George Washington Benson is an American jazz fusion guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
Stevland Hardaway Morris, known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. One of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the 20th century, he is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder.
Yusef Abdul Lateef was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Community in the United States.
Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Frank Wellington Wess was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. In addition to his extensive solo work, Wess is remembered for his time in Count Basie's band from the early 1950s into the 1960s. Critic Scott Yanow described him as one of the premier proteges of Lester Young, and a leading jazz flutist of his era—using the latter instrument to bring new colors to Basie's music.
Richard Davis was an American jazz bassist. Among his best-known contributions to the albums of others are Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch!, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure, and Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, of which critic Greil Marcus wrote, "Richard Davis provided the greatest bass ever heard on a rock album."
Debra Renee Laws is an American singer and actress from Houston, Texas. She is best known for her 1981 R&B/soul ballad "Very Special". In her music career, she works closely with her siblings, Eloise Laws, Hubert Laws and Ronnie Laws, who are producers.
David Peter Valentin was an American Latin jazz flautist of Puerto Rican descent.
Barbara Ann "Bobbi" Humphrey is an American jazz flautist and singer. She has recorded twelve albums over the course of her career, mostly playing jazz fusion, funk, and soul-jazz. In 1971, she was the first female instrumentalist signed by Blue Note and in 1994, she founded the jazz label Paradise Sounds Records.
Steve Barta is an American Brazilian jazz pianist, author, educator, composer, arranger, producer. Grammy nominated Pianist is a composer, recording artist, producer, author and educator. He has performed his original works as a solo artist, and with jazz ensembles and symphony orchestras. As a member of Herbie Mann and Jasil Brazz featuring Steve Barta, Steve recorded his widely acclaimed Blue River with this New York based ensemble – an original collection of his Brazilian compositions. His discography includes 15 recordings that reflect his many influences, particularly Brazilian, jazz and classical.
Joseph Benjamin Wilder was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.
Ransom Wilson is an American flutist, conductor, and educator.
Eloise Laws is an American singer and a member of the Laws family of musicians from Houston, Texas.
Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony is an album by Yusef Lateef, released through the record label Rhino Atlantic in 1987. The album, which Billboard described as "an atmospheric four-movement classical/jazz composition", was produced by Lateef, recorded, mixed and mastered by Norman Blain, and remastered by Dennis King. Lateef provided all instrumentation that appears on the album. In 1988, Yusef Lateef's Little Symphony earned Lateef the Grammy Award for Best New Age Album despite having no prior association with the genre.
In the Beginning is a double album by flutist Hubert Laws released on the CTI and recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in 1974. The album was later reissued on CTI as two separate volumes entitled Then There Was Light.
Jazz flute is the use of the flute in jazz music. While flutes were sometimes played in ragtime and early jazz ensembles, the flute became established as a jazz instrument in the 1950s. It is now widely used in ensembles and by soloists. The modern Boehm system transverse concert flute is commonly used in jazz playing; other members of the same family are used, such as the alto flute in G. Ethnic and other flutes, such as bamboo flutes, have also been used in jazz.
Valerie Coleman is an American composer and flutist as well as the creator of the wind quintet Imani Winds. Coleman is a distinguished artist of the century who was named Performance Today's 2020 Classical Woman of the year and was listed as “one of the Top 35 Women Composers” in the Washington Post. In 2019, Coleman's orchestral work, Umoja, Anthem for Unity, was commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Coleman's Umoja is the first classical work by a living African American woman that the Philadelphia Orchestra has performed.
Spirit of the American Range is a classical music album by the Oregon Symphony under the artistic direction of Carlos Kalmar, released by the Dutch record label Pentatone on February 10, 2015. The album was recorded at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon in April 2013 and January 2014. It contains works by three American 20th-century composers: Walter Piston's ballet suite from The Incredible Flutist, George Antheil's "A Jazz Symphony", and Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3. The recording was the third by the orchestra under Kalmar's leadership, following the highly successful Music for a Time of War (2011) and This England (2012). Spirit of the American Range received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Orchestral Performance, and its producer, Blanton Alspaugh, was nominated for Producer of the Year, Classical.
Romeo and Juliet is an album by flutist Hubert Laws. It was released by Columbia Records and spent several weeks on the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart in 1976.
Hubert Laws is an American flutist and saxophonist with a career spanning over 50 years in jazz, classical, and other music genres. He is one of the most recognized and respected jazz flutists in the history of jazz. Laws is one of the few classical artists who has also mastered jazz, pop, and rhythm-and-blues genres, moving effortlessly from one repertory to another.
