Charlie Haden　

As a member of saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s early bands, bassist Charlie Haden became known as one of free jazz’s founding fathers. Haden has never settled into any of jazz’s many styl ..more

Lauren Henderson　

Wynton Kelly　

A superb accompanist loved by Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley, Wynton Kelly was also a distinctive soloist who decades later would be a strong influence on Benny Green. He grew up in B ..more

Hirotake Izumi　

Brian Bromberg　

A very versatile acoustic and electric bassist capable of playing straight-ahead jazz, funk, and fusion, Brian Bromberg is also one of the few bassists to master the tapping technique made ..more

Mahavishnu Orchestra　

One of the premiere fusion groups, the Mahavishnu Orchestra were considered by most observers during their prime to be a rock band, but their sophisticated improvisations actually put their h ..more

Duke Pearson　

Duke Pearson was an accomplished, lyrical, and logical -- if rather cautious -- pianist who played a big part in shaping the Blue Note label’s hard bop direction in the 1960s as a producer. He w ..more

Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand)　

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 hi ..more

Cecil Taylor　

Soon after he first emerged in the mid-’50s, pianist Cecil Taylor was the most advanced improviser in jazz; five decades later he is still the most radical. Although in his early days he used ..more

John Surman　

John Surman was one of the very few saxmen in England to find a significant rock audience during the late ’60s, playing gigs regularly at venues like the Marquee Club in London. Also a clarinetist ..more

John Zorn　

The one word virtually everyone can agree on in any discussion of the work of composer John Zorn is prolific in the strictest sense of the definition. Though he didn’t begin making records until ..more

Bill Evans / Jim Hall　

Azymuth　

Brazilian electrified trio Azymuth called their music samba doido, which means crazy samba. The actual sounds, though, were not so crazy： the intelligent, high-voltage blend of Brazilian r ..more

Andrew Hill　

Andrew Hill was a great and even groundbreaking composer and pianist, yet the relatively circumscribed scale of his innovations might have originally caused him to get lost in the shuffle of the ’6 ..more

Jean-Luc Ponty　

It has been a long, fascinating odyssey for Jean-Luc Ponty, who started out as a straight jazz violinist only to become a pioneer of the electric violin in jazz-rock in the ’70s and an inspir ..more

Return To Forever　

Jazz keyboard player Chick Corea’s Return to Forever emerged as one of the key jazz-rock fusion bands of the 1970s. Like Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, they were formed by an ..more

One For All　

Hearkening back to the classic ’60s Blue Note-style jazz sextets popularized by drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, One for All is one of the foremost mainstream jazz ensembles to ..more

Grover Washington Jr.　

One of the most popular saxophonists of all time, Grover Washington, Jr. was long the pacesetter in his field. His roots were in R＆B and soul-jazz organ combos, but he also fared very well on ..more

Keith Jarrett / Gary Peacock / Jack Dejohnette　

Barney Wilen　

Barney Wilen’s mother was French, his father a successful American dentist-turned-inventor. He grew up mostly on the French Riviera; the family left during World War II but returned upon its conclu ..more