John Scofield 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.
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.
Michel Camilo is a Grammy-award winning pianist and composer from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He specializes in jazz, Latin and classical piano work. Camilo lists some of his main influences as Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, and Art Tatum.
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 and fusion in her compositions.
Steven Bruce Smith is an American drummer best known as a member of the rock band Journey across three stints: 1978 to 1985, 1995 to 1998 and 2015 to 2020. Modern Drummer magazine readers have voted him the No. 1 All-Around Drummer five years in a row. In 2001, the publication named Smith one of the Top 25 Drummers of All Time, and in 2002 he was voted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Journey on April 7, 2017.
Thomas William Ellis Smith is a Scottish jazz saxophonist, composer, and educator.
Cindy Blackman Santana, sometimes known as Cindy Blackman, is an American jazz and rock drummer. Blackman has recorded several jazz albums as a bandleader and has performed with Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Ron Carter, Sam Rivers, Cassandra Wilson, Angela Bofill, Buckethead, Bill Laswell, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Henderson and Joss Stone.
David Fiuczynski is an American contemporary jazz guitarist, best known as the leader of the Screaming Headless Torsos and David Fiuczynski's KiF, and as a member of Hasidic New Wave. He has played on more than 95 albums as a session musician, band leader, or band member.
Japanese jazz is jazz played by Japanese musicians, jazz connected to Japan or Japanese culture, or both. The term often refers to the history of jazz in Japan, which has the largest proportion of jazz fans in the world, according to some estimates. Jazz was first introduced in Japan in the 1910s through transpacific ocean liners, where Filipino musicians took influences from jazz, with the Philippines being an American colony at the time. Following the music recording industry's rise in the 1920s, the lyrics of popular jazz records like "The Sheik of Araby" and "My Blue Heaven" were translated into Japanese. Jazz was associated with native counterparts to flappers and dandies in Japan, often being played in dance halls. Although considered "enemy music" in Japan during World War II, due to its American roots, the genre was far too popular for the complete ban of the music to be viable, and many disobeyed the state mandated destruction of jazz records. Following the surrender of Japan in the second World War, there was a large demand for entertainment for American troops, and jazz was particularly popular. By the 1970s, the Japanese economic miracle paved way for Japanese jazz musicians to achieve international fame, along with new musical genres such as city pop, kankyō ongaku, and japanese folk music. Japanese jazz musicians also began to evolve past Blue Note mimicry, and instead experimented with free jazz, fusion funk, and bebop, among others. This furthered the distinct sound of Japanese jazz. During the 1980s, digital music technology began to influence the Japanese jazz scene.
Laura Margaret Macdonald is a Scottish alto and soprano saxophonist, composer and teacher, specialising in jazz.
Terri Lyne Carrington is an American jazz drummer, composer, producer, and educator. She has played with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and many others. She toured with each of Hancock's musical configurations between 1997 and 2007.
Laszlo Gardony is a Hungarian-born American jazz pianist and composer. Gardony performs as a solo artist and leads his own trio, quartet and sextet. He is also a featured sideman with several other groups.
Kendrick Scott is an American jazz drummer, bandleader, and composer. He is the founder of the record label World Culture Music.
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.
Time Control is a studio album by Hiromi Uehara’s group, Hiromi’s Sonicbloom. It’s a concept album centered on the idea of time. In addition to Hiromi’s original trio, the album features guitarist David "Fuze" Fiuczynski whose technique and tonal approach gives the album its characteristic sound.
Brain is an album from Hiromi Uehara's first trio featuring bassist Tony Grey and drummer Martin Valihora.
Jorge "Jordi" Rossy is a spanish jazz drummer, pianist and vibraphonist.
Ray Santisi was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, recording artist and educator.
Warren Wolf Jr. is an American jazz vibraphonist from Baltimore, Maryland.
