Steve Davis is an American jazz trombonist.
Kenny Garrett is an American post-bop jazz musician and composer who gained recognition in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and for his time with Miles Davis's band. His primary instruments are alto and soprano saxophone and flute. Since 1985, he has pursued a solo career.
Christian McBride is an American jazz bassist, composer and arranger. He has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman, and is an eight-time Grammy Award winner.
Edgar Gómez is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist, known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio from 1966 to 1977.
Chris Potter is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist.
Kenny Barron is an American jazz pianist, who has appeared on hundreds of recordings as leader and sideman and is considered one of the most influential mainstream jazz pianists since the bebop era.
Cyrus Chestnut is an American jazz pianist, composer and producer. In 2006, Josh Tyrangiel, music critic for Time, wrote: "What makes Chestnut the best jazz pianist of his generation is a willingness to abandon notes and play space."
Lawrence Sam "Larry" Goldings is an American jazz keyboardist and composer. His music has explored elements of funk, blues, and fusion. Goldings has a comedic alter ego known as Hans Groiner.
Terell Stafford is a professional jazz trumpet player and current Director of Jazz Studies at the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University.
Stefon DeLeon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist.
Rodney Whitaker is an American jazz double bass player and educator.
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.
Gary Smulyan is a jazz musician who plays baritone saxophone. He studied at Hofstra University before working with Woody Herman. He leads a trio with bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Kenny Washington.
Chick Corea (1941–2021) was an American jazz pianist and composer born on June 12, 1941, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Corea started learning piano at age four. He recorded his first album, Tones for Joan's Bones, in 1966. Corea performed with Blue Mitchell, Willie Bobo, Cal Tjader and Herbie Mann in the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s he performed with Stan Getz and Miles Davis. The National Endowment for the Arts states, "He ranked with Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett as one of the leading piano stylists to emerge after Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, and he composed such notable jazz standards as 'Spain', 'La Fiesta', and 'Windows'."
Willis Robert "Billy" Drummond Jr. is an American jazz drummer.
Adam Cruz is an American jazz drummer from New York City.
Peter Washington is a jazz double bassist. He played with the Westchester Community Symphony at the age of 14. Later he played electric bass in rock bands. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in English Literature, and performed with the San Francisco Youth Symphony and the UC Symphony Orchestra. His growing interest in jazz led him to play with John Handy, Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land, Frank Morgan, Ernestine Anderson, Chris Connor and other Bay Area luminaries. In 1986 he joined Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers and moved to New York City. Beginning in the 1990s, he toured with the Tommy Flanagan trio until Flanagan's death in 2001, and has played with the Bill Charlap trio since 1997. He was a founding member of the collective hard bop sextet One for All and is a visiting artist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Maxjazz was an American jazz record label founded in 1998 by investment banker Richard McDonnell. Maxjazz recordings are generally regarded as a "straight-ahead" acoustic style of jazz. It was based in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2016, Maxjazz was bought by Mack Avenue Records.
Ron Blake is an American saxophonist, band leader, composer, and music educator. Born in the Virgin Islands, he attended Northwestern University, and now lives in New York City. Blake began studying guitar at 8 and turned to the saxophone at 10. He taught at the University of South Florida before moving to New York, where he spent five years in trumpeter Roy Hargrove's quintet, and seven years in flugelhornist Art Farmer's group. He attended the Interlochen Arts Academy. He completed a master's degree at NYU in 2010. Blake co-founded the 21st Century Band and the Tahmun record label with Dion Parson in 1998. He is a member of NBC's Saturday Night Live Band, and the Grammy award-winning Christian McBride Big Band. He is a professor of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School. He has more than sixty credits on his discography as a sideman and continues to work as a performer.
Jeremy Pelt is an American jazz trumpeter.
