Artist Index How to use Artist INDEX

Louis Armstrong / Duke Ellington　

Louis Armstrong　

Louis Armstrong was the first important soloist to emerge in jazz, and he became the most influential musician in the music’s history. As a trumpet virtuoso, his playing, beginning with the 1920 ..more

Lionel Hampton　

Lionel Hampton was the first jazz vibraphonist and was one of the jazz giants beginning in the mid-’30s. He has achieved the difficult feat of being musically open-minded (even recording {＆G ..more

Benny Goodman　

Benny Goodman was the first celebrated bandleader of the Swing Era, dubbed The King of Swing, his popular emergence marking the beginning of the era. He was an accomplished clarinetist whose dist ..more

Pete Brown (Jazz)　

Duke Ellington　

Duke Ellington was the most important composer in the history of jazz as well as being a bandleader who held his large group together continuously for almost 50 years. The two aspects of his car ..more

Stan Kenton　

There have been few jazz musicians as consistently controversial as Stan Kenton. Dismissed by purists of various genres while loved by many others, Kenton ranks up there with Chet Baker an ..more

Django Reinhardt　

Django Reinhardt was the first hugely influential jazz figure to emerge from Europe -- and he remains the most influential European to this day, with possible competition from Joe Zawinul, ..more

Glenn Miller　

Glenn Miller’s reign as the most popular bandleader in the U.S. came relatively late in his career and was relatively brief, lasting only about three and a half years, from the spring of 1939 to th ..more

Count Basie　

Count Basie was among the most important bandleaders of the swing era. With the exception of a brief period in the early ’50s, he led a big band from 1935 until his death almost 50 years later, and ..more

Woody Herman　

A fine swing clarinetist, an altoist whose sound was influenced by Johnny Hodges, a good soprano saxophonist, and a spirited blues vocalist, Woody Herman’s greatest significance to jazz ..more

Art Tatum　

Art Tatum was among the most extraordinary of all jazz musicians, a pianist with wondrous technique who could not only play ridiculously rapid lines with both hands (his 1933 solo version of {＆ ..more