 | | Jazz keyboard player Chick Corea's Return to Forever emerged as one of the key jazz-rock fusion bands of the 1970s. |
 | | Guitarist Todd Clouser is a forward-thinking and adventurous musician with a bent toward modern creative jazz and genre-bending styles of improvised music. |
 | | New York-based drummer and percussionist Dan Weiss' sound is instantly recognizable whenever he plays. |
 | | Easily one of jazz's greatest vibraphonists, Bobby Hutcherson epitomized his instrument in relation to the era in which he came of age the way Lionel Hampton did with swing or Milt Jackson with bop. |
 | | In a profession star-crossed by early deaths -- especially the bebop division -- Max Roach was long a shining survivor, one of the last giants from the birth of bebop. |
 | | A group that effortlessly straddles the gap between avant-garde improvisation and accessible groove-based jazz, Medeski, Martin & Wood have simultaneously earned standings as relentlessly innovative musicians and as an enormously popular act. |
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 | | Composer/hand percussionist Adam Rudolph was born in Chicago in 1955, and as a teen was mentored by the likes of Don Cherry, Fred Anderson, and Maulawi Nururdin. |
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 | | Billy Harper is one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists who actually built upon the master's work, rather than simply copy it. |
 | | Influenced by Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane and Joe Henderson as well as Dexter Gordon, Anton Schwartz is a melodic tenor saxophonist who has played around the San Francisco Bay Area quite a bit in the 1990s. |
 | | Guillermo Klein moved from his native Argentina to Boston in 1990 to study at Berklee College of Music. |
 | | One of the most individual of all altoists (and one of the few in the 1950s who did not sound like a cousin of Charlie Parker), the cool-toned Lee Konitz has always had a strong musical curiosity that has led him to consistently take chances and stretch himself, usually quite successfully. |
 | | Saxophonist and educator David Liebman is a forward-thinking artist whose advanced improvisational style and association with trumpeter Miles Davis in the '70s combined to make him one of the most influential and successful jazz musicians of his generation. |
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 | | Bassist Omer Avital was born in the small Israeli town of Givataim where his formal training began at age 11 when he entered the Givataim Conservatory to study classical guitar. |
 | | At the beginning of the '80s, trumpeter Paolo Fresu attended the Siena Summer Jazz Seminars and amazed Enrico Rava with his creativity, talent, and technique. |
 | | Michael Musillami began his professional career as a respected, straight-ahead mainstream jazz guitarist, but through the years has become a distinct presence on the creative improvisers scene, most notably as a composer. |
 | | An ambitious composer/pianist with a taste for adventure, Myra Melford emerged in the late '80s and early '90s as one of the more highly acclaimed young jazz pianists of the day. |
 | | Chick Corea has been one of the most significant jazzmen since the '60s. Not content at any time to rest on his laurels, he has been involved in quite a few important musical projects, and his musical curiosity has never dimmed. |
 | | One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists, Cecil McBee has played with an enormous variety of artists, and is just as capable in a solo or group improvisational context as he is at offering thoughtfully advanced background support. |
 | | A steady, sympathetic accompanist and solid soloist, bassist John Lindberg's best-known for his work in the String Trio of New York. |
 | | The Rhythmagic Orchestra was founded by Nostalgia 77's Benedic Lamdin and Sofrito's Hugo Mendez as a collaborative project that involved the hottest young players on the U. |
 | | Sisters Euclid is a Toronto jazz quartet led by guitarist Kevin Breit who incorporates roots and rock music elements. |
 | | A masterfully subtle drummer and a superb colorist, Paul Motian was also an advanced improviser and a bandleader with a taste for challenging post-bop. |
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 | | This hugely popular trumpet player (born in Trieste, Italy in 1939) almost single-handedly brought Italian jazz to international attention. |
 | | The melodic sounds of South Africa are fused with the improvisation of jazz and the technical proficiency of classical music by South Africa-born pianist Dollar Brand or, as he's called himself since converting to Islam in 1968, Abdullah Ibrahim. |
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 | | A Canadian jazz guitarist, David Occhipinti has played stages all over the world, and has been nominated for two Juno Awards in his native land. |
 | | Brooklyn resident Jason Moran brings a distinctly artistic touch to his jazz compositions and piano playing. |
 | | Despite a relatively brief career (he first came to notice as a sideman at age 29 in 1955, formally launched a solo career at 33 in 1960, and was dead at 40 in 1967), saxophonist John Coltrane was among the most important, and most controversial, figures in jazz. |
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 | | Joe Chambers is an extremely versatile and tasteful master of all post-bop idioms. Chambers drives an ensemble with a light hand; his time is excellent and his grasp of dynamics superb. |
 | | A talented pianist with a style diverse enough to fit into swing, bop, and more adventurous settings, Roland Hanna was one of the last in an impressive line of great pianists who emerged in Detroit after World War II (including Hank Jones, Barry Harris, and Tommy Flanagan). |
 | | Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel began his professional career in 1990, when he dropped out of Berklee only two and a half years into his college education to go on tour with Gary Burton and his band. |
 | | Although saxophonist, bandleader, and composer Kenny Garrett never had the benefit of a college education, that hasn't hurt his career as a jazz musician one bit. |
 | | French jazz pianist Colin Vallon makes modern creative jazz with plenty of atmosphere and a post-bop sense of improvisation. |
 | | A graduate of the Béla Bartók Conservatory and Franz Liszt Music University (the latter of which he became a faculty member in 2000), Budapest native Kálmán Oláh has long been impressing jazz aficionados worldwide with his own particular style, which blends together elements of Hungarian folk and classical music into more traditional jazz structures. |
 | | An impressive improviser, Jamie Baum's 1997 GM release Sight Unheard helped introduce her talents to a wider jazz audience. |
 | | During the '90s and into the 2000s, Brad Mehldau was one among a plethora of young jazz pianists who rose to prominence. |
 | | All-star post-bop and modern creative jazz trio Fly feature saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard. |
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 | | The four-person collective project known as Floratone is made up of four well-known individual artists: guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Matt Chamberlain, and producers/engineers Lee Townsend and Tucker Martine; all of whom have wide-ranging résumés. |
 | | French pianist, composer, and bandleader Martial Solal's intuitive approach to improvisation has earned him an honored place among the greatest minds in all of jazz. |
