You Gotta Know These 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. Davis’s 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 Davis’s Second Great Quintet (1960s) featured Herbie Hancock on piano and Wayne Shorter on sax and formed the core of the group that recorded Davis’s album In a Silent Way, which marked Davis’s first use of electric instruments and first venture into a more rock-and-roll fusion aesthetic. Davis’s 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. Coltrane 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 features chords that move down by major thirds (and which became known as the Coltrane changes) and a sax solo that led Coltrane’s 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. Coltrane experienced a religious awakening while overcoming his addiction to heroin; his album A Love Supreme concludes with Coltrane “narrating” the words of a devotional poem via his sax playing. Following his death at age 40, Coltrane was named a saint of the African Orthodox Church.
- Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) was a renowned cornet and trumpet player, nicknamed “Satchmo” and “Pops.” Armstrong grew up in New Orleans and is among the best-known performers of the Dixieland style of jazz. Armstrong 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 Armstrong. The Hot Five’s recording of the track features Armstrong’s scat singing, or singing using random, nonsense syllables. Armstrong 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. Parker was nicknamed “Bird” or “Yardbird”; although the origins of this nickname are disputed, one popular tale involves Parker cooking and eating a chicken that had been hit by a bus. Parker referenced his nickname in the titles of many of his compositions, such as “Ornithology,” “Yardbird Suite,” and “Bird Gets the Worm.” Parker’s recording of his composition “Ko-Ko” features Miles Davis on trumpet; his composition features a chord progression that heavily uses ii-V-I progressions and has become known as the Bird blues or the Bird changes. Parker 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. Ellington often collaborated with arranger Billy Strayhorn, who wrote what would become Ellington’s signature tune, (whose title refers to how to travel to Sugar Hill in Harlem). Ellington’s 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.” Ellington also performed and popularized works by his band’s members, such as trombonist Juan Tizol’s track “Caravan.” Ellington’s 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, Brubeck led the eponymous Dave Brubeck 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, Brubeck’s 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 a work in 5/4 time written by Paul Desmond. Brubeck continued to explore unusual time signatures on the follow-up albums Time Further Out (1961) and Time Changes (1964). Brubeck’s 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. Goodman 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 best-known from a 1937 recording featuring an extended drum solo by Gene Krupa. Goodman 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. Goodman 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. Gillespie notably performed using a trumpet whose bell was bent upwards; according to Gillespie, 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. Gillespie’s composition “Salt Peanuts” features him yelling the title nonsense scat lyrics during the tune. Gillespie’s other bebop compositions that became jazz standards include and “Groovin’ High.” Gillespie’s 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. Mingus’s 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 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. Mingus’s 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, Mingus 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. Rich did not read music; he learned completely by ear. Rich 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. Rich 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. Rich’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 Rich’s signature pieces.
This article was contributed by ÎÞÓǶÌÊÓƵ member Jason Thompson.