Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington.
Arturo Sandoval is a Cuban-American jazz trumpeter, pianist, timbalero, and composer. While living in his native Cuba, Sandoval was influenced by jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1977 he met Gillespie, who became his friend and mentor and helped him defect from Cuba while on tour with the United Nations Orchestra. Sandoval became an American naturalized citizen in 1998. His life was the subject of the film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000) starring Andy García.
Kurt Elling is an American jazz singer and songwriter.
John Carl Hendricks, known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American trumpeter, pianist and composer. A jazz musician, he has also composed film scores and operas. He started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed on more than fifty. A frequent collaborator with director Spike Lee, he has been nominated for two Academy Awards for composing the scores for Lee's films BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He has won five Grammy Awards from fourteen nominations.
Rufus Reid is an American jazz bassist, educator, and composer.
Amir ElSaffar is an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. His compositions combine jazz, classical, and traditional Arabic music.
Helen Sung is an American jazz pianist.
Jimmy Owens is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, among many others. Since 1969, he has led his own group, Jimmy Owens Plus.
Ambrose Akinmusire is an American avant-garde jazz composer and trumpeter.
Orbert C. Davis is an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader.
The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is a non-profit music education organization founded in 1986. Before 2019, it was known as the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, but was then renamed after its longtime board chairman, Herbie Hancock.
The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk is a box set by American jazz pianist Thelonious Monk compiling his recordings for Blue Note first released as a limited four-LP box set on Mosaic Records in 1983 before being issued as a four-CD box set by Blue Note for the first time in 1994 as The Complete Blue Note Recordings.
Javon Anthony Jackson is an American jazz tenor saxophonist, bandleader, and educator. He first became known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1987 until Blakey's death in 1990. and went on to release 22 recordings as a bandleader and tour and record on over 150 CDs with jazz greats including Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden, Betty Carter, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Stanley Turrentine and Ben E. King.
Dominick Farinacci is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He is currently signed to the Mack Avenue label. Farinacci was one of eighteen artists worldwide invited to be a part of the inaugural class of the Jazz Studies Program at The Juilliard School. Farinacci has won the "International New Star Award", Disney's "New Star Award", and topped the charts as one of Japan's No. 1 jazz musicians.
To Diz with Love is a live album by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie with an array of guest stars recorded at the Blue Note in 1992 and released on the Telarc label. The album, along with To Bird with Love and Bird Songs: The Final Recordings, represent the last recordings made by the trumpeter before his death in 1993.
John Daversa is an American jazz trumpeter, electronic valve instrument (EVI) player, composer, arranger, conductor, bandleader, producer and educator.
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.
Memories of T is an album by Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet, led by drummer Ben Riley. His second release as a leader, it was recorded during 2003 and 2005 at Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and was issued on CD in 2006 by Concord Jazz. On the album, Riley is joined by saxophonists Bruce Williams, Jimmy Greene, Wayne Escoffery, and Jay Brandford, trumpeter Don Sickler, guitarist Freddie Bryant, and double bassists Kiyoshi Kitagawa and Peter Washington. The title of the album refers to Thelonious Monk, with whom Riley played and recorded, and the recording features eleven Monk compositions.
Joel Ross is an American jazz vibraphonist currently living in Brooklyn. Born and raised in Chicago, he was introduced to music by playing drums at his father's church, and got a musical education in high school and college. He later moved to New York City, where he developed into a professional jazz musician, signing with Blue Note Records.
