We offer brief sketches of the work and biographies of the world jazz stars and legendary jazz musicians.
Albert Eiler is an American free-jazz and avant-garde saxophonist, singer and composer.
Anthony Braxton – American composer and multi-instrumentalist (saxophone, clarinet, piano and flute), known in the free-jazz genre, music educator and university lecturer.
Arthur Blakey – popular jazz drummer of the second half of the 20th century, famous as one of the “fathers” of bebop, played in an aggressive swing manner. Blakey first came to prominence when he played with the Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine big bands in the 1940s. He continued to take off, collaborating with such jazz greats as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. In the mid-50s Art Blakey and Horace Silver formed the legendary Jazz Messengers with the famous drummer playing for 35 years.
Arthur “Art” Tatum (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz composer and pianist. Experimentalist and innovator, possessor of phenomenal “Stride” style performance technique – which involves changing the harmony of standards, using scales and arpeggios of the entire keyboard. It is believed that it was his way of playing that anticipated the emergence of the harmonic language of bebop.
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday, American vocalist of the “golden era of jazz.” Born in April 1915, she died in July 1959. She was not only a performer but also a songwriter. Her friend and collaborator on stage, Lester Young, coined the vivid stage name “Lady Day” for her, which would go on to make her a part of American and world jazz history. Billie Holiday had a huge impact not only on jazz vocals, but on the development of world pop music as well.
Marshall Checker, one of the legendary Checker Brothers, first discovered them in the rough blues clubs of Chicago’s South Side in 1969 and helped them during the big break nine years later by introducing them to music industry coryphaeus and Rock Concert show host, Don Kirchner. It’s not really all true, but that’s what Paul Schafer told the world’s Saturday Night Live show on April 22, 1978, announcing the debut of a guest band, the Blues Brothers, a not entirely real, not entirely fake musical creation of SNL members…
Robert “Bobby” McFerrin is an American jazz singer and conductor and ten-time Grammy Award winner.
Col Chader – American jazz vibraphonist, drummer, pianist, percussionist, best known for his work in Latin jazz.
Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Edderly – jazz alto saxophonist who played hard bop.
Charlie Haden is an American jazz double bassist and composer. He went down in jazz history as a contrabass pioneer.