Frank Vincent Zappa was an American musician, composer, songwriter, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his era.
George Washington Benson is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist.
Carlos Humberto Santana Barragánaudio (help·info) is a Mexican and American guitarist who rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock 'n' roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured his melodic, blues-based lines set against Latin American and African rhythms played on percussion instruments not generally heard in rock, such as timbales and congas. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine listed him at No. 20 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists. He has received 10 Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards, and was inducted along with his namesake band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
John Scofield, sometimes referred to as "Sco", is an American jazz-rock guitarist and composer whose music includes bebop, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul, and rock. He has worked with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey DeFrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Eddie Palmieri, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham, Medeski Martin & Wood, George Duke, Jaco Pastorius, John Mayer, Robert Glasper, and Gov't Mule.
José Monserrate Feliciano García, better known simply as José Feliciano[xoˈse feliˈsjano], is a Puerto Rican musician, singer and composer, best known for many international hits, including his rendition of the Doors' "Light My Fire" and the best-selling Christmas single, "Feliz Navidad." His music is known for its fusion of styles—Latin, jazz, blues, soul and rock—created primarily with his unique, signature acoustic guitar sound. His oftentimes mellow easy listening influences are easily recognizable in many songs heard around the world.
Stanley Clarke is an American bassist, film composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jazz-fusion bassist to headline tours, sell out shows worldwide and have recordings reach gold status.
Jazz fusion is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll.
John McLaughlin is an English guitarist, bandleader, and composer. A pioneer of jazz fusion, his music combines elements of jazz with rock, world music, Indian classical music, Western classical music, flamenco, and blues. After contributing to several key British groups of the early 1960s, McLaughlin made Extrapolation, his first album as a bandleader, in 1969. He then moved to the U.S., where he played with Tony Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his electric jazz-fusion albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, and On the Corner. His 1970s electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and rock with Indian influences.
Trevor Charles Rabin is a South African musician, singer-songwriter, producer, and film composer. Born into a musical family and raised in Johannesburg, Rabin took up the piano and guitar at an early age and became a session musician, playing and producing with a variety of artists. In 1972, he joined the rock band Rabbitt who enjoyed considerable success in South Africa, and released his first solo album, Beginnings. In 1978, Rabin moved to London to further his career, working as a solo artist and a producer for various artists including Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues guitarist and singer. He is an exponent of Chicago blues who has influenced generations of guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr. and John Mayer. In the 1960s, Guy played with Muddy Waters as a session guitarist at Chess Records and began a musical partnership with blues harp virtuoso Junior Wells. His popularity did not go mainstream until his promotion by major rockstars finally took hold in the late 1980s.
Rick Derringer is an American guitarist, vocalist, producer and songwriter. He came to prominence in the 1960s as founding member of his band, The McCoys. At that time, they were taken to New York City to record what became the number one hit song "Hang On Sloopy". The McCoys then had seven songs that charted in the top 100, including versions of "Fever" and "Come On Let’s Go".
James Lee Jamerson was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of the Motown Records hits in the 1960s and early 1970s, and is now regarded as one of the most influential bass players in modern music history. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. As a session musician he played on twenty-three Billboard Hot 100 number one hits, as well as fifty-six R&B number one hits.
Don Edward Fagenson, known professionally as Don Was, is an American musician, record producer and record executive. Primarily a bass player, Was co-founded the funk-rock band Was. In later years he produced songs and albums for many popular recording artists. In 2012, he became president of jazz music label Blue Note Records.
Brian Elwin Haner Jr., better known by his stage name Synyster Gates or simply Syn, is an American musician, best known for being the lead guitarist and backing vocalist of heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold. He ranks No. 9 on Guitar World's best metal guitarists of all time. Gates was voted as Best Metal Guitarist in the World by Total Guitar in 2016 and once again in 2017.
William Edward Childs is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger and conductor from Los Angeles, California, United States.
Gerald Stanley Wilson was an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. Born in Mississippi, he was based in Los Angeles from the early 1940s. In addition to being a band leader, Wilson wrote arrangements for Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Nancy Wilson.
Del Castillo is a Latin rock band based in Austin, Texas. The band's name comes from the last name of two brothers, Rick and Mark del Castillo, who founded the group.
Michael Bradford is an American musician. A native of Detroit, Michigan he is known mainly as a bass guitarist but also plays guitar and keyboards, and has done extensive work in music production and engineering. Among others, Bradford has worked with Madonna, Youngstown, Kid Rock and in music for films. He is currently the guitarist for The Felons Club and can be heard on their debut album Welcome to The Club.
Sheila Catherine Landis is an American jazz, R&B vocalist and songwriter.
Detroit Stories is the twenty-first solo and twenty-eighth overall studio album by American singer-songwriter Alice Cooper. The album was released on February 26, 2021, by earMUSIC. The studio album crowned Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart debuting at No. 1. It was the first chart-topper for Cooper in the 29-year history of the Top Album Sales chart. The album was produced by Bob Ezrin, who also appears on the album playing the organ. As a solo album, it incorporates a variety of artists contributing on a number of instruments.
