Sidney Joseph Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, beating trumpeter Louis Armstrong to the recording studio by several months. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim.
James Louis Johnson was an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.
Lawrence Brown was a jazz trombonist from California who achieved recognition with the Duke Ellington orchestra. Brown worked throughout his career as a session musician, as well as recording his own solo efforts.
David Nathaniel Baker Jr. was an American jazz composer, conductor, and musician from Indianapolis, Indiana, as well as a professor of jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Baker is best known as an educator and founder of the jazz studies program. From 1991 to 2012, he was conductor and musical and artistic director for the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. He has more than 65 recordings, 70 books, and 400 articles to his credit.
Roland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader who rose to fame during the swing era, but whose career and influence were shortened by alcoholism and ended with his early death at age 33 from cirrhosis. Although he composed some jazz instrumentals such as "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues", Berigan was best known for his virtuoso jazz trumpeting. His 1937 classic recording "I Can't Get Started" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975.
Newell "Spiegle" Willcox was a jazz trombonist. He was born Newell Lynn Willcox in upstate New York, and learned valve trombone as a youngster under the tuition of his father, Lynn Willcox, an amateur musician and bandleader. He acquired the familiar nickname Spiegle as a student at the Manlius Military Academy, where he played in the school brass band.
Britt Woodman was a jazz trombonist. He is best known for his work with Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus.
Harlan Leonard was an American jazz bandleader and clarinetist from Kansas City, Missouri.
Jazz guitarists are guitarists who play jazz using an approach to chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fulfilled the roles of accompanist and soloist in small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied solo instrument.
Mike Zwerin was an American cool jazz musician and author. Zwerin as a musician played the trombone and bass trumpet within various jazz ensembles. He was active within the jazz and progressive jazz musical community as a session musician. Zwerin found a way to pursue both his interests as an author living in New York, where he was born, and his passion for music by taking positions as a broadcaster, and other journalistic and media positions while maintaining his musical career as well. Although he gained notoriety for his writing, he may be best known to the public for his work with Miles Davis in 1948 as part of his Birth of the Cool band. Additionally, Zwerin also worked with Maynard Ferguson, Claude Thornhill, Archie Shepp and Bill Russo, among many others.
Nat Towles was an African-American musician, jazz and big band leader popular in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, North Omaha, Nebraska and Chicago, Illinois. He was also music educator in Austin, Texas. The Nat Towles band is considered one of the greatest territory bands of all time by musicians who played in it and by others who heard it.
Mark Daryl Nightingale is an English jazz trombonist/studio musician/composer/arranger.
Dave Robbins (1923–2005) was an American-Canadian trombonist, composer, arranger, and teacher. Born in Greensburg, Indiana, Robbins studied music education at Sam Houston State Teachers' College and the University of Southern California. After a stint in the United States Marine Corps, Robbins worked as a trombonist in symphony orchestras and in Harry James' band (1948–1954). He moved to Vancouver in 1951 and became a Canadian citizen in 1965.
The Bob Cole Conservatory of Music is the school of music at California State University, Long Beach. In March 2008, the music department was renamed the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music in honor of an endowment gift of $16.4 million from the estate of Robert "Bob" Cole. Cole, a Long Beach real estate investor, long-time music lover, and amateur pianist, died in 2004. Following its disbursement, the gift will benefit the students of the conservatory in the form of scholarships and other awards.
Danish Jazz goes back to 1923 when Valdemar Eiberg formed a jazz orchestra and recorded what are thought to be the first Danish jazz records in August 1924. However, jazz in Denmark is typically first dated to 1925, when bandleader Sam Wooding toured in Copenhagen with an orchestra. This was the first time most Danes had heard jazz music. Some prominent early Danish jazz musicians include Erik Tuxen who formed a jazz band and later was named conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra; Bernhard Christensen, an art music composer who incorporated jazz elements into his pieces, and Sven Møller Kristensen, who was the lyricist for many of Bernhard Christensen's pieces and who wrote a book on jazz theory in Danish.
Thamon Hayes was a Dixieland jazz trombonist and composer of the early Kansas City jazz scene, who along with Bennie Moten composed several of the hits of the Bennie Moten's Kansas City Orchestra such as "South" and the original 1927 version of "Moten Swing". He left the band in 1931 to form the Kansas City Rockets, which in 1936 became "Leonard's Rockets". Haye's new band were billed by the Kansas City Call as "the new wonder band of accomplished musicians", and their first performance was met with unprecedented attention in Kansas City driving the crowds wild.
John Bernard Gordon is an American jazz trombonist.
Dave Taylor is an American bass trombonist.
Melton "Shakir" Mustafa Sr. (November 23, 1947 – December 28, 2017) was an American jazz musician, music educator, and arranger who played the trumpet and flugelhorn.
