Sarah Vaughan　

Possessor of one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century, Sarah Vaughan ranked with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday in the very top echelon of female jazz singers. She often gav ..more

Chick Corea　

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 musi ..more

Stan Getz　

One of the all-time great tenor saxophonists, Stan Getz was known as The Sound because he had one of the most beautiful tones ever heard. Getz, whose main early influence was Lester Young, ..more

George Benson　

George Benson is simply one of the greatest guitarists in jazz history, but he is also an amazingly versatile musician, and that frustrates to no end critics who would paint him into a narrow {\ ..more

Wes Montgomery　

Wes Montgomery was one of the great jazz guitarists, a natural extension of Charlie Christian, whose appealing use of octaves became influential and his trademark. He achieved great commercia ..more

Pat Metheny　

Guitar legend Pat Metheny is known for his original and genre-breaking music and emotional tone that can be recognized easily. In fact, his music is so inclusive that classifying him as jazz musician ..more

Dizzy Gillespie　

Dizzy Gillespie’s contributions to jazz were huge. One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best), Gillespie was such a complex player that his contemporaries en ..more

Jimmy Smith　

Jimmy Smith wasn’t the first organ player in jazz, but no one had a greater influence with the instrument than he did; Smith coaxed a rich, grooving tone from the Hammond B-3, and his sound and ..more

Art Pepper　

Despite a remarkably colorful and difficult life, Art Pepper was quite consistent in the recording studios; virtually every recording he made is well worth hearing. In the 1950s, he was one of the ..more

Norah Jones　

Vocalist and pianist Norah Jones developed a unique blend of jazz and traditional vocal pop, with hints of bluesy country and contemporary folk, due in large part to her unique upbringing. The daug ..more

McCoy Tyner　

It is to McCoy Tyner’s great credit that his career after John Coltrane has been far from anti-climatic. Along with Bill Evans, Tyner has been the most influential pianist in jazz of th ..more

Horace Silver　

From the perspective of the 21st century, it is clear that few jazz musicians had a greater impact on the contemporary mainstream than Horace Silver. The hard bop style that Silver pioneer ..more

Lee Morgan　

A cornerstone of the Blue Note label roster prior to his tragic demise, Lee Morgan was one of hard bop’s greatest trumpeters, and indeed one of the finest of the ’60s. An all-around master of ..more

Sonny Clark　

Like Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker before him, Sonny Clark’s life was short but it burned with musical intensity. Influenced deeply by Bud Powell, Clark nonetheless developed an intri ..more

Weather Report　

Weather Report started out as a jazz equivalent of what the rock world in 1970 was calling a supergroup. But unlike most of the rock supergroups, this one not only kept going for a good ..more

Donald Byrd　

Donald Byrd was considered one of the finest hard bop trumpeters of the post-Clifford Brown era. He recorded prolifically as both a leader and sideman from the mid-’50s into the mid-’60s, most o ..more

Dexter Gordon　

Dexter Gordon had such a colorful and eventful life (with three separate comebacks) that his story would make a great Hollywood movie. The top tenor saxophonist to emerge during the bop era and ..more

Sadao Watanabe　

Art Blakey / Jazz Messengers　

Wayne Shorter　

Though some will argue about whether Wayne Shorter’s primary impact on jazz has been as a composer or as a saxophonist, hardly anyone will dispute his overall importance as one of jazz’s leading fi ..more