Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player and a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. A native of Key West, Florida, he toured with big bands before achieving fame as a bebop trumpeter in New York. Following a series of studio sessions with leading bebop figures including Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Kenny Clarke, he became ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of 26. Despite the short duration of his career, he had a strong stylistic influence on trumpet players who rose to fame in later decades, including Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan.
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards.
Donald Johnson Ellis was an American jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and bandleader. He is best known for his extensive musical experimentation, particularly in the area of time signatures. Later in his life he worked as a film composer, contributing a score to 1971's The French Connection and 1973's The Seven-Ups.
Chieli Minucci is an American guitarist who co-founded the band Special EFX.
Pete Candoli was an American jazz trumpeter. He played with the big bands of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton and worked in the studios of the recording and television industries.
Steven Bernstein is an American trumpeter, slide trumpeter, arranger/composer and bandleader based in New York City. He is best known for his work in The Lounge Lizards, Sex Mob, Spanish Fly and the Millennial Territory Orchestra. Sex Mob's 2006 CD Sexotica was nominated for a Grammy.
Eric Revis is a jazz bassist and composer. Revis came to prominence as a bassist with singer Betty Carter in the mid-1990s. Since 1997 he has been a member of Branford Marsalis's ensemble.
Donald Harrison Jr. is an African-American jazz saxophonist and the Big Chief of The Congo Square Nation Afro-New Orleans Cultural Group from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Wayne Bergeron is an American jazz trumpeter.
Russell Malone is an American jazz guitarist. He began working with Jimmy Smith in 1988 and went on to work with Harry Connick Jr. and Diana Krall throughout the 1990s.
James Robert Rotondi was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator, and conductor.
Lee Townsend is an American independent music producer, curator, artist manager and co-owner of Songtone, specializing in recordings of singer-songwriters, contemporary composers, improvising musicians, and cross-cultural musical collaborations. He is also a psychotherapist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Hugh Ragin is an American jazz trumpeter.
Cecil Brooks III is an American jazz drummer and record producer who has worked with Arthur Blythe, Russell Gunn, John Hicks, Andrew Hill, Etta Jones, Roseanna Vitro, Hannibal Lokumbe, and Jimmy Ponder.
Günter Neuhold is an Austrian conductor.
Ali Jackson Jr. is an American drummer, musician, composer, arranger, educator, and percussionist. Son of Ali Jackson. Jackson started playing drums at the age of 2.
Snarky Puppy is an American jazz fusion band led by bassist Michael League. Founded in 2004, Snarky Puppy combines a variety of jazz idioms, rock, world music, and funk and has won five Grammy Awards. Although the band has worked with vocalists, League described Snarky Puppy as "a pop band that improvises a lot, without vocals".
David Weiss is a jazz trumpeter and the founder of The New Jazz Composers Octet.
James Maurice Hurt Jr is an American jazz pianist.
Derek Roy Watkins was an English jazz, pop, and classical trumpeter. Best known for his lead trumpet work on the soundtracks of James Bond films, Watkins recorded with British jazz bandleaders as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and The Beatles. Dizzy Gillespie called him "Mr. Lead".
