Ronald "Boo" Hinkson is a guitarist from Saint Lucia who combines jazz with soca music (Caribbean). He started his career by forming the band Tru Tones. His mother plays the guitar, and she was his first teacher. [1] He has been praised by guitarists George Benson and Stanley Jordan. [2] In 2016 he became the first person from Saint Lucia to be a judge at the Grammy Awards. [3]
John Scofield, sometimes referred to as "Sco", 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. Outside the world of jazz, he has collaborated with Phil Lesh, Mavis Staples, John Mayer, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Gov’t Mule.
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.
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim, also known as Tom Jobim, was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger and singer. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian music, Jobim internationalized bossa nova and, with the help of important American artists, merged it with jazz in the 1960s to create a new sound with popular success. As such he is sometimes known as the "father of bossa nova".
Yellowjackets is an American jazz fusion band.
José Fernández Torres, known as Tomatito, is a Spanish roma flamenco guitarist and composer. Having started his career accompanying famed flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla, he has made a number of collaborative albums and six solo albums, two of which have won Latin Grammy Awards.
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.
Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gómez, known as Paco de Lucía, was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of Guitar: Music, History, Players, describe de Lucía as a "titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar", and Dennis Koster, author of Guitar Atlas, Flamenco, has referred to de Lucía as "one of history's greatest guitarists".
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.
Mike Stern is an American jazz guitarist. After playing with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he worked with drummer Billy Cobham, then with trumpeter Miles Davis from 1981 to 1983 and again in 1985. He then began a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums.
The St. Lucia Jazz Festival is an annual event on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia that brings together local and international musicians. The festival presents jazz, R&B, and Calypso music.
Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American trumpeter and composer. 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.
Corinne Jacqueline Bailey Rae is a British singer and songwriter. She is best known for her 2006 single "Put Your Records On". Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2006. She released her debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae, in February 2006, and became the fourth female British act in history to have her first album debut at number one. In 2007, Bailey Rae was nominated for three Grammy Awards and three Brit Awards, and won two MOBO Awards. In 2008, she won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Dame Marie Selipha Descartes, DBE, SLMM, BEM, best known as Sesenne, was a Saint Lucian singer and cultural icon. Singing in her native patois language, at a time when authorities barred its use, Sesenne developed a wide following in the rural area in which she grew up. Patronage by St. Lucia's first woman legislator led to the singer's "discovery" by a cultural preservationist, who in turn introduced Sesenne to an American anthropologist to make recordings of her songs.
The Tru Tones are a Saint Lucian band led by Ronald "Boo" Hinkson. The band formed in the 1960s and had a significant following in the 70s in the United Kingdom. They recorded five albums and several singles, most famously "Hungry Belly', "Burning Eyes" and "Sexy Thing".
Roman Maksimovich Miroshnichenko is a Ukraine-born Russian multi-award winning jazz fusion guitarist, composer, and record producer. He has received numerous accolades, including four The Independent Music Awards, 1st Prize of the USA Songwriting Competition, 1st Prize of the International Acoustic Music Awards, five Global Music Awards and three Hollywood Music in Media Awards nominees.
Ted Nash is an American jazz saxophonist, flutist and composer. Born into a musical family, his uncle was saxophonist Ted Nash and his father is trombonist Dick Nash, both prominent jazz soloists and first call Hollywood studio musicians. Nash is a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra directed by Wynton Marsalis. He is one of the founders of the Jazz Composers Collective.
Ronald Ray Bruner Jr. is an American jazz drummer, composer and producer.
(Yusufu) Quanti Bomani, is an American jazz musician and multi-instrumentalist, composer, lyricist, and the leader of the band Urban Insight Group. His primary instrument is the saxophone. He is also a member of Prodigal Posse, an Eastern Caribbean diaspora band in Dominica that performs worldwide. He is the son of son of Luqman Abdul-Malik and Nana Bomani.
Stephen Lee Bruner, better known by his stage name Thundercat, is an American bass guitarist, singer, songwriter and actor from Los Angeles. First coming to prominence as a member of crossover thrash band Suicidal Tendencies, he has since released four solo studio albums and is noted for his work with producer Flying Lotus and his appearances on Kendrick Lamar's 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly. In 2016, Thundercat won a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Performance for his work on the track "These Walls" from To Pimp a Butterfly. In 2020, Thundercat released his fourth studio album titled It Is What It Is, which earned him a Grammy Award for Best Progressive R&B Album.