Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and composers in history, with a career spanning three decades and collaborations with other jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Herbie Hancock. Mingus's work ranged from advanced bebop and avant-garde jazz with small and midsize ensembles – pioneering the post-bop style on seminal recordings like Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956) and Mingus Ah Um (1959) – to progressive big band experiments such as The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963).
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1990. The band incorporates krautrock, dub, minimal music, electronica and jazz into their music, a combination sometimes termed "post-rock". Tortoise have been consistently credited for the rise of the post-rock movement in the 1990s.
Nathan is a masculine given name and it's a short form of Jonathan. It is derived from the Hebrew verb נָתָן meaning gave. The meaning of the name in Jewish culture could be rendered "he has given" "gift from God"
Emily the Strange is an illustrated fictional character featured in several comic books, graphic novels and in various merchandise and clothing lines. She was created by Rob Reger for his company Cosmic Debris Etc. Inc. located in San Francisco, California.
Charlie Lee Byrd was an American jazz guitarist. Byrd was best known for his association with Brazilian music, especially bossa nova. In 1962, he collaborated with Stan Getz on the album Jazz Samba, a recording which brought bossa nova into the mainstream of North American music.
Benjamin A. Weinman is an American musician, film composer, and music manager, most notable for being the lead guitarist and primary songwriter of the mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan. He was the founder and sole constant member through the band's career (1997–2017), and is currently playing rhythm guitar with the crossover thrash band Suicidal Tendencies and the progressive rock supergroup Giraffe Tongue Orchestra.
Bradford Alexander Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Marjorie Weinman Sharmat was an American children's writer. She wrote more than 130 books for children and teens and her books have been translated into several languages. They have won awards including Book of the Year by the Library of Congress or have become selections by the Literary Guild.
Marc Simont was a Paris-born American artist, political cartoonist, and illustrator of more than a hundred children's books. Inspired by his father, Spanish painter Joseph Simont, he began drawing at an early age. Simont settled in New York City in 1935 after encouragement from his father, attended the National Academy of Design with Robert McCloskey, and served three years in the military.
Craig Marvin Taborn is an American pianist, organist, keyboardist and composer. He works solo and in bands, mostly playing various forms of jazz. He started playing piano and Moog synthesizer as an adolescent and was influenced at an early stage by a wide range of music, including by the freedom expressed in recordings of free jazz and contemporary classical music.
Satoshi Inoue is a jazz guitarist. Jim Hall calls his former protégé, "an excellent jazz guitarist with a keen musical imagination."
Bruce Degen is an American illustrator and writer with over forty children's books to his credit. He may be known best for illustrating The Magic School Bus, a picture book series written by Joanna Cole. He has collaborated with writers Nancy White Carlstrom, on the Jesse Bear books, and Jane Yolen, on the Commander Toad series. He has written and self-illustrated Jamberry, Daddy Is a Doodlebug, and Shirley's Wonderful Baby.
John Paul "Bucky" Pizzarelli was an American jazz guitarist.
Kelly Oechsli was an American illustrator of children's books. He illustrated Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock books, as well as children's encyclopediae such as the young children's encyclopedia.
Nate the Great is a series of 30 children's detective stories written by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat featuring the eponymous boy detective, Nate the Great. Sharmat and illustrator Marc Simont inaugurated the series in 1972 with Nate the Great, a 60-page book published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. Simont illustrated the first twenty books, to 1998, and the last ten were illustrated by Martha Weston, Jody Wheeler, or Olga and Aleksey Ivanov "in the style of Marc Simont." Some of the titles were jointly written with Sharmat's sister Rosalind Weinman, husband Mitchell Sharmat or sons Craig Sharmat and Andrew Sharmat. Regarding the series Marjorie Sharmat calls husband Mitchell "always my first editor, and it's been a very happy collaboration".
John Altman is an English film composer, music arranger, orchestrator and conductor.
Craig Safan is an American composer for film and television, whose biggest scores include The Last Starfighter, Angel, Mr. Wrong, Stand and Deliver, Fade to Black, Major Payne, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, and music to the TV series Cheers, for which he won numerous ASCAP awards. His style consists of often improvising as a form of composition as a means to quickly express himself.
Logan Richardson is an alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and producer.
Denise Brunkus is an American illustrator of children's picture books. She has illustrated more than 60 books, including the Junie Beatrice Jones series and Read All About It! by Laura and Jenna Bush.
Imaginary Cities is a 2015 studio album by American jazz saxophonist Chris Potter, his second released on the ECM label. Featuring the return of his ‘Underground’ quartet with keyboardist Craig Taborn, guitarist Adam Rogers and drummer Nate Smith along with vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist Scott Colley, bass guitarist Fima Ephron and a string quartet.
