Artist Spotlight Archive

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Here's an archive of our Artist Spotlight.

On January 20, 2009, tenor saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman succumbed to pancreatic cancer after a yearlong battle with the disease. He was a beloved player (a kind of gateway jazz musician for numerous listeners who discovered him through his recordings with Ray Charles) and by all accounts a man who could have claimed as his own moniker the title of a Duke Ellington song he once recorded: Mr. Gentle, Mr. Cool. The news came as a surprise to many jazz fans, for Newman had been highly productive in recent years, releasing a CD a year on the HighNote label, and there had been little publicity about his illness.

 

Chick Corea has been one of the most significant jazzmen since the '60s. Not content at any time to rest on his laurels, Corea has been involved in quite a few important musical projects, and his musical curiosity has never dimmed. A masterful pianist who, along with Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, was one of the top stylists to emerge after Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, Corea is also one of the few electric keyboardists to be quite individual and recognizable on synthesizers. In addition, he has composed several jazz standards, including "Spain," "La Fiesta," and "Windows."

Despite a relatively brief career (he first came to notice as a sideman at age 29 in 1955, formally launched a solo career at 33 in 1960, and was dead at 40 in 1967), saxophonist John Coltrane was among the most important, and most controversial, figures in jazz. It seems amazing that his period of greatest activity was so short, not only because he recorded prolifically, but also because, taking advantage of his fame, the record companies that recorded him as a sideman in the 1950s frequently reissued those recordings under his name and there has been a wealth of posthumously released material as well. Since Coltrane was a protean player who changed his style radically over the course of his career, this has made for much confusion in his discography and in appreciations of his playing. There remains a critical divide between the adherents of his earlier, more conventional (if still highly imaginative) work and his later, more experimental work. No one, however, questions Coltrane's almost religious commitment to jazz or doubts his significance in the history of the music.

 

One of the greatest vibraphonists to emerge in the 1960s, Gary Burton's remarkable four-mallet technique can make him sound like two or three players at once. This pianistic approach allowed him to play chords or melody lines or a mixture of both and caused him to be heralded as an innovator whose sound and technique were widely imitated. He also is known for pioneering fusion jazz and popularizing the duet format in jazz. He has recorded in a wide variety of settings and always sounds distinctive.

 

Possessor of the happiest sound in jazz, flügelhornist Clark Terry always plays music that is exuberant, swinging, and fun. Born in St. Louis, Missouri on December 14th, 1920, he made his first trumpet out of a garden hose. His earliest band experience was on the bugle with the Tom Powell Drum and Bugle Corps. He gained early experience playing trumpet in the viable St. Louis jazz scene of the early '40s.

 

Vince Guaraldi was one of the few jazz musicians to make a dent in the Top 10 charts in the 1960s, and may be the only one to do it twice. Inspired by the film "Black Orpheus," his tune, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" was a surprise hit, and remains perhaps the most tranquil number ever heard on the pop charts. Then, in the mid 1960s, his original soundtracks for a series of Charlie Brown cartoon specials became one of the rare appearances of jazz on prime time television.

 

Milt "Bags" Jackson was born on New Year’s Day, 1923, in Detroit. Growing up, he sang and played a variety of instruments, including drums and piano (on which he recorded several times) before settling on a relatively new instrument, the vibraphone, a somewhat unusual choice given that he had perfect pitch.

 

Charlie Byrd (1925-1999) was born just outside of Suffolk, Virginia. His father was a guitarist, and began teaching his son the fundamentals of guitar when he was seven. The rest of the Byrd family was also musical—Charlie’s two brothers also worked with his groups. He continued playing in high school, and according to Guitar Player magazine editor Jim Crockett, “added trumpet so he could get into football games free.”

 

They call Ray Charles the "genius" and the "father of soul." With perfect pitch and an expressive voice, he combined worlds as diverse as jazz, country, rhythm and blues, and gospel. Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. He was the leader in devising a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. His singing style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, comparable to the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader.

 

Pianist / singer / songwriter Eliane Elias is known for her distinctive and immediately recognizable musical style which blends her Brazilian roots and her sensuous, alluring voice with her impressive instrumental jazz, classical and compositional skills. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1960, Eliane Elias’ musical talents began to show at an early age. She started studying piano at age seven and at age twelve was transcribing solos from the great jazz masters. By the time she was fifteen she was teaching piano and improvisation at one of Brazil’ s most prestigious schools of music. Her performing career began in Brazil at age seventeen, working with Brazilian singer/songwriter Toquinho and the great poet Vinicius de Moraes who was also Antonio Carlos Jobim’s co-writer/lyricist. In 1981 she headed for New York and in 1982 landed a spot in the acclaimed group Steps Ahead.

 

Carmen McRae was born in Harlem on April 8, 1920, the only child of immigrants from the West Indies. She grew up in the Bronx and on Sugar Hill in Harlem, and her early musical education included five years of classical piano lessons. She won an amateur talent contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and it was there that she was discovered in 1939 by Irene Kitchings, who was then married to the jazz pianist Teddy Wilson. Through Wilson, who worked with Billie Holiday, McRae met the singer who became her biggest influence and who recorded McRae's song “Dream of Life”. She became enamored of jazz and began her lifelong commitment to playing and singing. Kitchings’ and Holiday’s influence becomes so strong that Carmen eventually would tell audiences that "If there had been no Billie and Irene, there would have been no me."

 

Kenny Burrell was born in Detroit, Michigan to a musical family and began playing guitar at the age of 12. His influences as a guitar player include Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, and Wes Montgomery. While a student at Wayne State University, he made his debut recording as a member of Dizzy Gillespie's sextet in 1951. He toured with Oscar Peterson after graduating in 1955 and then moved to New York City in 1956. A consummate sideman, Burrell recorded with a wide range of prominent musicians, including: John Coltrane, Paul Chambers, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Wes Montgomery, Billie Holiday, Milt Jackson, Thad Jones, Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Jimmy Raney, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Smith, Art Taylor, Stanley Turrentine, Jimmy Witherspoon and Cedar Walton. He also led his own groups since 1951 and recorded many well received albums, most notably Midnight Blue with Stanley Turrentine for Blue Note Records, which is considered a classic of 60s jazz now.

 

Stan Getz was born on February 2, 1927 in Philadelphia. Stan's younger brother Robert was born in 1932. His parents were Ukrainian-Jews who immigrated from the Kiev area in the Ukraine in 1903. The family later moved to New York City for better jobs. Stan worked hard in school receiving straight "A's" on average and finished 6th grade close to the top of his class. Stan's major interest was in musical instruments, and he felt a need to play every instrument in his sight. He played a number of instruments before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Stan instantly fell in love with the saxophone and began practicing 8 hours a day. In 1941, he was accepted into the All City High School Orchestra of New York City. This gave Stan a chance to receive a private, free tutor from the New York Philharmonic, Simon Kovar - a bassoon player. He also began to spend more time playing the saxophone. He eventually dropped out of school in order to pursue his musical career, but was later sent back to the classroom by the school system’s truancy officers.

 

William James Basie was born on August 21, 1904 in Red Bank, New Jersey to Harvey Lee Basie and Lillian Ann Childs, who lived on Mechanic Street. His father worked as coachman for a wealthy family. After automobiles replaced horses, his father became a groundskeeper and handyman for several families in the area. His mother took in laundry, and was Bill Basie's first piano teacher when he was a child. He started out to be a drummer, but the obvious talents of another young Red Bank drummer, Sonny Greer (who was Duke Ellington's drummer from 1919 to 1951), discouraged young Basie and he switched to piano. While he was in his late teens, he gravitated to Harlem, where he met Fats Waller who taught him how to play organ.

 

Born December 6, 1920 in Concord, California, Dave Brubeck, is an American jazz pianist. Regarded as a genius in his field, he has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills. Much of his music employs unusual time signatures.

Singer/pianist Diana Krall knew as a child that she wanted to be a professional musician. In a recent CNN interview, she said,“A month ago I found this letter I wrote to Oscar Peterson when I was 16 years old and my mom had saved it for me and put it in a box in the attic. It was a five-page letter I wrote to Oscar Peterson saying, “Dear Oscar, I'm 16 years old and I hear a professional musician's life is a very difficult one but I know this is the only life I want to have.” And it was really enlightening for me to see the focus of a 16-year-old. It reminded me of how much I love the music and always wanted to do what I'm doing, so how lucky am I?” 

Nina Simone lived a life filled with music, controversy and passion. Deeply involved with the American civil rights movement, she worked with poet Langston Hughes, with whom she wrote the song "Backlash Blues" and Dr. Martin Luther King, for whom she composed “Why, the king of love is dead” after hearing about Dr. King's assassination.

From the perspective of the early 2000s, it is clear that few jazz musicians have had a greater impact on the contemporary mainstream than Horace Silver. The hard bop style that Silver pioneered in the '50s is now dominant, played not onlyby holdovers from an earlier generation, but also by fuzzy-cheeked musicians who had yet to be born when the music fell out of critical favor in the '60s and '70s.  

Sonny Rollins will go down in history as not only the single most enduring tenor saxophonist of the bebop and hard bop era, but also the greatest contemporary jazz saxophonist of them all. His fluid and harmonically innovative ideas, effortless manner, and easily identifiable and accessible sound have influenced generations of performers, but have also fueled the notion that mainstream jazz music can be widely enjoyed, recognized, and proliferated.

Elegant and wise, the legendary Lena Horne personifies both the glamour of Hollywood and the reality of a lifetime spent battling racial and social injustice. Pushed by an ambitious mother into the chorus line of the Cotton Club when she was sixteen, and maneuvered into a film career by the N.A.A.C.P., she was the first African American signed to a long-term studio contract. In her rise beyond Hollywood’s racial stereotypes of maids, butlers, and African natives, she achieved true stardom on the silver screen, and became a catalyst for change even beyond the glittery fringes of studio life.

Benny Golson is a talented composer/arranger whose tenor saxophone playing has continued to evolve with time. He came to prominence while with Dizzy Gillespie's globetrotting big band (1956-1958), as much for his writing as for his tenor playing. Golson wrote such standards as "I Remember Clifford," "Killer Joe," "Stablemates," "Whisper Not," "Along Came Betty," and "Blues March" during 1956-1960.  When he was asked by the Irish Times whether he considered his composing or performing activities more satisfying, Benny Golson responded that "It's like having two wives. I'm a musical bigamist. I can't decide, so I just go on with both of them." As an arranger and performer with bands led by trumpeter Gillespie and drummer Art Blakey, and with his own Jazztet ensemble, Golson made important contributions as a tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. As the composer of music for popular 1970s television shows such as M*A*S*H and The Mod Squad, Golson might be described as one of America's most famous unknown composers.

When people write about Johnny Mercer, they usually talk about his fabulous career, the sheer quantity of his output, the speed and ease with which he wrote, his southern charm, the hip sophistication of his lyrics. But all this misses the real point. Ask anyone who writes lyrics. Johnny Mercer was a genius.

The most recorded jazz trombonist of his lifetime, Curtis Fuller's illustrious career spans six decades and includes tenures with many of the greatest names in this music. Born Dec. 15th, 1934 in Detroit, Fuller was orphaned at an early age, but found family in the close-knit jazz community of the musically fertile Motor City. He first picked up the trombone in the school band at Tech High School, where his fellow students included Donald Byrd and Paul Chambers and the list of graduates reads like a Who's Who of jazz.

From tender and soulful to hard-edged and gritty, Ernestine Anderson is one of the most versatile jazz vocalists to emerge from the big band era. During the course of her 50-year career, Anderson has captivated audiences in America and abroad with her tantalizing voice and charming stage presence.

Over the last two decades Cassandra Wilson has emerged as one of the most celebrated jazz singers in the world—and with one album a year since 1985, she also ranks as one of the most prolific. Because of her openness to experimentation with grooves and repertoire, Wilson's work over the years has expanded our definition of what vocal jazz is—and perhaps in some ways has called into question whether vocal jazz has any defining characteristics at all.

As a blues and ballad singer, Joe Williams was widely admired for his heartfelt tone and impeccable timing. ''He sang real soul blues on which his perfect enunciation of the words gave the blues a new dimension,'' Duke Ellington wrote in his autobiography, ''Music Is My Mistress.'' ''All the accents were in the right places and on the right words.'' Mr. Williams traded supple syncopations with big bands and small groups and gave ballads a tender authority; his voice could also reach raw blue notes and breaking, ululating inflections that harked back to the music's African roots. As the singer with the Count Basie Orchestra in the 1950's, he carried the group to its commercial peak, beginning with what became his signature song, Memphis Slim's ''Every Day (I Have the Blues).''