Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Jr. is an American singer, pianist, composer, actor, and former television host. As of 2019, he has sold over 30 million records worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 16 million in certified sales. He has had seven top 20 U.S. albums, and ten number-one U.S. jazz albums, earning more number-one albums than any other artist in U.S. jazz chart history as of 2009.
Wynton Learson Marsalis is an American trumpeter, composer, and music instructor, who is currently the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has been active in promoting classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his oratorio Blood on the Fields was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Marsalis is the only musician to have won a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical categories in the same year.
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. She is one of the most successful female jazz singers and has been described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating blues, country, and folk music into her work. She has won numerous awards, including two Grammys, and was named "America's Best Singer" by Time magazine in 2001.
Kenneth David Kirkland was an American pianist and keyboardist.
Jason Marsalis is an American jazz drummer, vibraphone player, composer, producer, band leader, and member of the Marsalis family of musicians. He is the youngest son of Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis and the late Ellis Marsalis, Jr.
Jazz is a 2001 television documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns. It was broadcast on PBS in 2001 and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Its chronological and thematic episodes provided a history of jazz, emphasizing innovative composers and musicians and American history.
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. was an American jazz pianist and educator. Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of the musical Marsalis family, when sons Branford and Wynton became popular jazz musicians.
Regina Carter is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter.
A Duo Occasion is live performance video with Harry Connick Jr. on piano and Branford Marsalis on saxophone(s), released on DVD in November 2005. It was recorded at the Library and Archives Canada as part of the 25th anniversary of the Ottawa Jazz Festival on June 24, 2005.
Straight-ahead jazz is a genre of jazz that developed in the 1960s, with roots in the prior two decades. It omits the rock music and free jazz influences that began to appear in jazz during this period, instead preferring acoustic instruments, conventional piano comping, walking bass patterns, and swing- and bop-based drum rhythms.
Wycliffe A. Gordon is an American jazz trombonist, arranger, composer, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate-conservatory level. Gordon also sings and plays didgeridoo, trumpet, soprano trombone, tuba, and piano. His nickname is "Pinecone".
Claudia Acuña is a Chilean jazz vocalist, songwriter, and arranger.
Moacir Santos was a Brazilian composer, multi-instrumentalist and music educator. Musicians such as Baden Powell, Bola Sete and Wilson das Neves studied under him. As a composer, Santos worked with Nara Leão, Roberto Menescal, Sérgio Mendes and Lynda Laurence, among others. His music was highly respected by musicians in Brazil and the United States, despite never achieving wider recognition.
Robert Hurst is an American jazz bassist.
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque. From 1992 to 1995 he led the Tonight Show Band.
Andrew Shapter was an American film director, producer, writer and photographer. Shapter is known for his documentaries, Before the Music Dies (2006) and Happiness Is (2009), his feature film The Teller and the Truth (2015), his music videos with Willie Nelson and The Roots, and his U.N. Summit video on refugees, Refugees Are... Shapter was a partner at the creative production company Roadwings Entertainment, which has offices in Austin, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.
Happiness Is is a 2009 documentary film that the examines the different interpretations of the "pursuit of happiness" in America. The film features interviews with notable personalities such as the Dalai Lama, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp as well as happiness authors Daniel Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin and Darrin McMahon. It's the second film from director and writer Andrew Shapter.
Joel Rasmussen is a Montana born filmmaker, author, and producer. He produced and co-wrote Before the Music Dies, a 2006 documentary, narrated by Forest Whitaker that examines the homogenization of the music industry. Rasmussen and the film's director, Andrew Shapter spent a year traveling across the U.S. interviewing hundreds of people in the music business. The film features interviews and performances from such musicians and groups as Doyle Bramhall II, Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis, Elvis Costello, and Bonnie Raitt He is the CEO and Co-founder of Fantrail.
The Teller and the Truth is an American docudrama. about the disappearance of bank teller Francis Wetherbee. The Teller and the Truth is directed, co-written, and co-edited by Andrew Shapter, and was shot over a period of five years, in part, while Shapter underwent radiation and chemotherapy.
Sacred jazz is jazz composed and performed with religious intent.
