This is a list of notable events in music that took place in 1981.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", "500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba" and "Windows" are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis's band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, Corea is considered to have been one of the foremost pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.
Diana Jean Krall is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, including over six million in the US. On December 11, 2009, Billboard magazine named her the second greatest jazz artist of the decade (2000–2009), establishing her as one of the best-selling artists of her time.
Charles Edward Haden was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playing in jazz, evolving a style that sometimes complemented the soloist, and other times moved independently, liberating bassists from a strictly accompanying role.
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist, known for his extensive work with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a founding member of the group that would later develop into the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Samuel Carthorne Rivers was an American jazz musician and composer. Though most famously a tenor saxophonist, he also performed on soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica, piano and viola.
Hiromi Uehara, known professionally as Hiromi, is a Japanese jazz composer and pianist. She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blending of musical genres such as stride, post-bop, progressive rock, classical, nu jazz and fusion in her compositions.
Tenitra Michelle Williams is an American singer and actress. She rose to fame in the early 2000s as a member of R&B girl group Destiny's Child, one of the best-selling female groups of all time with over 100 million records, of which more than 60 million copies sold with the trio lineup that included Williams. During her time in the group she earned several accolades including a Grammy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Diane Joan Schuur, nicknamed "Deedles", is an American jazz singer and pianist. As of 2015, Schuur had released 23 albums, and had extended her jazz repertoire to include essences of Latin, gospel, pop and country music. Her most successful album is Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra, which remained number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 weeks. She won Grammy Awards for best female jazz vocal performance in both 1986 and 1987 and has had three other Grammy nominations.
Jeff Hamilton is an American jazz drummer and co-leader of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. A former member of the L.A. Four, Hamilton has played with jazz pianist Monty Alexander, bandleader Woody Herman, and singer Rosemary Clooney, and has worked extensively with singer Diana Krall.
Roberta Gambarini is an italian-american jazz singer
Ann Richards was an American pop and jazz singer. She was the second wife of bandleader Stan Kenton. She had a short career in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Emily Jordan Bear is an American composer, pianist, songwriter and singer. After beginning to play the piano and compose music as a small child, Bear made her professional piano debut at the Ravinia Festival at the age of five, the youngest performer ever to play there. She gained wider notice from a series of appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show beginning at the age of six. She has since played her own compositions and other works with orchestras and ensembles in North America, Europe and Asia, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, the Montreux Jazz Festival and Jazz Open Stuttgart. She won two Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the youngest person ever to win the award, and also won two Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Awards.
Nicki Richards is an American singer, songwriter, producer and actress based in Manhattan, New York City. She is also known as a backing singer for a number of artists and on a big number of studio recordings. Her father was a high-ranking African-American naval officer and her mother, Donna Blackmon, a singer. Nicki's brother, Philip Richards is a singer / musician in his own right and collaborated with her in her works.
Good Lovelies are a Canadian folk/country harmony trio, consisting of Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Sue Passmore. At their core they can be described as a country/folk trio, with tinges of pop, roots, jazz and sometimes hip-hop mixed in.
Elin Rosseland is a singer, bandleader, and composer who studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music and is known from collaborations with Vigleik Storaas, Johannes Eick, Sidsel Endresen, Eldbjørg Raknes, Christian Wallumrød, and Johannes Eick.
İlhan Erşahin is a Swedish–Turkish musician and bar owner, raised in Stockholm and based in New York City since 1990. As a musician, Ersahin has performed and recorded with various musicians as well as his own projects/bands, Wax Poetic, Love Trio, Our Theory, I Led Three Lives, Wonderland and Istanbul Sessions.
Hannah Welton is an American drummer from Louisville, Kentucky.
Donna Grantis is a Canadian guitarist, best known for performing and recording with Prince & 3rdeyegirl. On September 30, 2014, Prince and 3rdeyegirl released their debut album, Plectrumelectrum, which reached #1 on the Billboard Rock chart. The album's title track, "Plectrumelectrum", was originally written by Grantis and later arranged by Prince. Since 2013, Grantis has been a member of Prince's funk supergroup, The New Power Generation. On November 16, 2018, Grantis released two new songs, “Trashformer” and “Violetta,” featuring Hall of Fame Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, as a limited edition 7” via his vinyl label HockeyTalkter Records. The tracks appear on Grantis’ debut album, Diamonds & Dynamite, released March 22, 2019, via eOne Music. The album and lead track reached #1 on iTunes Canada for top jazz album and top jazz song.
