Peter Clark Erskine is an American jazz drummer who was a member of the jazz fusion groups Weather Report and Steps Ahead.
Roscoe Mitchell is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". The Penguin Guide to Jazz described him as "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz; All About Jazz stated in 2004 that he had been "at the forefront of modern music" for more than 35 years. Critic Jon Pareles in The New York Times has mentioned that Mitchell "qualifies as an iconoclast". In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Mitchell is known for cofounding the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Myra Melford is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can make the piano stand up and do things it doesn't seem to have been designed for."
The Monterey Jazz Festival is an annual music festival that takes place in Monterey, California, United States. It debuted on October 3, 1958, championed by Dave Brubeck and co-founded by jazz and popular music critic Ralph J. Gleason and jazz disc jockey Jimmy Lyons.
The USC Thornton School of Music is a private music school in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1884 only four years after the University of Southern California, the Thornton School is the oldest continually operating arts institution in Los Angeles. The school is located on the USC University Park Campus, south of Downtown Los Angeles.
Steve Swell is an American free jazz trombonist, composer, and educator.
Tom Varner is an American jazz horn player and composer.
Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway". Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. He was voted Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat magazine international critics' polls in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018. In 2014, he was jointly appointed with tenure to Harvard University's departments of Music and African American Studies as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts.
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.
Alan Pasqua is an American rock and jazz pianist. He studied at Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music. His album Standards with drummer Peter Erskine was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2008. As a session musician, he has toured and recorded with Bob Dylan, Santana, Cher, Michael Bublé, Eddie Money, Allan Holdsworth, Joe Walsh, Pat Benatar, Rick Springfield, and John Fogerty. He co-composed the original CBS Evening News theme. He has also had an extensive career in pop and rock music, most notably as a founding member, keyboardist, and songwriter of the 1980s hard rock band Giant.
Austin Topper Peralta was an American jazz pianist and composer from Los Angeles, California. He was the son of film director and Z-Boys skateboarder Stacy Peralta.
Gerald William Clayton is a Dutch-born American jazz pianist, composer and bandleader.
Karl E. H. Seigfried is a German–American jazz, rock, and classical bassist, guitarist, composer, bandleader, writer and educator based in Chicago.
Melissa Morgan is an American jazz singer.
Ben Wendel is a Grammy nominated jazz saxophonist, bassoonist, and pianist who is a founding member of the band Kneebody. He has worked with Ignacio Berroa, Tigran Hamasyan, Bill Frisell, Terence Blanchard, Antonio Sanchez, Gerald Clayton, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Eric Harland, Moonchild, Louis Cole, Daedelus, Snoop Dogg and the artist formerly known as Prince
Chris Bates is an American jazz bassist. He started studying upright bass in the 4th grade, and he attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He studied with James Clute of the Minnesota Orchestra and jazz bassist Anthony Cox. Beyond his work with jazz, Bates performs in reggae, funk, country, folk and classical styles. He has performed with several notable musicians including Mose Allison, Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, Steven Bernstein, Howard Levy, Ira Sullivan, Eric Alexander, Tim Sparks and Dean Magraw. Bates was a member of the Motion Poets, formed in 1993, which "released three albums to wide critical acclaim." He received a McKnight Composers Fellowship for his compositions in 1999 and has performed on over 30 albums. Bates' first album as leader was released in 2012.
Dayna Stephens is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. In addition to leading his own group, Stephens has performed extensively with Kenny Barron, Ambrose Akinmusire, Taylor Eigsti, Julian Lage, Eric Harland, and Gerald Clayton. Stephens grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Berkeley High School. He went on to study at the Berklee School of Music and later at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.
Fabian Almazan is a jazz pianist and composer born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Miami, Florida.
Darek Oleszkiewicz, also known as Darek Oles, is a jazz bassist, composer, arranger, and educator.
Noah Flynn Kaplan, known professionally as Noah K, is an American composer, saxophonist, and record producer.
