Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz upright bassist, composer, bandleader, pianist, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians and composers in history, with a career spanning three decades and collaborations with other jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Max Roach, and Eric Dolphy. Mingus's work ranged from advanced bebop and avant-garde jazz with small and midsize ensembles, to pioneering the post-bop style on seminal recordings like Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956) and Mingus Ah Um (1959), and progressive big band experiments such as The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963).
Maxwell Lemuel Roach was an American jazz drummer and composer. A pioneer of bebop, he worked in many other styles of music, and is generally considered one of the most important drummers in history. He worked with many famous jazz musicians, including Clifford Brown, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Abbey Lincoln, Dinah Washington, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, and Booker Little. He also played with his daughter Maxine Roach, Grammy nominated Violist. He was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1992.
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American jazz pianist and composer. A pioneer in the development of bebop and its associated contributions to jazz theory, Powell's application of complex phrasing to the piano influenced both his contemporaries and later pianists including Walter Davis, Jr., Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Barry Harris.
Clifford Benjamin Brown was an American jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", and "Daahoud" have become jazz standards. Brown won the DownBeat magazine Critics' Poll for New Star of the Year in 1954; he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1972.
Henry Mobley was an American tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone, that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Lester Young, and his style that was laid-back, subtle and melodic, especially in contrast with players such as Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. The critic Stacia Proefrock claimed him "one of the most underrated musicians of the bop era." Mobley's compositions include "Double Exposure", "Soul Station", and "Dig Dis".
George Wallington was an American jazz pianist and composer. Born in Sicily, his career as a pianist began in the early 1940s, when he played with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and contributed to the development of bebop. Following several years as a sideman during the late 1940s, he formed his own group, experimenting with trios and a string ensemble before settling upon a permanent quintet.
Julian Priester is an American jazz trombonist and occasional euphoniumist. He is sometimes credited "Julian Priester Pepo Mtoto". He has played with Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Herbie Hancock.
Don Gabriel Pullen was an American jazz pianist and organist. Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career. He composed pieces ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz. The great variety of his body of work makes it difficult to pigeonhole his musical style.
Regina Carter is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter.
Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection.
Jazz at Massey Hall is a live jazz album recorded on 15 May 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada. Credited to "the Quintet", the group was composed of five leading "modern" players of the day: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. It was the only time that the five musicians recorded together as a unit, and it was the last recorded meeting of Parker and Gillespie.
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.
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane is a jazz album by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane. It was released in January 1963 through Impulse! Records.
Alan Douglas Rubenstein was an American record producer from Boston, who worked with Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, Lenny Bruce and the Last Poets. He ran his own record label, Douglas Records.
This is a timeline documenting events of Jazz in the year 1959.
Pre-Bird is an album by jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus consisting of music that was composed before Mingus first heard Charlie Parker, hence the title Pre-Bird. It was released on Mercury Records in September 1961.
Mingus Three is an album by American bassist, composer and bandleader Charles Mingus with pianist Hampton Hawes and drummer Dannie Richmond which was recorded in 1957 and first released on the Jubilee label.
"African Flower" or "Little African Flower" is a composition by jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington. He first recorded it for his 1962 LP Money Jungle. Ellington originally named it "La Plus Belle Africaine" when he composed it for the Negro Arts Festival in Dakar. He can be heard playing it at The English Concert in 1970. He recorded it with Max Roach and Charles Mingus as "La Fleurette Africaine". Writer Peter Lavezzoli calls it "a masterpiece of simplicity and grandeur. Norah Jones recorded it for her 2016 album Day Breaks.
Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue is an album by Terri Lyne Carrington. It was released by Concord Jazz. It won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
Parken is a live album by drummer Han Bennink. It was recorded at Epidemin in Göteborg, Sweden, and was released in 2009 by ILK Music. On the album, Bennink is joined by clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst, pianist Simon Toldam, and, for one track, vocalist Qarin Wikström.
