Harry Haag James was an American musician who is best known as a trumpet-playing band leader who led a big band from 1939 to 1946. He broke up his band for a short period in 1947 but shortly after he reorganized and was active again with his band from then until his death in 1983. He was especially known among musicians for his technical proficiency as well as his tone, and was influential on new trumpet players from the late 1930s into the 1940s. He was also an actor in a number of films that usually featured his band.
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader.
Downtempo is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may be played in chillout clubs or as "warm-up or cool-down" music during a DJ set. Examples of downtempo subgenres include trip hop, ambient house, chillwave, psybient and lo-fi hip hop.
In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse, of the mensural level. The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music, or the numbers a musician counts while performing, though in practice this may be technically incorrect. In popular use, beat can refer to a variety of related concepts, including pulse, tempo, meter, specific rhythms, and groove.
Roy Owen Haynes is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jazz drumming. "Snap Crackle" was a nickname given to him in the 1950s.
Arthur Edward Pepper Jr. was an American alto saxophonist and very occasional tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. Active in West Coast jazz, Pepper came to prominence in Stan Kenton's big band. He was known for his emotionally charged performances and several stylistic shifts throughout his career, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as having "attained his goal of becoming the world's great altoist" at the time of his death.
DownBeat is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the "downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure.
The Four Freshmen is an American male vocal quartet that blends open-harmonic jazz arrangements with the big band vocal group sounds of The Modernaires, The Pied Pipers, and The Mel-Tones, founded in the barbershop tradition. The singers accompany themselves on guitar, horns, bass, and drums, among other instrumental configurations.
Mulgrew Miller was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by Ramsey Lewis and then Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in his playing, but he added the greater harmonic freedom of McCoy Tyner and others in developing as a hard bop player and then in creating his own style, which influenced others from the 1980s on.
Robert Broom Jr. is an American jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. He was born and raised in New York City, then moved to Chicago, which has been his home town since 1984. He performs and records with The Bobby Broom Trio and his organ group, The Bobby Broom Organi-Sation. While versed in the traditional jazz idioms, Broom draws from a variety of American music forms, such as funk, soul, R&B, and blues.
Nik Bärtsch is a Swiss pianist, composer, bandleader, record producer and author from Zürich.
Noah Preminger is an American jazz saxophonist.
Ferit Odman is a jazz drummer based in Istanbul, Turkey.
Michael Blum is an American record producer, singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 2020, he was named an inaugural recipient of ASCAP's Peggy Lee Songwriter Award, and he was named the "Rising Star" guitarist in the 63rd Annual Critics Poll in DownBeat magazine.
Matthew Stevens is a Canadian jazz guitarist and composer.
Jazzmeia Horn is an American jazz singer and songwriter. She won the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition in 2015. Horn's repertoire includes jazz standards and covers of songs from other genres, including by artists such as Stevie Wonder. She has been compared to jazz vocalists such as Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan, and Nancy Wilson.
Daniel Greco Costa is a British-Italian-Portuguese pianist and composer, known for his original work and for his collaborations with artists such as Randy Brecker, John Patitucci, Mike Stern, Hermeto Pascoal, Dave Liebman, Ivan Lins, Seamus Blake, Dave Douglas, Romero Lubambo, Leila Pinheiro, Marcos Suzano, Jaques Morelenbaum and Roberto Menescal. His music has been featured by publications such as DownBeat and Rolling Stone.
Dr. Wallace Harris Long, Jr. is an American choral conductor, educator, and vocalist. He was director of choral activities at Willamette University from 1983 to 2020, founded the Willamette Master Chorus and conducted the group from 1985 to 1998, and was a member of Male Ensemble Northwest. Long has been called "a world-class conductor" and "the ultimate professor, scholar and community-builder".
Dezron Lamont Douglas is an American jazz double bassist, composer, and producer. He has produced for Louis Hayes, and Brandee Younger.
Majid Bekkas, also known as Abdelmajid Bekkas, is a Moroccan musician on guembri, oud, guitar and vocals, who is internationally known for his contributions to World music and Ethno jazz with North African roots.
