Charlie Parker
Charles "Bird" Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 - March 12, 1955) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Early in his career Parker was dubbed "Yardbird" (there are many contradictory stories of the name's origin). It was later shortened to "Bird" and remained Parker's nickname for the rest of his life and inspiration for the titles of his works, such as "Yardbird Suite" and "Bird Feathers". - John Mayer
John Mayer (b. Calcutta, Bengal, British India, October 28, 1930; d. United Kingdom, March 9, 2004) was an Indian composer known primarily for his fusions of jazz with Indian music. He was born into an Anglo-Indian family and, after studying with Phillipe Sandre in Calcutta and Melhi Mehta in Bombay, he won a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Music in 1952, where he studied comparative music and religion in eastern and western cultures. - Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 - June 15, 1996), also known as "Lady Ella" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century. With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was noted for her purity of tone, near faultless phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. - Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan and later called Lady Day, was an American jazz singer. - Tom Waits
Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by one critic as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock styles such as blues, jazz, and Vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, … - Prince La La
Prince La La born Lawrence Nelson (1936 - 1963), from the Ninth Ward district of New Orleans, was a songwriter and vocalist who released a couple of classic R&B recordings before his death from a drug overdose at 27. Lawrence Nelson was born into a family rooted in the rich musical tradition of New Orleans. His father, Walter Nelson, was a noted jazz and R&B guitarist who played with R&B pioneer Smiley Lewis. - Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 - February 17, 1982) was a jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire (including his classic works "'Round Midnight" and "Blue Monk"). He is often regarded as a founder of bebop, although his playing style evolved away from the form. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, … - Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (born June 12, 1941) is a multiple Grammy Award winning American jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer. He is arguably best known for his work during the 1970s in the genre of jazz fusion, although his contributions to straight-ahead jazz have been tremendous. He participated in the birth of the electric fusion movement as a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, and in the 1970s formed Return to Forever. - Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce Metheny (born August 12, 1954 in Lee's Summit, Missouri) is an American jazz guitarist. He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works, and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-Bop, jazz-rock fusion, and folk-jazz. - Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 - December 4, 1993) was an American composer, guitarist, singer, film director, and satirist. In his more than 30-year long career, Frank Zappa established himself as one of the most prolific and distinctive musician-composer-band leaders of his era. Zappa worked in almost every musical genre and wrote music for rock bands, jazz ensembles, synthesisers and symphony orchestra, as well as radiophonic works constructed from pre-recorded, … - Bill Evans
William John Evans (better known as Bill Evans) (August 16, 1929 - September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist and one of the most famous of the 20th century; he remains one of the major influences on post-1950s jazz piano. His use of impressionist harmony, his inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire and his syncopated and polyrhythmic melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists, including Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, … - Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American R&B, Pop and Gospel singer, songwriter, and pianist. She has been called for many years "The Queen Of Soul", but many also call her "Lady Soul," as well as the more affectionate "Sister Ree." She is renowned for her soul recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, gospel, and even opera. She is generally regarded as one of the greatest vocalists ever, … - Bill Evans
Bill Evans (born February 9, 1958 in Clarendon Hills, Illinois) is an American jazz saxophonist. He plays primarily tenor and soprano saxophones. Evans attended North Texas State University and William Paterson University, where he studied with Dave Liebman, a Miles Davis alumnus. In the early to mid-1980s, Evans played with Davis and was instrumental in his musical comeback. Evans is not related to jazz pianist Bill Evans, who played with Davis in the 1950s. - Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21 1917 - January 6 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer, and composer. He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina. Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. In addition to featuring in these epochal moments in jazz, he was instrumental in founding Afro-Cuban jazz, the modern jazz version of the "Spanish Tinge". Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, … - Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC (born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943) is a Canadian musician, songwriter, and painter. Mitchell grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Mitchell's singing, over several decades, began in small nightclubs and busking on the streets of Toronto and in her native Western Canada. She subsequently became associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City. - Wynton Marsalis
Jazz musician, trumpeter, composer, bandleader, advocate for the arts, and educator, Wynton Marsalis has helped propel jazz to the forefront of American culture. His prominent position in American culture was solidified in April 1997, when he became the first jazz artist to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his work Blood on the Fields , which was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center. - Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 - May 13, 1988) was an American jazz musician. - Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC, CQ, O.Ont. (b. August 15, 1925, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. Oscar Peterson is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest jazz piano players of all time. His virtuosity and command of the piano have routinely stunned audiences worldwide for more than fifty years. - Diana Krall
Singer/pianist Diana Krall got her musical education when she was growing up in Nanaimo, British Columbia, from the classical piano lessons she began at age four and in her high school jazz band, but mostly from her father, a stride piano player with an extensive record collection. "I think Dad has every recording Fats Waller ever made," she said, "and I tried to learn them all." - George Benson
George Benson (b. March 22 1943, Pittsburgh) is an American musician, whose recording career began at the age of 21 as a jazz guitarist. He is however, better known to the public at large as a Pop/R&B singer, famous for such hits as "Give Me The Night", "Lady Love Me (One More Time)", "Turn Your Love Around", "In Your Eyes" and "This Masquerade", among others. - Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (born August 25 1933) is an American jazz composer and saxophonist. Commonly regarded as one of the more important American jazz sax players and composers since the 1960s, Shorter has recorded dozens of albums as a leader, and appeared on dozens more with others. Many of his compositions have become standards. - Stan Getz
Stanley Gayetsky, usually known by his stage name Stan Getz, was an American jazz musician. Known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, Getz's prime influence was the wispy, mellow tone of his idol, Lester Young. In 1986, however, Getz said: "I never consciously tried to conceive of what my sound should be..." - Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Although she disliked being categorized, Simone is generally classified as a jazz musician. Her work covers an eclectic variety of musical styles, such as jazz, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and even pop music. Her vocal style is characterized by passion, breathiness, and tremolo. Simone recorded over 40 live and studio albums, … - Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman, born Benjamin David Goodman, (May 30, 1909 - June 13, 1986) was an American jazz musician, known as "King of Swing", "Patriarch of the Clarinet", "The Professor", and "Swing's Senior Statesman". - Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus, also known as Charlie Mingus, was an American jazz bassist, composer, bandleader, and occasional pianist. He was also known for his activism against racial injustice. Mingus is highly ranked among the composers and performers of jazz, and he recorded many highly regarded albums. Dozens of musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. - Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Sonny Rollins has had a long, productive career in jazz, beginning his career at the age of 11 and playing with piano legend Thelonious Monk before reaching the age of 20. Rollins is still touring and recording today, having outlived several of his jazz contemporaries such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Art Blakey, all performers with whom he recorded.
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