Jazz Musicians!

Miles Davis (1926–1991)

was a trumpeter who developed or influenced the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, hard bop, electronic jazz, and jazz fusion over his long career.

His 1959 modal jazz album Kind of Blue—which he recorded with the members of his First Great Quintet (which generally existed in the later 1950s), including John Coltrane—is widely considered to be the greatest jazz recording of all time. It includes the track “So What.”

His Second Great Quintet (1960s) featured Herbie Hancock on piano and Wayne Shorter on sax and formed the core of the group that recorded his album In a Silent Way, which marked his first use of electric instruments and first venture into a more rock-and-roll fusion aesthetic. This musicians early career was marked by his struggles with heroin addiction. His other notable albums include Sketches of Spain and Birth of the Cool.

John Coltrane (1926–1967)

was a saxophonist who was an influential figure in hard bop and modal jazz.

This man played saxophone on many other musicians’s landmark albums; for example, he was the tenor sax player on Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue. His own major albums included Giant Steps, whose title track features chords that move down by major thirds (and which became known as the [Last Name] changes) and a sax solo that led his playing to be described as “sheets of sound.” Coltrane’s quartet, which usually included pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, produced the album My Favorite Things, whose title track is a cover of a song from The Sound of Music. This musician experienced a religious awakening while overcoming his addiction to heroin; his album A Love Supreme concludes with him “narrating” the words of a devotional poem via his sax playing. Following his death at age 40, he was named a saint of the African Orthodox Church.

Louis Armstrong (1901–1971)

was a renowned cornet and trumpet player,nicknamed “Satchmo” and “Pops.” He grew up in New Orleans and is among the best-known performers of the Dixieland style of jazz.

He got early experience playing in bands led by Kid Ory and King Oliver before heading up his own group known as the “Hot Five,” whose members included both Kid Ory and Armstrong’s then-wife, pianist Lil Hardin [Last Name]. The Hot Five’s recording of the track “Heebie Jeebies” features his scat singing, or singing using random, nonsense syllables. He was a renowned vocalist as well as instrumentalist, with his recordings of the songs “What a Wonderful World” and “Hello, Dolly!” His notable instrumental jazz compositions include “Potato Head Blues.”

Charlie Parker (1920–1955)

was an alto saxophone virtuoso who helped develop the jazz style known as bebop, which generally featured a fast tempo, rapid modulations, and thicker chords than the earlier swing style. Nicknamed “Bird” or “Yardbird”; although the origins of this nickname are disputed, one popular tale involves him cooking and eating a chicken that had been hit by a bus. He referenced his nickname in the titles of many of his compositions, such as “Ornithology,” “Yardbird Suite,” and “Bird Gets the Worm.” His recording of his composition “Ko-Ko” features Miles Davis on trumpet; his composition “Blues for Alice” features a chord progression that heavily uses ii-V-I progressions and has become known as the Bird blues or the Bird changes. He died at the age of 34 following a long history of drug and alcohol abuse.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899–1974)

was a pianist and bandleader who wrote and recorded some of the most popular jazz standards of all time. He often collaborated with arranger Billy Strayhorn, who wrote what would become Ellington’s signature tune, “Take the ‘A’ Train” (whose title refers to how to travel to Sugar Hill in Harlem). His other compositions that became jazz standards include “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Mood Indigo,” and “Prelude to a Kiss.” He also performed and popularized works by his band’s members, such as trombonist Juan Tizol’s track “Caravan.”

His work as a composer extended beyond his own concert works: he wrote the score for the 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder.

Dave Brubeck (1920–2012)

was a pianist whose lengthy career helped define the style of cool jazz.

For most of his career, he led an eponymous Quartet; the quartet’s best known lineup, from the late 1950s through the 1960s, included Paul Desmond (sax), Eugene Wright (bass), and Joe Morello (drums). With this lineup, the quartet recorded the landmark 1959 album Time Out, which utilized non-traditional time signatures inspired by the folk music of Eastern Europe and Asia.

The album’s best-known track is “Take Five,” a work in 5/4 time written by Paul Desmond. This musician continued to explore unusual time signatures on the follow-up albums Time Further Out (1961) and Time Changes (1964). His own notable compositions include “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” which subdivides measures of 9/8 time into a “2+2+2+3” grouping.

Benny Goodman (1909–1986)

was a clarinetist nicknamed the “King of Swing” for his association with the style.

He made more impact on jazz as a bandleader and performer of the works of others rather than as a composer himself; his orchestra’s signature tune was Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing),” best-known from a 1937 recording featuring an extended drum solo by Gene Krupa. He led his band in a landmark 1938 concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the first time a jazz band had ever played in the venue; the event was widely seen as “legitimizing” jazz as a genre.

Though he did not limit himself to performing only jazz music: he was the clarinet soloist at the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s work Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs, and he commissioned Aaron Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917–1993)

was a trumpet player who was a leading figure in the development of bebop

Notably performed using a trumpet whose bell was bent upwards; according to him, his standard trumpet was damaged by someone falling on it in 1953, causing the bell to bend, and he liked the way it changed the instrument’s tone.

He was also notable for performing with puffed-out cheeks. His composition “Salt Peanuts” features him yelling the title nonsense scat lyrics during the tune. His other bebop compositions that became jazz standards include “A Night in Tunisia” and “Groovin’ High.” The 1947 work “Manteca,” which he co-wrote with percussionist Chano Pozo, was a landmark in Afro-Cuban jazz, the first genre of jazz to integrate Latin rhythms and influences.

Charles Mingus (1922–1979)

is arguably the most influential player of the double bass in the history of jazz. His compositions often feature sections of free improvisation, in which the musicians improvise without any planned chord changes or formal structure.

His 1959 album Mingus Ah Um includes his work “Fables of Faubus,” a protest against Arkansas governor Orval Faubus’s resistance to school integration—though Columbia Records refused to allow the lyrics to be included on the album. His other albums include The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, a single continuous piece originally conceived as a ballet. Near the end of his life, he was diagnosed with ALS, which eventually left him unable to perform in the years before his death.

Buddy Rich (1917–1987)

was a drummer and big band leader renowned for his near-perfect playing technique.

This musician did not read music; he learned completely by ear. He did not form his own big band until the mid-1960s; prior to this, he played drums for many of jazz’s other greats, including Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and Artie Shaw. He often engaged in “drum battles” with other jazz drummers, most notably Gene Krupa and Max Roach; he also appeared on an episode of the TV series The Muppets to engage in a drum battle with Animal. This man’s recordings with his own big band include the 1968 album Mercy, Mercy (whose title is a reference to the Cannonball Adderley hit “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”) and the 1975 album Big Band Machine, which included a version of the West Side Story melody that was one of his signature pieces.