Washington, D.C., has been home to many prominent musicians and is particularly known for the musical genres of Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, bluegrass, punk rock and its locally-developed descendants hardcore and emo, and a local funk genre called go-go. The first major musical figure from District of Columbia was John Philip Sousa, a military brass band composer. Later figures include jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Charlie Rouse, Buck Hill, Ron Holloway, Davey Yarborough, Michael A. Thomas, Butch Warren, and DeAndrey Howard; soul musicians, including Billy Stewart, The Unifics, The Moments, Ray, Goodman & Brown, Van McCoy, The Presidents, The Choice Four, Vernon Burch, guitarist Charles Pitts, and Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul.
Gerald Joseph Mulligan, also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz—Mulligan was also a significant arranger working with Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, and others. His piano-less quartet of the early 1950s with trumpeter Chet Baker is still regarded as one of the best cool jazz ensembles. Mulligan was also a skilled pianist and played several other reed instruments. Several of his compositions including "Walkin' Shoes" and "Five Brothers", have become standards.
The Montreal International Jazz Festival is an annual jazz festival held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Montreal Jazz Fest holds the 2004 Guinness World Record as the world's largest jazz festival. Every year it features roughly 3,000 artists from 30-odd countries, more than 650 concerts, and welcomes over 2 million visitors as well as 300 accredited journalists. The festival takes place at 20 different stages, which include free outdoor stages and indoor concert halls.
CBC Music is a Canadian FM radio network operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It used to concentrate on classical and jazz. In 2007 and 2008, the network transitioned towards a new "adult music" format with a variety of genres, with the classical genre generally restricted to midday hours. In 2009, Radio 2 averaged 2.1 million listeners weekly, and it was the second-largest radio network in Canada.
Spanning all genres and inspirations of jazz, swing, jive, fusion jazz, hot jazz, boogie, diverse cultures and traditions, the Ottawa Jazz Festival has been a trailblazer for more than 40 years in Ottawa, Canada. As the only outdoor music festival in the city's downtown core, Jazz Fest highlights, "a wide range of Canadian and international musical greats to Canada's capital, " as well as, new and emerging talent that covers the spectrum from pop, rock to lush harmonies. As a jazz festival, its core purpose is to provide a diverse range of jazz programming, but also includes music spanning genres such as blues, rock and indie.
Vancouver, British Columbia, is one of Canada's largest cities and foremost cultural centres.
Bradford Alexander Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
R.E. Mountain Secondary is a public high school in northern Langley, British Columbia and is a part of School District 35 Langley. It originally opened in 1977 and was relocated to a new facility in 2019. As of 2014, the school no longer offers Grade 8 as Yorkson Creek Middle School took the position. During the 2020-2021 schoolyear, the administration changed the schedule layout to a quarterly system as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia. In September 2023, R.E. Mountain replaced Killarney Secondary School as the largest high school in British Columbia by enrollment.
Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival is a music festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that started in 1972 from the Ann Arbor Blues Festival, which itself began in 1969. Although the festival has had a tumultuous history and suspended operations in 2006, it was restarted in 2017.
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. He arranged music for Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, and Nancy Wilson.
Jodi Proznick is a Canadian jazz bassist, composer, educator and producer. In 2019, she was named Jazz Artist of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards and has been nominated for three Juno Awards. She is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Arts and Music Awards in 2022 for her contribution to music education in British Columbia.
Clarence Horatius "Big" Miller was an American jazz and blues singer and bassist, chiefly associated with the Kansas City blues style.
Phil Dwyer is a Canadian jazz saxophonist, pianist, composer, producer and educator. In 2017 he graduated from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Faculty of Law in Fredericton, New Brunswick and was called to the bar of British Columbia in 2018. Dwyer is Member of the Order of Canada, having been invested in 2013 "For his contributions to jazz as a performer, composer and producer, and for increasing access to music education in his community." Dwyer has been nominated for Juno Awards six times and won Best Mainstream Jazz Album in 1994 with Dave Young for Fables and Dreams and Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year in 2012 for the recording Changing Seasons. Dwyer has also appeared on Juno Award winning recordings with Hugh Fraser (1988), Joe Sealy (1997), Natalie MacMaster (2000), Guido Basso (2004), Don Thompson (2006), Molly Johnson (2009), Terry Clarke (2010), and Diana Panton (2015). He is an alumnus and Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory of Music.
Laila Biali is a Canadian jazz singer and pianist. She has been nominated for and won a Juno Award and has worked with Chris Botti and Sting.
Internationale Jazzwoche Burghausen, or Burghausen International Jazz Week is a jazz festival in Burghausen, Altötting, Germany. It was founded in 1970 by Joe Viera.
Brad Turner is a Canadian jazz trumpeter and pianist. He has won three Juno Awards and six Canadian National Jazz Awards for categories including Jazz Trumpeter of the Year, Jazz Composer of the Year, and Musician of the Year.
Music of the Pacific Northwest encompasses many musical styles from prehistory to the modern Pacific Northwest.
Eli Bennett is a Canadian Juno Award-nominated jazz saxophonist and Leo Award-winning film composer. He has composed more than twenty film scores and in 2018 received his first Leo Award for Best Musical Score in a Feature Length Documentary for the film Believe: The True Story of Real Bearded Santas. He was also awarded the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal from the Premier of BC for his contribution to the arts in Canada. He is married to violinist and vocalist Rosemary Siemens with whom he records and performs with their instrumental duo SaxAndViolin and in 2019 they performed together at The Vatican.
Terry Robb is a Canadian fingerstyle guitarist, composer, arranger and record producer living in the United States. He plays electric and acoustic guitar, and is associated with the American Primitive Guitar genre through his collaboration with steel string guitarist John Fahey. He is a member of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and Cascade Blues Association Hall of Fame, and was honored with the eponymous "Terry Robb" Muddy Award for Best Acoustic Guitar in 2011. His original compositions draw on the Delta blues, ragtime, folk music, country music and jazz traditions.
Daniel Hersog is a Canadian jazz trumpeter and band leader. He is a member of the faculty at Capilano University and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School of Music. Hersog graduated from Capilano University in 2007, and New England Conservatory in 2016.
