|
|
Scott Joplin (1868-1917):
Scott Joplin (November 24, 1868 - April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet (original version of "The Ragtime Dance", 1899/1902), and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Texas. During the late 1880s, he traveled the American South as a musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which helped make ragtime a national craze by 1897. Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894 and worked as a piano teacher. He began publishing music in 1895, and his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame and a steady income. In 1901, Joplin moved to St. Louis and two years later scored his first opera, A Guest of Honor. It was confiscated - along with his belongings - for non-payment of bills and is now considered lost. In 1907, Joplin moved to New York City to (unsuccessfully) find a producer for a new opera. In 1916, Joplin descended into dementia from neurosyphilis. His 1917 death marks the end of the "Ragtime era".
Joplin's music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album recorded by Joshua Rifkin. This was followed by the Academy Award-winning 1973 film The Sting, which featured several of Joplin's compositions. Treemonisha, his second opera, was produced in 1972; and, in 1976, Joplin was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Jelly Roll Morton (1885-1941):
asdf
|
|
|
Willie "The Lion" Smith (1893-1973):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
James P. Johnson (1894-1955):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Earl "Fatha" Hines (1903-1983):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Fats Waller (1904-1943):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Count Basie (1904-1984):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Art Tatum (1909-1956):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981):
Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions). Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie.
In 1922, at the age of 12, Williams went on the Orpheum Circuit of theaters. During the following year she played with Duke Ellington and his early small band, the Washingtonians. One morning at three o'clock, she was playing with McKinney's Cotton Pickers at Harlem's Rhythm Club. Louis Armstrong entered the room and paused to listen to her.
In 1927, Williams married saxophonist John Overton Williams. She met him at a performance in Cleveland where he was leading his group, the Syncopators, and moved with him to Memphis, Tennessee. He assembled a band in Memphis, which included Williams on piano. In 1929, 19-year-old Williams assumed leadership of the Memphis band when her husband accepted an invitation to join Andy Kirk's band in Oklahoma City. Williams joined her husband in Oklahoma City but did not play with the band. The group, Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy, moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Williams, when she wasn't working as a musician, was employed transporting bodies for an undertaker. When the Clouds of Joy accepted a longstanding engagement in Kansas City, Missouri, Williams joined her husband and began sitting in with the band, as well as serving as its arranger and composer. She provided Kirk with such songs as "Froggy Bottom", "Walkin' and Swingin'", "Little Joe from Chicago", "Roll 'Em", and "Mary's Idea".
Williams was the arranger and pianist for recordings in Kansas City (1929) Chicago (1930), and New York City (1930). During a trip to Chicago, she recorded "Drag 'Em" and "Night Life" as piano solos. She used the name "Mary Lou" at the suggestion of Jack Kapp at Brunswick Records. The records sold quickly, raising Williams to national prominence. Soon after the recording session she became Kirk's permanent second pianist, playing solo gigs and working as a freelance arranger for Earl Hines, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. In 1937, she produced In the Groove (Brunswick), a collaboration with Dick Wilson, and Benny Goodman asked her to write a blues song for his band. The result was "Roll 'Em", a boogie-woogie piece based on the blues, which followed her successful "Camel Hop", named for Goodman's radio show sponsor, Camel cigarettes. Goodman tried to put Williams under contract to write for him exclusively, but she refused, preferring to freelance instead.
In 1942, Williams, who had divorced her husband, left the Twelve Clouds of Joy and returned again to Pittsburgh. She was joined there by bandmate Harold "Shorty" Baker, with whom she formed a six-piece ensemble that included Art Blakey on drums. After an engagement in Cleveland, Baker left to join Duke Ellington's orchestra. Williams joined the band in New York City, then traveled to Baltimore, where she and Baker were married. She traveled with Ellington and arranged several tunes for him, including "Trumpet No End" (1946), her version of "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin. She also sold Ellington on performing "Walkin' and Swingin'". Within a year she had left Baker and the group and returned to New York.
Williams accepted a job at the Café Society Downtown, started a weekly radio show called Mary Lou Williams's Piano Workshop on WNEW and began mentoring and collaborating with younger bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. In 1945, she composed the bebop hit "In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee" for Gillespie. "During this period Monk and the kids would come to my apartment every morning around four or pick me up at the Café after I'd finished my last show, and we'd play and swap ideas until noon or later", Williams recalled in Melody Maker.
In 1945, Williams composed the classically-influenced Zodiac Suite, in which each of the twelve parts corresponded to a sign of the zodiac, and were accordingly dedicated to several of her musical colleagues, including Billie Holiday, and Art Tatum. She recorded the suite with Jack Parker and Al Lucas and performed it December 31, 1945, at The Town Hall in New York City with an orchestra and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster.
In 1952, Williams accepted an offer to perform in England and ended up staying in Europe for two years. By this time, her musical career had left Williams mentally and physically drained.
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Teddy Wilson (1912-1986):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Tadd Dameron (1917-1965):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Marian McPartland (1918-2013):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Hank Jones (1918-2010):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
>
rest mouse over image for credits |
Lennie Tristano (1919-1978):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
John Lewis (1920-2001):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Dave Brubeck (1920-2012):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Erroll Garner (1923-1977):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Billy Taylor (1921-2010):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Duke Jordan (1922-2006):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Al Haig (1922-1982):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Red Gardland (1923-1984):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Bud Powell (1924-1966):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Oscar Peterson (1925-2007):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Walter Bishop, Jr. (1927-1998):
Walter Bishop, Jr.
(Biography by Matt Collar)
A gifted journeyman pianist who emerged out of the New York bebop scene, Walter Bishop, Jr. first appeared on numerous modern jazz recordings before leading his vital hard bop sessions. Building upon the influence of Bud Powell, Bishop was noted for his swinging, behind-the-beat style and deft use of tension and release. Following vital recordings with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Stan Getz, he made his solo debut with 1961's Speak Low. He also spent several years on the West Coast, teaching and releasing albums on the Black Jazz label including 1971's Coral Keys. Moving back East, he continued teaching and releasing albums for the last two decades of his life, including 1977's Soul Village, 1988's Just in Time, and 1990's What's New.
Born in 1927 in New York City, Bishop grew up in Harlem's Sugar Hill area, the son of composer Walter Bishop, Sr. He started on piano at a young age and counted among his friends future jazz icons Sonny Rollins, Kenny Drew, and Art Taylor. Influenced by players like Art Tatum, Bud Powell, and Nat King Cole, Bishop started playing jazz and eventually dropped out of high school to play professionally. From 1945 to 1947, he was in the Army Air Corps based near St. Louis. Following his discharge he returned to New York, where he first attracted notice on the Manhattan club circuit. He was part of the vital bebop jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse and recorded early on in 1949 with Milt Jackson and Stan Getz.
From 1951 to 1954, he played and recorded with Charlie Parker, Oscar Pettiford, and Kenny Dorham. He was also a member of Miles Davis' band, appearing on such classic sessions as Blue Period, Dig, and Miles Ahead. During this period, he also suffered drug addiction and was incarcerated for a time, with his New York City Cabaret Card getting revoked. By the late '50s, he had become a Muslim and adopted the name Ibrahim ibn Ismail, but didn't use publicly.
In 1960, he played in trombonist Curtis Fuller's group before forming his own trio the next year with bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer G.T. Hogan. It was with this trio that he made his recorded debut as leader with 1961's Speak Low on the Jazztime label. More albums followed, including 1963's Summertime with bassist Butch Warren and drummer Jimmy Cobb, and Bish Bash, the latter recorded in 1964 and 1968 and featuring bassist Eddie Kahn and drummer Dick Berk with saxophonist Frank Haynes, as well as tracks with bassist Reggie Johnson and drummer Idris Muhammad. Also in the '60s, he toured with vibist Terry Gibbs and recorded with Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Stitt, and others.
In the late '60s, Bishop studied at Juilliard with composer/pianist Hall Overton, before moving to Los Angeles. There, he taught music theory at several colleges into the '70s while working as a freelancer and leading his own groups. He was a member of Supersax and recorded regularly with trumpeter Blue Mitchell's band. In 1971, he released Coral Keys on Gene Russell's Black Jazz label, showcasing his quartet with reedist Harold Vick, bassist Reggie Johnson, drummers Alan Shwaetz Benger and Idris Muhammad, as well as guest trumpeter Woody Shaw. A second Black Jazz album arrived in 1973, Keeper of My Soul, with flutist/saxophonist Ronnie Laws, vibraphonist Woody Murray, bassist Gerald Brown, drummer Bahir Hassan, and percussionist Shakur M. Abdulla.
In 1975, he returned to New York where he authored an insightful book on jazz theory, A Study in Fourths, in which he proffered a technique of chromatic improvisation based on the use of cycles of fourths and fifths. That same year, he made his Muse label debut with Valley Land, a trio album with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Billy Hart. He recorded several more highly regarded, if lesser-appreciated albums for the label, including 1977's Soul Village and 1978's Cubicle, both featuring trumpeter Randy Brecker. He also worked with Clark Terry's big and small bands, saxophonist Archie Shepp, trombonist Curtis Fuller, and others.
Bishop continued to lead his own groups, and in the early '80s began teaching at the University of Hartford. In 1983, he played a solo concert at Carnegie Hall. He released more trio albums, including 1988's Just in Time with bassist Paul Brown and drummer Walter Bolden, and 1990's What's New with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. Also in the mid-'90s, he appeared to great acclaim at the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on New York City's Lower East Side. Bishop died of a heart attack on January 24, 1998.
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Vince Guaraldi (1928-1976):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Kenny Drew (1928-1993):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Horace Silver (1928-2014):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Hampton Hawes (1928-1977):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Bill Evans (1929-1980):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Barry Harris (1929-2021):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Tommy Flanagan (1930-2001):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Ahmad Jamal (1930-2023):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Andrew Hill (1931-2007):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Sonny Clark (1931-1963):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Wynton Kelly (1931-1971):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Phineas Newborn Jr. (1931-1989):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Joe Zawinul (1932-2007):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Paul Bley (1932-2016):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Cedar Walton (1934-2013):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Bobby Timmons (1935-1974):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Frank Vincent (1938-2014):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
McCoy Tyner (1938-2020):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Herbie Hancock (1940- ):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Chick Corea (1941-2021):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
John Taylor (1942-2015):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Kenny Barron (1943- ):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Keith Jarrett (1945- ):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Mulgrew Miller (1955-2013):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Fred Hersch (1955- ):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
John Beasley (1958- ):
John Rule Beasley (born October 10, 1958), better known as John Beasley, is a jazz pianist, bandleader, and producer of music for film and television.
He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas in a family of musicians.
His grandfather, Rule Oliver was a trombonist for 50 years and a junior high school band director in Arkansas. His father, Rule Curtis Beasley, was a music educator who in 1963 won 1st prize in Composition at the Southeastern Composers League in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His mother Lida Beasley was a brass instrumentalist who was a band director and conducted operas and taught music in various public schools and colleges.
He approached music at the age of eight by studying piano, but in his teens, he played guitar, drums, saxophone, trumpet and oboe.
Returning to piano and jazz, at the age of twenty he performed his first major concert at Carnegie Hall with Hubert Laws, John Patitucci and the drummer Joey Heredia.
During the 1970s, he performed jazz and R&B in Los Angeles. He toured with Sergio Mendes, then worked as a studio musician. For several years he was a member of band led by Freddie Hubbard. In 1992 his debut album Cauldron, produced by Walter Becker, was released by Windham Hill.
Musical references:
Here and Now (Letter To Herbie, 2008) (6:20)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
|
Michel Petrucciani (1962-1999):
(biggest influence: Bill Evans)
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
|
rest mouse over image for credits |
Brad Mehldau (1970- ):
asdf
Musical references:
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
TITLE (19XX) (-:--)
More info
|
More photos |
|
