Jamshied Sharifi is an American composer and musician. He was born in Topeka, Kansas to an Iranian father and an American mother. At an early age, Sharifi was exposed to Jazz and Middle Eastern music by his father and to European classical and church music by his mother. He began to study classical piano at age five and quickly developed a thirst for musical instruction and a desire to improvise. At age nine he began studying guitar and drums, and at age ten added flute.
John Scofield, sometimes referred to as "Sco", is an American guitarist and composer whose music over a long career has blended jazz, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul and rock. He first came to mainstream attention in the band of Miles Davis, and has toured and recorded with many prominent jazz artists, including saxophonists Eddie Harris, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson and Joe Lovano; keyboardists George Duke, Joey DeFrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Larry Goldings and Robert Glasper; fellow guitarists Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie, Pat Martino and Bill Frisell; bassists Marc Johnson and Jaco Pastorius; and drummer Billy Cobham and Dennis Chambers. Outside the world of jazz, he has collaborated with Phil Lesh, Mavis Staples, John Mayer, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Gov’t Mule.
James Price Johnson was an American pianist and composer. A pioneer of stride piano, he was one of the most important pianists in the early era of recording, and like Jelly Roll Morton, one of the key figures in the evolution of ragtime into what was eventually called jazz. Johnson was a major influence on Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, Thelonius Monk, and Fats Waller, who was his student.
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea was an American jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist, 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 jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
The Concierto de Aranjuez is a concerto for classical guitar by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is by far Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the 20th century.
Boris Claudio "Lalo" Schifrin is an Argentine pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor. He is best known for his large body of film and TV scores since the 1950s, incorporating jazz and Latin American musical elements alongside traditional orchestrations. He is a five-time Grammy Award winner; he has been nominated for six Academy Awards and four Emmy Awards.
Scott Healy is an American pianist, keyboardist and composer best known as the keyboardist for Conan O'Brien. He was the keyboard player for the Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band on Conan on TBS. His association with O'Brien dates back to the original Late Night with Conan O'Brien show in 1993, and the subsequent The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. He was nominated for a Grammy for 'Best Instrumental Composition' for 'Koko On The Boulevard'
George Whitty is an American musician, composer, record producer, audio engineer and music educator, currently living near Los Angeles, California, United States. He won an Emmy Award in 2014 for his work as a composer for the television series, All My Children, and produced three Grammy Award winning CDs. Whitty was nominated for Emmy Awards for his composing on the long-running TV shows One Life to Live and As the World Turns.
Douglas Clare Fischer was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University, he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group the Hi-Lo's in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Donald Byrd and Dizzy Gillespie, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the Latin jazz standard "Morning", and the jazz standard "Pensativa". Consistently cited by jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock as a major influence, he was nominated for eleven Grammy Awards during his lifetime, winning for his landmark album, 2+2 (1981), the first of Fischer's records to incorporate the vocal ensemble writing developed during his Hi-Lo's days into his already sizable Latin jazz discography; it was also the first recorded installment in Fischer's three-decade-long collaboration with his son Brent. Fischer was also a posthumous Grammy winner for ¡Ritmo! (2012) and for Music for Strings, Percussion and the Rest (2013).
Bill Anschell is a jazz pianist and composer. He has recorded seven CDs as a leader, and performed or recorded with many jazz greats. His original compositions and piano work are prominently featured on Freelon's Grammy Award-nominated recording Shaking Free and her CBS recordings Heritage and Listen. His own CDs have received extensive national airplay and critical acclaim. His compositions have appeared in many films and television series, including "The West Wing," "The Wire," "Bloodline," and "NCIS: LA."
Lawrence Sam “Larry” Goldings is an American jazz keyboardist and composer. His music has explored elements of funk, blues, and fusion. Goldings has a comedic alter ego known as Hans Groiner.
Gary Husband is an English jazz and rock drummer, pianist, keyboard player and bandleader. He is also a composer, arranger and producer.
Taylor Eigsti is an American jazz pianist and composer. Eigsti's trio features bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Eric Harland. He is also a member of Eric Harland Voyager, Kendrick Scott Oracle, and Gretchen Parlato's group.
Pascal Le Boeuf is a pianist, composer and producer whose works both solo and with others ranges from modern improvised music to cross-breeding classical with production-based technology.
Michael Bluestein is an American pianist, keyboardist, singer/songwriter, composer and record producer originally from Massachusetts. He has been a member of the rock band Foreigner since 2008, and has been a high-profile touring keyboardist and vocalist since moving to Los Angeles in 2003.
Robert Vernor Hammack, Jr. was an American musician, originally from Texas, whose principal instrument was jazz piano. He led a prolific career in Los Angeles as a pianist, organist, conductor, arranger, and composer in (i) live venues, (ii) broadcast studios for radio and television, and (iii) recording studios for records, radio, television, and film. Hammack flourished in a wide spectrum of genres that included dixieland, Blues, swing, sweet dance music (e.g., Lawrence Welk), easy listening, gospel, liturgical jazz, musical theatre, Tin Pan Alley, classical, and film score.
Jack Cooper is an American composer, arranger, orchestrator, multireedist, and music educator. He has performed with, written music for and recorded by internationally known pop, jazz, and classical artists.
Franklyn Marks was an American composer and arranger, who worked principally in the idioms of film soundtracks and jazz.
Sebastian Zawadzki is a Polish-born jazz pianist, composer and film composer living in Copenhagen who has been releasing albums since 2014 as well as composing and arranging music for a wide array of media including TV and films. In his works he incorporates elements of classical, electronic and jazz music.
