Bill Evans

Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart "Art" Farmer (August 21, 1928, Council Bluffs, Iowa – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet/flugelhorn combination designed for him by David Monette. His identical twin brother, Addison Farmer (d. 1963), was a bassist.
The son of a steelworker, Art Farmer worked as a musician from the mid-1940s onwards. Based in Los Angeles, he played in the bands of Benny Carter and Jay McShann among others.
He joined Lionel Hampton's orchestra around 1953, sharing the trumpet chairs within the organization with Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones. Having relocated to New York, he subsequently worked with Gigi Gryce, Horace Silver and Gerry Mulligan among others. From the middle of the 1950s, Farmer featured in recordings by leading arrangers of the day, including George Russell, Jones and Oliver Nelson. Significantly, he formed "The Jazztet" with the composer and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, both men having independently come to the conclusion that the other should be a member of their group. "The Jazztet" lasted until 1962, and assisting in the early careers of pianist McCoy Tyner and trombonist Grachan Moncur III, with the group recording several albums for Argo and Mercury Records. In the early 1960s Farmer established a trio with guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Steve Swallow. Later, with drummer Pete La Roca and pianist Steve Kuhn, Farmer and Swallow recorded the album Sing Me Softly of the Blues (1965) for the Atlantic label.

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Bill Charlap
William Morrison Charlap is a jazz pianist born October 15, 1966 in New York City.
Bill Charlap comes from a musical background and is a distant cousin to famed jazz pianist Dick Hyman. His mother, Sandy Stewart , is a singer who had a hit in 1962 with My Coloring Book, while his father was Broadway composer Moose Charlap. Charlap and his mother recorded a duet album: "Love Is Here To Stay." Charlap has recorded seven albums as a leader or co-leader for the Blue Note label, including two Grammy nominated CDs: "Somewhere", featuring the music of Leonard Bernstein, and "The Bill Charlap Trio, Live At The Village Vanguard." For the Japanese label Venus Records he has recorded two albums as a leader, as well as eight albums as a member of the New York Trio.
Charlap began playing piano at age three. He later studied classical music, but remained most interested in jazz. He has worked with Gerry Mulligan, Benny Carter, Tony Bennett, and others. In the mid-90s, he was the musical director of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, A Celebration of Johnny Mercer, part of New York's JVC Jazz Festival. In 1995 he joined the Phil Woods Quintet.

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Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans (August 16, 1929–September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists. He is considered by some to be the most influential post-World War II jazz pianist. Evans had a distinct playing posture in which his neck would often be stooped very low, and his face parallel to the piano.
Evans is an inductee of the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.
Bill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, United States, to a mother of Rusyn ancestry and a father of Welsh descent. He received his first musical training at his mother's church. Evans' mother was an amateur pianist with an interest in modern classical composers, and Evans began classical piano lessons at age six. He also became a proficient flautist by age 13 and could play the violin.
At age 12, Evans filled in for his older brother Harry in Buddy Valentino's band. At this age he was able to interpret classical music, but he couldn't improvise. In the beginning, he played exactly what was written in the sheet, but soon started trying to improvise, while learning about harmonies in the songs and how to alter them. Meanwhile, he was playing dance music (and jazz) at home, in a recording studio he built in his family's basement.. In the late 1940s, Evans played boogie woogie in various New Jersey clubs. He attended Southeastern Louisiana University on a music scholarship, and in 1950 performed Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto on his senior recital there, graduating with a degree in piano performance and teaching. He was also among the founding members of SLU's Delta Omega Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and played quarterback for the fraternity's football team, helping them win the school's 1949 intramural tournament.

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Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Harris April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Critic John Bush wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever." She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the Child", "Don't Explain", "Fine and Mellow", and "Lady Sings the Blues". She also became famous for singing "Easy Living", "Good Morning Heartache", and "Strange Fruit", a protest song which became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording.
Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Sarah Julia "Sadie" Fagan (née Harris). Her father, Clarence Halliday (Holiday), a musician, did not marry or live with her mother. Her mother had moved to Philadelphia when thirteen, after being ejected from her parents' home in Sandtown-Winchester, Baltimore for becoming pregnant. With no support from her own parents, Holiday's mother arranged for the young Holiday to stay with her older married half sister, Eva Miller, who lived in Baltimore.

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Bob Brookmeyer
Robert Edward Brookmeyer (December 19, 1929 – December 15, 2011) was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Brookmeyer first gained widespread public attention as a member of Gerry Mulligan's quartet from 1954 to 1957. He later worked with Jimmy Giuffre. before rejoining Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band.
Robert Edward Brookmeyer was born on December 19, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, the only child of Elmer Edward Brookmeyer and the former Mayme Seifert. He began playing music professionally as a teenager and attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, but left before graduating. He played piano with the big bands of Tex Beneke and Ray McKinley, but switched his focus to valve trombone when he was with the Claude Thornhill orchestra in the early 1950s. While active on the New York jazz scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Brookmeyer was also busy in the city’s television and recording studios. He was in the house band for “The Merv Griffin Show” and wrote arrangements for Ray Charles and others. He abandoned the uncertainties of the jazz life for the financial security of full-time studio work after moving to Los Angeles in 1968. In the 1960s he also worked as a studio musician, co-led a quintet with Clark Terry and worked in and wrote for the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra. In 1980 this band recorded an album of his compositions/arrangements on which two tracks featured Clark Terry. During his decade on the West Coast he struggled with a serious drinking problem and, after overcoming it, briefly considered quitting music to become an alcoholism counselor. Instead, in 1978, he returned to jazz, and to New York.

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Bobo Stenson
Bo Gustav Stenson (known as Bobo Stenson, born in 1944) is a Swedish jazz pianist. Stenson was noted as early as 1963, when he stepped up from the local scene in Västerås to start playing frequently in Stockholm, where he accompanied a long line of visiting American players including Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Gary Burton. He also worked closely with Don Cherry from the beginning of the trumpeter's residency in Scandinavia.
The 70's was an intensive period for Bobo Stenson, playing in many groups, amongst them the long-standing band Rena Rama with Palle Danielsson, and a very popular trio with Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen; later also with Jan Garbarek. In 1988, he joined the Charles Lloyd quartet and since 1996 has appeared at major jazz festivals with Tomasz Stanko's septet/sextet.
With Don Cherry
With Jan Garbarek
With Charles Lloyd
With George Russell
With Terje Rypdal
With Tomasz Stanko
With Others

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Brad Mehldau
Brad Mehldau (born August 23, 1970) is an American jazz pianist. Besides leading his own group, the Brad Mehldau Trio, he has performed with many renowned artists, including Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Larry Grenadier, Peter Bernstein, Jeff Ballard, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brian Blade, Jimmy Cobb, classical vocalists Renée Fleming and Anne Sofie von Otter, and singer-songwriters Chris Thile and John Mayer.
Mehldau was born Bradford Alexander Mehldau in 1970 in Jacksonville, Florida. His family moved to Connecticut where Mehldau spent most of his childhood and high school. He attended William H. Hall High School in West Hartford and participated in Hall's prestigious jazz program. While a sophomore in high school, he won Berklee College's Best All-Around Musician Award. Mehldau moved to New York in 1988 to study jazz at The New School, studying under Fred Hersch, Junior Mance and Kenny Werner, and also playing with Jimmy Cobb.^{[citation needed]} He went on to play as sideman with a variety of musicians, most importantly with the Joshua Redman quartet, before forming his own trio in 1994, with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy, and later Jeff Ballard, who succeeded Rossy in 2005. In addition to his trio work, Mehldau collaborated with guitarist Pat Metheny, releasing two albums with him and embarking on a worldwide tour along with Grenadier and Ballard.

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Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell (September 27, 1924 – July 31, 1966) was a jazz pianist who was born and raised in Harlem, New York City. His greatest influences on his instrument were Thelonious Monk, who became his close friend, and Art Tatum. Along with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Powell was a key player in the development of bebop, and his virtuosity as a pianist led many to call him the Charlie Parker of the piano.
Powell's father was a stride pianist. Powell took to his father's instrument and started to learn classical piano, at age five, from a teacher whom his father hired; but by age ten, he had also showed interest in the jazz that could be heard all over the neighborhood. When he first appeared in public, it was at a rent party , where he mimicked Fats Waller's playing style. The first jazz composition that he mastered was James P. Johnson's "Carolina Shout" .
Bud's older brother, William, played the trumpet; by age fifteen, Bud was playing in his band. By this time, he had already had exposure to Art Tatum, whose overwhelmingly virtuosic technique Powell then set out to equal .

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Cannonball Adderley
Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928 – August 8, 1975) was a jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s.
Adderley is remembered for his 1966 single "Mercy Mercy Mercy", a crossover hit on the pop charts, and for his work with trumpeter Miles Davis, including on the epochal album Kind of Blue (1959). He was the brother of jazz cornetist Nat Adderley, a longtime member of his band.
Originally from Tampa, Florida, Adderley moved to New York in the mid-1950s. His nickname derived originally from "cannibal," an honorific title imposed on him by high school colleagues as a tribute to his fast eating capacity.
His educational career was long established prior to teaching applied instrumental music classes at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Cannonball moved to Tallahassee, Florida when his parents obtained teaching positions at Florida A&M University. Both Cannonball and brother Nat played with Ray Charles when Charles lived in Tallahassee during the early 1940s. Cannonball was a local legend in Florida until he moved to New York City in 1955, where he lived in Corona, Queens.

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Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.
Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz.
Mingus focused on collective improvisation, similar to the old New Orleans jazz parades, paying particular attention to how each band member interacted with the group as a whole. In creating his bands, Mingus looked not only at the skills of the available musicians, but also their personalities. Many musicians passed through his bands and later went on to impressive careers. He recruited talented and sometimes little-known artists whom he assembled into unconventional and revealing configurations. As a performer, Mingus was a pioneer in double bass technique, widely recognized as one of the instrument's most proficient players.

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Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.
Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner and Keith Jarrett, he has been described as one of the major jazz piano voices to emerge in the post-John Coltrane era.
His career has been driven by his will to operate as a free agent and compulsively explore different avenues of music making. This hunger has positioned him as an important catalyst in the world of serious, mainstream acoustic jazz, and he is one of the most influential and widely studied figures in the last 40 years.
Corea continued to pursue other collaborations and to explore various musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He is also known for promoting and fundraising for a number of social issues, such as eradicating social illiteracy, and is a Scientologist.

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Chuck Israels
Charles H. "Chuck" Israels (born August 10, 1936) is a composer, arranger, and bassist who is best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio. He has also worked with Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, J. J. Johnson, John Coltrane and many others.
Chuck Israels was raised in a musical family. His stepfather, Mordecai Bauman, was a singer who performed extensively with composer Hanns Eisler and who, along with Chuck's mother, Irma Commanday, created a home environment in which music was a part of normal daily activity. Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and The Weavers were visitors to the Bauman home and the appearance of Louis Armstrong's All Stars in a concert series produced by his parents in 1948 gave Chuck his first opportunity to meet and hear jazz musicians.
Israels is best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio from 1961 through 1966 and for his pioneering accomplishments in Jazz Repertory as Director of the National Jazz Ensemble from 1973 to 1981. Afterwards, he became less active as a musician, but did record with the Kronos String Quartet in 1984 and Rosemary Clooney in 1985. He was the Director of Jazz Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham until 2010, and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

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Claus Ogerman
Claus Ogerman (born 29 April 1930) is a German arranger/ orchestrator, conductor, and composer, best known for his works with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra and Diana Krall.
Born in Ratibor (Racibórz), Upper Silesia, Ogerman began his career with the piano. He is definitely one of the most prolific 20th century arrangers and has worked in the Top 40, Rock, Pop, Jazz, R&B, Soul, Easy listening, Broadway and Classical music fields. The exact number of recording artists for whom Ogerman has either arranged or conducted during his career has still not yet been determined.
In the 1950s, Ogerman worked in Germany as an arranger-pianist with Kurt Edelhagen, Max Greger, and Delle Haensch. Claus (then Klaus) also worked as a part-time vocalist and recorded several 45 rpms under the pen name of "Tom Collins", duetting with Hannelore Cremer - and he also recorded a solo vocal with the Delle Haensch Jump Combo as well. In 1959, he moved to the United States and joined the producer Creed Taylor at Verve Records, working on recordings with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Kai Winding and Cal Tjader - among countless others. Verve was sold to MGM in 1963. Claus Ogerman, by his own admission in Gene Lees' Jazzletter publication, arranged some 60-70 albums for Verve under Creed Taylor's direction from 1963-1967. In 1966 Ogerman arranged and conducted Bill Evans Trio With Symphony Orchestra (Verve Records). In 1967 he joined Creed Taylor on the A&M/CTi label.

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Dave McKenna
Dave McKenna (30 May 1930 – 18 October 2008, Woonsocket, Rhode Island) was a jazz pianist. He was known for his "three-handed swing" and was a leading proponent of solo piano style.
Starting out at the age of 15, McKenna played with Boots Mussulli (1947), Charlie Ventura (1949) and Woody Herman's Orchestra (1950-51). He then spent two years in the military, and re-joined Ventura (1953-54).
He worked with a variety of top swing and Dixieland musicians including Gene Krupa, Joe Venuti, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Bob Wilbur, Eddie Condon, and Bobby Hackett but became primarily a soloist after 1967, especially in the Northeast United States. McKenna performed with Louis Armstrong at the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival.
He started to be recognized in his own right during the 1970s, but chose to play in his local area rather than travel extensively. He preferred playing in clubs and hotels over getting center stage in major venues. He could be found playing in hotel piano bars in Massachusetts, including a decade-long run at Boston's Grand Dame Copley Plaza Hotel, that ended in 1991, when the Plaza was sold. The new owners briefly turned the Plaza Bar into a cabaret, but the new format was never as popular as Mckenna and ended within a year. Unfortunately, the damage was done and, because McKenna was much in demand, he only returned to the Plaza for a single night.

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Denny Zeitlin
Denny Zeitlin (born 10 April 1938, Chicago, Illinois) is an American jazz pianist and composer, and a clinical professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco. He has recorded more than 30 albums, including more than 100 original compositions, and was a first place winner of the Down Beat International Jazz Critics Poll in 1965 and 1974.
Zeitlin grew up in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. He began improvising on the piano at age two and was composing before elementary school. His father was a radiologist who played piano by ear. His mother was a speech pathologist and his first piano teacher. He began formal study in Western classical music at age six, switching to jazz in the eighth grade. In high school, he played professionally in and around Chicago, and by college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was playing with Ira Sullivan, Johnny Griffin, Wes Montgomery, Joe Farrell, Wilbur Ware, and Bob Cranshaw, among others. Mentors included pianist Billy Taylor and George Russell, while pianist Bill Evans, an early supporter, frequently recorded Zeitlin's composition "Quiet Now" and made it the title track of a 1970 album.

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Dominic Alldis
Dominic Alldis is a jazz musician, orchestral conductor & arranger. He was born into a family of classical musicians; his mother a violinist and his father the renowned choral conductor John Alldis.
Alldis began his musical career in 1982 in Paris, studying jazz piano with Aaron Bridgers and Bernard Maury, while accompanying singers of French chanson. In 1984, he returned to the UK to become resident-pianist at London’s premiere jazz and cabaret venue, Pizza on the Park. During a two-year residency he played opposite many jazz and cabaret stars including Blossom Dearie, Steve Ross, Dave Frishberg, Bob Dorough, Teddy Wilson, Dave McKenna and Roger Kellaway.
In 1987-89, Alldis studied composition with Konrad Boehmer and Frederic Rzewski at the Royal Dutch Conservatory of Music in the Hague, and in 1988 he was invited by the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music in Amsterdam (STEIM) to develop a performance using live electronics and the Yamaha MIDI Grand Piano. He then toured Europe during 1989-91 giving concerts using the revolutionary new instrument, culminating in the album Night Music for Lumina Records.

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Don Friedman
Donald Ernest Friedman (born May 4, 1935 in San Francisco California), better known as Don Friedman, is a jazz pianist. On the West Coast, he performed with Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker, Buddy DeFranco and Ornette Coleman, among others, before moving to New York. There, he led his own trio in addition to playing in Pepper Adams's, Booker Little's and Jimmy Giuffre's bands in the sixties. He was also a part of Clark Terry's big band. He currently works in New York as a pianist and jazz educator. He has many fans in Japan, and has toured the country.
With Joe Henderson
With Elvin Jones
With Don Lanphere
With Booker Little
With Charles Lloyd
With Clark Terry

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Don Sebesky
Don Sebesky (b. December 10, 1937, Perth Amboy, New Jersey) is an American jazz trombonist, keyboardist and arranger.
Sebesky trained in trombone at the Manhattan School of Music; in his early career, he played with Kai Winding, Claude Thornhill, Tommy Dorsey, Warren Covington, Maynard Ferguson and Stan Kenton. In 1960 he began devoting himself primarily to arranging and conducting; one of his best-known arrangements was for Wes Montgomery's 1965 album Bumpin'. Other credits include George Benson's The Shape of Things to Come, Paul Desmond's From the Hot Afternoon and Freddie Hubbard's First Light. His song "Memphis Two-Step" was the title track of the Herbie Mann 1971 album of the same name. His 1973 release, Giant Box, hit #16 on the U.S. Billboard Jazz Albums chart.
He has worked with such orchestras as the London Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Pops, The New York Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic of London, and the Toronto Symphony.
He has been nominated for thirty-one GRAMMY Awards and won three Grammy Awards in the 1990s: Best Instrumental Arrangement for "Waltz for Debby" (1998) and "Chelsea Bridge" (1999), and Best Instrumental Composition for "Joyful Noise Suite" (1999). He also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations for Parade (1999) and Kiss Me, Kate (2000). He won a Tony award for Best Orchestrations in for the revival of Kiss Me, Kate (2000). Sebesky has also written a book, The Contemporary Arranger (1975).

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Eddie Gomez
Edgar "Eddie" Gómez (born October 4, 1944) is a Puerto Rican jazz double bassist born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, perhaps most notable for his work done with the Bill Evans trio from 1966 to 1977.
Gómez emigrated with his family from Puerto Rico at a young age to New York, where he was raised. He started on double bass in the New York City school system at the age of eleven and at age thirteen went to the New York City High School of Music and Art. He played in the Newport Festival Youth Band (led by Marshall Brown) from 1959 to 1961, and graduated from Juilliard in 1963.
His résumé includes performances with jazz giants such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Benny Goodman, Buck Clayton, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Bruford, Scott LaFaro, Marian McPartland, Paul Bley, Bill Evans, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, Steps Ahead, Steve Gadd, Ron Carter, Jeremy Steig, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Al Foster, Chick Corea, Eugenio Toussaint and Carli Muñoz. Time lauded: "Eddie Gómez has the world on his strings".^{[citation needed]} He spent a total of eleven years with the Bill Evans Trio, which included performances throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, as well as dozens of recordings. Two of the Trio's recordings won Grammy awards. In addition, he was a member of the Manhattan Jazz Quintet.

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Eliane Elias
Eliane Elias (eh-lee-AH-neh eh-LEE-ahs) (born March 19, 1960 in São Paulo, Brazil) is a Brazilian jazz pianist, arranger, vocalist and songwriter.
Elias started with the piano at age seven. She studied at the Free Center of Music Apprenticeship in São Paulo. She joined Brazilian singer/guitarist/songwriter Toquinho and poet/entertainer Vinicius de Moraes when she was 17 years old, with whom she made concert tours for three years, mainly through South America.
On a tour in Europe in 1981, she met jazz bassist Eddie Gomez and was encouraged to travel to New York. After moving there, she was invited to join Steps Ahead, and recorded one album with the group in 1983. After leaving Steps Ahead, she worked with trumpet player Randy Brecker, whom she subsequently married. They recorded an album named after their daughter, "Amanda". In 1988 she was elected as "Best New Talent" by the JAZZIZ magazine poll of jazz critics.
She has recorded several notable albums, including one featuring duets with Herbie Hancock. Their 1995 disc "Solos and Duets" was nominated for a Grammy in the "Jazz instrumental video" category. In 1997, American musician Bob Brookmeyer dedicated a full album to his arrangements of Eliane's compositions, backed by the Danish Jazz Orchestra and published under the name of "Impulsive!", which received another Grammy nomination as "Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album" in 2001.

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Eliot Zigmund
Eliot Zigmund (b. April 14, 1945) is an American jazz drummer, who has worked extensively as a session musician.
Zigmund studied at Mannes College of Music and CCNY, where he graduated in 1969. After moving to California, he found work in the 1970s playing with Ron McClure, Steve Swallow, Art Lande, Mike Nock, Mel Martin, and Vince Guaraldi. He moved back to New York City in 1974, where he played with Bill Evans from 1975 to 1978. He also played with Eddie Gomez, Bennie Wallace, Richard Beirach, Jim Hall, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Fred Hersch, and Red Mitchell before the end of the 1970s.
He played with Don Friedman from 1979 to 1984, and then joined a trio with Michel Petrucciani until the late 1980s. After this he worked both as a leader in small ensembles and as a sideman with Gary Peacock (1980), Carl Barry (1982), Keith Greko (1985), Eiji Nakayama (1988), and Stefan Karlsson (1995).
Zigmund has also done work as a session player for Neil Sedaka, Dionne Warwick, and The Pointer Sisters, among others.

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Frank Rosolino
Frank Rosolino (August 20, 1926 – November 26, 1978) was an American jazz trombonist.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Frank Rosolino studied the guitar with his father from the age of 9. He took up the trombone at age 14 while he was enrolled at Miller High School where he played with Milt Jackson in the school's stage band and small group. Having never graduated, Rosolino joined the 86th Division Army Band during World War II.

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Fred Hersch
Fred Hersch (born October 21, 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a contemporary American jazz pianist who has become a consistent and highly demanded performer on the international jazz scene.
Hersch began playing piano at a very young age, growing up in the North Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio, attending Walnut Hills High School. He also had an early interest in mandolin. By age 12, Fred had written his first symphony. He studied at Grinnell College in the mid 1970s and began playing in jazz clubs in Cincinnati. He later graduated from New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His teachers included Sophia Rosoff. He moved to New York City in the late 1970s where he soon found a place playing with artists including Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, Art Farmer, and Charlie Haden.
Hersch soon began recording his own records and composing music. Although Hersch has played in a number of different instrumental combinations, he also plays as a solo performer, and many of his albums—such as Live at the Bimhuis (2005)--are solo recitals. In 2006 he was invited by club owner Lorraine Gordon to perform the first-ever solo piano booking at the legendary Village Vanguard jazz club in New York City.

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Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives for modern jazz and bebop.
Hubbard started playing the mellophone and trumpet in his school band at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. Trumpeter Lee Katzman, former sideman with Stan Kenton, recommended that he begin studying at the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music (now the Jordan College of Fine Art at Butler University) with Max Woodbury, the principal trumpeter of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In his teens Hubbard worked locally with brothers Wes and Monk Montgomery and worked with bassist Larry Ridley and saxophonist James Spaulding. In 1958, at the age of 20, he moved to New York, and began playing with some of the best jazz players of the era, including Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Slide Hampton, Eric Dolphy, J. J. Johnson, and Quincy Jones. In June 1960 Hubbard made his first record as a leader, Open Sesame, with saxophonist Tina Brooks, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Clifford Jarvis.

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Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (pronounced: [ɡabʁiɛl yʁbɛ̃ fɔʁe]; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, nocturnes for piano, and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his greatest works in his later years, in a harmonically and melodically much more complex style.
Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine he was sent to a music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865 Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime.

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Gary Peacock
Gary Peacock (born May 12, 1935 in Burley, Idaho) is an American jazz double-bassist.
After military service in Germany, in the early sixties he worked on the west coast with Barney Kessel, Bud Shank, Paul Bley and Art Pepper, then moved to New York. He worked there with Bley, the Bill Evans trio (with Paul Motian), and Albert Ayler's trio with Sunny Murray. There were also some live dates with Miles Davis, as a temporary substitute for Ron Carter.
Peacock spent time in Japan in the late 1960s, abandoning music temporarily and studying Zen philosophy. After returning to the United States in 1972, he studied Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, and taught music theory at Cornish College of the Arts from 1976 to 1983.
In 1983 he joined Keith Jarrett's "Standards Trio" with Jack DeJohnette (the three musicians had previously recorded Tales of Another in 1977 for ECM Records, under Peacock's leadership). Among the trios albums are Standards, Vol. 1 and Standards, Vol. 2 and Standards Live. The trio continues to perform and record all around the world. Playing together for nearly 25 years now, Jarrett, Peacock and DeJohnette have developed a reputation as one of the most preeminent jazz trios of our time.

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Gene Lees
Frederick Eugene John "Gene" Lees (February 8, 1928 – April 22, 2010) was a Canadian music critic, biographer, lyricist, and former journalist. Lees worked as a newspaper journalist in his native Canada before moving to the United States where he was a music critic and lyricist. His lyrics for Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Corcovado" (released as "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars"), have been recorded by such notable singers as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Queen Latifah, and Diana Krall. Lees was married to his wife Janet in 1971.
Lees was the eldest of four children born to Harold Lees, a violinist, and Dorothy Flatman. His sister, Victoria Lees, is the former Secretary General of Montreal's McGill University, and his brother, David Lees, is an investigative journalist and science writer.
Beginning his writing career as a newspaper reporter in his native Canada, between 1948 and 1955 Lees contributed to The Hamilton Spectator, the Toronto Telegram, and the Montreal Star, and first worked as a music critic in the United States for the Louisville (Kentucky) Times between 1955 and 1959 and was editor of the jazz magazine Down Beat between 1959 and 1962.

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Grady Tate
Grady Tate (born January 14, 1932) is a hard bop and soul-jazz drummer and singer. He has a baritone voice. In addition to his prolific work as sideman, Tate has released many albums as leader and vocalist.
Tate was born in Hayti, Durham, North Carolina. He moved to New York City in 1963.
In New York City, Tate became the drummer in Quincy Jones's band.
Grady Tate's drumming helped to define a particular hard bop, soul jazz and organ trio sound during the mid-1960s and beyond. His slick, layered and intense sound is instantly recognizable for its understated style in which he integrates his trademark subtle nuances with sharp, crisp "on top of the beat" timing (in comparison to playing slightly before, or slightly after the beat). The Grady Tate sound can be heard prominently on the many classic Jimmy Smith and Wes Montgomery albums recorded on the Verve label in the 1960s.
Grady Tate was the drummer on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for six years. During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet. In 1981 he played drums and percussion Simon and Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park.

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Harold Land
Harold de Vance Land (December 18, 1928 – July 27, 2001) was an American hard bop and post-bop tenor saxophonist. Land developed his hard bop playing with the Max Roach/Clifford Brown band into a personal, modern style. His tone was strong and emotional, yet displayed a certain fragility that made him easy to recognize.
Land was born in Houston and grew up in San Diego. He started playing at the age of 16. He made his first recording as the leader of the Harold Land All-Stars, for Savoy Records in 1949. In 1954 he joined the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet. Because of family problems he moved to Los Angeles in 1955. There he played with Curtis Counce, led his own groups, and co-led groups with Bobby Hutcherson, Blue Mitchell, and Red Mitchell. From the 1970s onwards his style showed the influence of John Coltrane.
In the early 1980s through to the early 1990s he worked regularly with the Timeless All Stars, a group sponsored by the Timeless jazz record label. The group consisted of Land on tenor, Cedar Walton on piano, Buster Williams on bass, Billy Higgins on drums, Curtis Fuller on trombone and Bobby Hutcherson on vibes. Land also toured with his own band during this time, often including his son on piano and usually featuring Bobby Hutcherson and Billy Higgins as well. During these years he played regularly at Hop Singhs in Marina Del Rey in the L.A area and the Keystone Korner in San Francisco.

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Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace music synthesizers and funk music (characterized by syncopated drum beats). Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
Hancock's best-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (later performed by dozens of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaría), "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", and the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit". His 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.

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Howard Alden
Howard Alden (born October 17, 1958 (age 53))) is an American jazz guitarist born in Newport Beach, California. He has recorded a long series of albums for Concord Records. His performances were dubbed over Sean Penn as 'Emmet Ray' in the 1999 Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown. Howard has recorded four albums with seven-string guitar innovator George Van Eps.
Howard Alden was born in Newport Beach, California in 1958. He began playing the 4-string tenor guitar and banjo at age ten. After hearing recordings of Barney Kessel, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt and other jazz guitar greats, he got a six-string guitar and started teaching himself to play that as well. As a teenager he played both instruments at various venues in the Los Angeles area. He studied guitar with Jimmy Wyble when he was 16. By 1977 he was studying jazz guitar at the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood, California with Howard Roberts.
Alden made his first trip to the east coast in the summer of 1979, playing in a trio led by the legendary vibist Red Norvo for 3 months at Resorts International in Atlantic City. Alden moved to New York City in 1982 to play an extended engagement at the Café Carlyle with jazz pianist/songwriter Joe Bushkin. Soon afterward, he was discovered by Joe Williams and Woody Herman. In 1983 he was already collaborating with Dick Hyman, when he appeared with him and a host of other musicians at Eubie Blake's one-hundredth birthday concert. In 1988 Alden signed with Concord Jazz record label, and recorded many albums with them over the following fifteen years as a bandleader and as a sideman.

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Ilkka Kuusisto
Ilkka Taneli Kuusisto (born 26 April 1933) is a Finnish composer of popular opera and father of Jaakko Kuusisto and Pekka Kuusisto. He was the general manager of the Finnish National Opera 1984-1992.

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Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette (born 9 August 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. An important figure of the fusion era of jazz, DeJohnette is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett, Sonny Rollins, and John Scofield.
DeJohnette was born on 9 August 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. He began his musical career as a piano player, studying from age four and beginning to play professionally at age 14, but he decided to forsake it and took on the drums as his main instrument. DeJohnette would later credit an uncle, Roy I. Wood Sr., as the person in his life who inspired him to play music. Wood was a Chicago disc jockey who would later become vice president of the National Network of Black Broadcasters.
DeJohnette began his drumming career playing R&B, hard bop, and avant-garde music in Chicago, leading his own groups while playing also with Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell, both of whom were members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. In the early 1960s, Dejohnette had the opportunity to perform with John Coltrane and his quintet, an early foray into playing with big name jazz musicians.

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Jim McNeely
Jim McNeely (born May 18, 1949) is a Grammy award winning jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.^{[citation needed]}
Jim was born in Chicago, Illinois. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Illinois, and moved to New York City in 1975. In 1978 he joined the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band. He spent six years as a featured soloist with that band and its successor, Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra (now The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra.) 1981 saw the beginning of Jim’s 4-year tenure as pianist/composer with the Stan Getz Quartet. From 1990 until 1995 he held the piano chair in the Phil Woods Quintet. In 1996 he re-joined the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra as pianist and composer-in-residence, a position that he still holds. From 1998 to 2003 he was chief conductor of the DR Big Band in Copenhagen, Denmark, and is currently chief conductor of the HR (Hessischer Rundfunk) Big Band in Frankfurt, Germany. He continues to appear as guest with many of Europe's leading jazz orchestras such as The Metropole Orchestra (The Netherlands) and The Stockholm Jazz Orchestra (Sweden). Jim also leads his own tentet, his own trio, and appears as soloist at concerts and festivals worldwide. He has recorded more than a dozen CDs under his own name, earning nine Grammy nominations between 1997 and 2006. In 2008, he was awarded a Grammy with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra for their album Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard (Planet Arts).

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Jimmy Nottingham
Jimmy Nottingham (December 15, 1925 - November 16, 1978) was an American jazz trumpeter.
Nottingham's first professional job was with Cecil Payne in 1943. He served in the Navy in 1944-45, where he played in Willie Smith's band. Following this he worked with Lionel Hampton (1945-47), Charlie Barnet, Lucky Millinder, Count Basie (1948-50), and Herbie Fields. He played Latin jazz from 1951-53, then was hired by CBS as a staff musician in 1954. He worked for CBS for more than 20 years, and played jazz music in his spare time, with Budd Johnson (1962), Dizzy Gillespie, Oliver Nelson, Benny Goodman, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis (1966-70), and Clark Terry (1974-75). His only recordings as a leader were four songs for Seeco Records in 1957.
With Dizzy Gillespie
With Chico O'Farrill
With Oliver Nelson
With Shirley Scott

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Jimmy Rowles
Jimmy Rowles (James G. Hunter, aka Jimmie Rowles) (August 19, 1918 – May 28, 1996) was an American jazz pianist who was best known as an accompanist. He also released a number of albums under his own name, and explored various idioms including swing and cool jazz.
Born in Spokane, Washington, Rowles studied at Gonzaga College (now University) in Spokane, Washington. After moving to Los Angeles, he joined Lester Young's group in 1942. Rowles also worked with Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Tommy Dorsey, and Tony Bennett, and as a studio musician.
In the 1950s and 1960s, he frequently played behind Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee, and in the 1980s he succeeded Paul Smith as Ella Fitzgerald's accompanist. Rowles had first performed with Fitzgerald at the Mocambo nightclub in Hollywood, Los Angeles, in late 1956. He had appeared on several recording sessions with her in the 1960s, before joining her for nearly three years in 1981. Rowles appeared on Fitzgerald's final collaboration with Nelson Riddle, The Best Is Yet to Come in 1982. Fitzgerald recorded Rowles and Johnny Mercer's song "Baby, Don't You Quit Now" on her final album, All That Jazz, released in 1989.

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Joe LaBarbera
Joe LaBarbera (born February 22, 1948) is an American jazz drummer and composer. He is best known for his recordings and live performances with the trio of pianist Bill Evans in the final years of Evans's career. Prior to joining Evans he worked in the quartet of Chuck Mangione and Joe Farrell.
He was born in Mt. Morris, New York, younger brother to saxophonist Pat LaBarbera, and trumpeter and arranger/composer John LaBarbera. He was formally educated at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
After Berklee he spent two years with the US Army band at Fort Dix, New Jersey. He began his professional career playing with Woody Herman and the Thundering Herd, followed by the Chuck Mangione Quartet.
He then moved to New York and spent two years freelancing with a number of notable musicians, including Jim Hall,Phil Woods, Art Farmer, Gary Burton, Art Pepper, John Scofield, Bob Brookmeyer and Toots Thielmans.
In 1978, Joe joined the Bill Evans trio with bassist Marc Johnson. After Evans' death in 1980, Joe joined singer Tony Bennett. LaBarbera has played with jazz pianist Bill Cunliffe who described in an interview with All About Jazz reporter Fred Jung what it was like working with him:

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Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.
Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisations draw not only from the traditions of jazz, but from other genres as well, especially Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.
In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize, the first (and to this day only) recipient not to share the prize with a co-recipient, and in 2004 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.
In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat Hall of Fame in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.
Jarrett grew up in suburban Allentown, Pennsylvania, with significant early exposure to music. He possessed absolute pitch, and he displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons just before his third birthday, and at age five he appeared on a TV talent program hosted by the swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. The young Jarrett gave his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers including Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged especially by his mother, Jarrett took intensive classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute.

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Kenny Burrell
Kenneth Earl "Kenny" Burrell (born July 31, 1931) is an American jazz guitarist. His playing is grounded in bebop and blues; he has performed and recorded with a wide range of jazz musicians.
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. He also led his own groups since 1951 and recorded many well received albums.
In the 1970s he began leading seminars about music, particularly Duke Ellington's. A highly popular performer, he has won several jazz polls in Japan and the United Kingdom as well as the United States.
He has recorded about 106 albums, including Midnight Blue (1963), Blue Lights, Guitar Forms, Sunup To Sundown (1990), Soft Winds (1993), Then Along Came Kenny (1993), and Lotus Blossom (1995).

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Lalo Schifrin
Lalo Schifrin (born June 21, 1932) is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations. Schifrin, associated with the jazz music genre, is also noted for work with Clint Eastwood in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, particularly the Dirty Harry films.
Schifrin was born Boris Claudio Schifrin in Buenos Aires to Jewish parents. His father, Luis Schifrin, led the second violin section of the orchestra at the Teatro Colón for three decades. At the age of six, Schifrin began a six-year course of study on piano with Enrique Barenboim, the father of the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim. At age 16, Schifrin began studying piano with the Greek-Russian expatriate Andreas Karalis, former head of the Kiev Conservatory, and harmony with Argentine composer Juan Carlos Paz. During this time, Schifrin also became interested in jazz.
Although Schifrin studied sociology and law at the University of Buenos Aires, it was music that captured his attention. At age 20, he successfully applied for a scholarship to the Paris Conservatoire. While there, he attended Olivier Messiaen's classes and formally studied with Charles Koechlin, a disciple of Maurice Ravel. At night he played jazz in the Paris clubs. In 1955, Schifrin played piano with Ástor Piazzolla and represented his country at the International Jazz Festival in Paris.

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Larry Bunker
Lawrence Benjamin "Larry" Bunker (November 4, 1928–March 8, 2005) was an American jazz drummer, vibraphonist, and percussionist. A member of the Bill Evans Trio in the mid 1960s, he also played timpani with the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra.
Born in Long Beach, California, Bunker was a central figure on the West Coast jazz scene, one of the relatively few who actually were from the region. In the 1950s and 1960s he appeared at Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, and performed with Shorty Rogers and His Giants and others. At first he played primarily drums, but increasingly he focused on vibraphone and was later highly regarded for his playing of timpani and various percussion instruments.
A dependable and in-demand studio drummer and vibist, Bunker achieved particular distinction by recording with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, and many other jazz greats. In 1952, he was the drummer in one of Art Pepper's first groups. In 1953 and 1954, Bunker played drums in some of the earliest of Gerry Mulligan's groups. From 1963 to 1965, he was, intermittently, the drummer in the Bill Evans trio. His work in movie soundtracks spanned over fifty years, from "Stalag 17" (1953) to "The Incredibles" (2004), and included soundtracks by John Williams, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, Miklós Rózsa, Jerry Goldsmith, Johnny Mandel, Lalo Schifrin and many other composers.

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Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell (born April 2, 1943) is an American jazz fusion guitarist.
Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington,^{[citation needed]} where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby Yakima, Washington. He then moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington.^{[citation needed]} He played in a number of popular Northwest bands, including The Dynamics, while living in Seattle.
In 1965, Coryell moved to New York City where he became part of Chico Hamilton's quintet, replacing Gabor Szabo. In 1967 and 1968, he recorded with Gary Burton. Also during the mid-1960s he played with The Free Spirits. His music during the late-1960s and early-1970s combined the influences of rock, jazz and eastern music. He formed his own group, The Eleventh House, in 1973. The album sold well in college towns and the ensemble toured widely to support that. Following the break-up of this band, Coryell played mainly acoustic guitar, but returned to electric guitar later in the 1980s. In 1979, Coryell formed "The Guitar Trio" with jazz fusion guitarist John McLaughlin and flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia. The group toured Europe briefly, eventually releasing a video recorded at Royal Albert Hall in London entitled "Meeting of Spirits". In early 1980, Coryell's drug addiction led to him being replaced by Al Di Meola.

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Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz (born October 13, 1927) is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.
Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings. Konitz was one of the few altoists to retain a distinctive sound in the 40s, when Charlie Parker exercised a tremendous influence on other players.
Konitz, like other students of pianist and theoretician Lennie Tristano, was noted for improvising long, melodic lines with the rhythmic interest coming from odd accents, or odd note groupings suggestive of the imposition of one time signature over another. Paul Desmond and, especially, Art Pepper were strongly influenced by Konitz.
Konitz's association with the Cool Jazz movement of the 1940s and 50s, includes participation in Miles Davis' epochal Birth of the Cool sessions, and his work with Lennie Tristano came from the same period. During his long career, Konitz has played with musicians from a wide variety of jazz styles.

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Lyle Mays
Lyle Mays (born November 27, 1953) is an American jazz pianist and composer from Wausaukee, Wisconsin. He is best known for his work with guitarist Pat Metheny as a member of the Pat Metheny Group. Along with Metheny, Mays has been a co-composer and arranger of almost all of the group's music and has won eleven Grammy Awards.
Growing up Mays had four main interests: chess, mathematics, architecture and music. His parents were musically inclined – his mother was a pianist, his father was a guitarist – and he was able to study the piano with the help of instructor Rose Barron. She allowed Mays the opportunity to practice improvisation after the structured elements of the lesson were completed. At age 9 he played organ at a family member's wedding, and at age 14 he began to play organ in church. In summer camp he was introduced to important jazz artists.
Bill Evans' album Live in Montreux and Miles Davis' album Filles de Kilimanjaro were important influences on his formation as a jazz musician. He graduated from the University of North Texas after attending the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He composed and arranged for the world renowned One O'Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger of their highly regarded and Grammy nominated Lab 75 album.

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Marian McPartland
Margaret Marian McPartland, OBE (née Turner; born March 20, 1918) is an English-born jazz pianist, composer, writer, and was the host of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio until she stepped down on November 10, 2011.
Marian Turner was a musical prodigy from the time she could sit at the piano, about the age of three. She studied classical music and the violin, in addition to the piano.
She pursued classical studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Much to the dismay of her family, she developed a love for American jazz and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Mary Lou Williams, and many others. In 1938, despite her family's efforts to keep her at Guildhall, Marian left to join Billy Mayerl's Claviers, a four-piano vaudeville act, performing under the stage name of Marian Page. The group toured throughout Europe during World War II, entertaining Allied troops.
While touring with USO shows in Belgium, she met and began performing with Chicago cornetist Jimmy McPartland in 1944. The couple soon married, playing at their own military base wedding in Germany.

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Marty Morell
Marty Morell (born February 25, 1944) is a drummer, percussionist, vibraphonist and producer who played with the Bill Evans Trio for seven years - longer than any other drummer. Morell attended the Manhattan School of Music and studied mallets with Morris Goldberg, and tympani with Saul Goodman at the Juilliard School of Music. Prior to joining Bill Evans, he worked and/or recorded with the Al Cohn-Zoot Sims Quintet, Henry "Red" Allen , Gary McFarland, Steve Kuhn and Gábor Szabó.
Morell recorded prolifically and toured the world with pianist Bill Evans and bassist Eddie Gomez from late 1968 through 1974. Evans biographer Peter Pettinger, calling Morell "an unsung stalwart of piano trio history" wrote:
...he had been responsible for an exceedingly tight unit that could swing and drive relentlessly. His control of the twelve-bar sections in a number like "Twelve Tone Tune", for instance, was as snappy and precise as coulld be. At the same time,on ballads, he never failed to provide a listening cushion of the utmost delicacy, seeming to imbue his drums with the ability to breathe of their own volition, and always in expressive union with his leader. ("Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings",p. 226)

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McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner (born December 11, 1938) is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.
Tyner was born Alfred McCoy Tyner in Philadelphia as the oldest of three children. He was encouraged to study piano by his mother. He began studying the piano at age 13 and within two years music had become the focal point in his life. His early influences included Bud Powell, a Philadelphia neighbor. When he was 17, he converted to Islam through the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and changed his name to Sulieman Saud.
Tyner's first main exposure came with Benny Golson, being the first pianist in Golson's and Art Farmer's legendary Jazztet (1960). After departing the Jazztet, Tyner joined Coltrane's group in 1960 during its extended run at the Jazz Gallery replacing Steve Kuhn. (Coltrane had known Tyner for a while in Philadelphia, and featured one of the pianist's compositions, "The Believer", as early as 1958.) He appeared on the saxophonist's popular recording of "My Favorite Things" for Atlantic Records. The Coltrane Quartet, which consisted of Coltrane on tenor sax, Tyner, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums, toured almost non-stop between 1961 and 1965 and recorded a number of classic albums, including Live at the Village Vanguard, Ballads, Live at Birdland, Crescent, A Love Supreme, and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays ..., on the Impulse! label.

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Michel Petrucciani
Michel Petrucciani (28 December 1962, Orange, Vaucluse, France – 6 January 1999, New York City, USA) was a French jazz pianist.
Michel Petrucciani came from an Italo-French family with a musical background. His father Tony played guitar, his brother Louis played bass and his brother Philippe also plays the guitar. Michel was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a genetic disease that causes brittle bones and in his case short stature. It is also often linked to pulmonary ailments. This disease caused his bones to fracture over one hundred times until he reached adolescence. The disease caused pain that continued throughout his entire life. “I have pain all the time. I’m used to having hurt arms,” he said. In Michel's early career his father and brother occasionally carried him, literally, because he could not walk far on his own unaided. In certain respects though he considered his disability an advantage as he got rid of distractions, like sports, that other boys tended to become involved in. And he hints that his disability was helpful in other parts of his life. He said: "Sometimes I think someone upstairs saved me from being ordinary."

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Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion.
Miles Dewey Davis was born on May 26, 1926, to an affluent African American family in Alton, Illinois. His father, Dr. Miles Henry Davis, was a dentist. In 1927 the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. They also owned a substantial ranch in northern Arkansas, where Davis learned to ride horses as a boy.
Davis' mother, Cleota Mae (Henry) Davis, wanted her son to learn the piano; she was a capable blues pianist but kept this fact hidden from her son. His musical studies began at 13, when his father gave him a trumpet and arranged lessons with local musician Elwood Buchanan. Davis later suggested that his father's instrument choice was made largely to irk his wife, who disliked the trumpet's sound. Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato; he was reported to have slapped Davis' knuckles every time he started using heavy vibrato. Davis would carry his clear signature tone throughout his career. He once remarked on its importance to him, saying, "I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a round voice with not too much tremolo and not too much bass. Just right in the middle. If I can’t get that sound I can’t play anything."Clark Terry was another important early influence.^{[citation needed]}

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Mitchel Forman
Mitchel Forman (born January 24, 1956 in Brooklyn, NY) is a jazz and fusion keyboard player currently residing in Southern California.
Mitchel Forman began studying classical piano at age seven. At 17 he entered the Manhattan School of Music for three years of study and began working with bands in New York. Shortly after graduating from MSM Mitchel began touring and recording with Gerry Mulligan, playing in both his big band and quartet, and work with Stan Getz followed. In 1980 his solo career began with a piano performance at the Newport Jazz Festival. This recording became Mitchel's first album, Live at Newport. In subsequent years Forman worked on the road with Phil Woods, Carla Bley, Mel Tormé, and Astrud Gilberto. He also recorded two solo piano albums for Soul Note and toured in Europe regularly. Forman then joined guitarist John McLaughlin for a year and a half on the road, recording and contributing to two of the band's recordings - the seminal Mahavishnu and Adventures in Radioland. Mitchel then joined ex-Weather Report saxophonist Wayne Shorter, touring, recording and contributing to Shorter's Phantom Navigator.

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Monica Zetterlund
Eva Monica Zetterlund (born Nilsson 20 September 1937 in Hagfors, died 12 May 2005) was a Swedish singer and actress.
Zetterlund was a singer particularly noted for her jazz work. She began by learning the classic jazz songs from radio and records, initially not knowing the language and what they sang about in English. She went for the melody, rhythm and feeling.
Hit songs include "Sakta vi gå genom stan" (Swedish cover of "Walking My Baby Back Home"; in Swedish a tribute to Stockholm town), "Visa från Utanmyra", "Sista jäntan", "Trubbel", "Gröna små äpplen" ("Little Green Apples"), "Monicas vals" ("Waltz for Debby"), "Stick iväg, Jack!" ("Hit the Road Jack"), "Att angöra en brygga", "Var blev ni av", "Måne över Stureplan" (cover on Sting's "Moon Over Bourbon Street") and "Under vinrankan!", among many, many others. She also interpreted the works of many Swedish national singer-songwriters such as Evert Taube, Olle Adolphson and Povel Ramel, and all through her life interpreted the works of international and American jazz musicians/song writers. She worked with some of the greatest international jazz names including Louis Armstrong, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Steve Kuhn and Quincy Jones, and in the Scandinavian jazz world with people like Georg Riedel, Egil Johansen, Arne Domnérus, Svend Asmussen and Jan Johansson.^{[citation needed]}

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Monty Budwig
Monty Rex Budwig (December 26, 1926 – March 9, 1992) was a West Coast jazz double bassist. He was born in Pender, Nebraska. He began playing bass during high school, continuing in the military band while he was enlisted in the Air Force.
In 1954 he moved to Los Angeles and went onto record and perform with many notable jazz musicians (Carmen McRae, Barney Kessel, Woody Herman, Red Norvo, Scott Hamilton, and Shelly Manne).
He is probably best known for his playing with Vince Guaraldi, but there has been some controversy as to whether or not he was the bassist heard on the Charlie Brown Christmas Album. He released one recording as a leader (Dig on the Concord label).
Allmusic Bio

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Mundell Lowe
Mundell Lowe (born April 21, 1922) is an American jazz guitarist.
Lowe was born in Laurel, Mississippi on 21 April 1922. In the 1930s he played country music and Dixieland jazz. He later played with big bands and orchestras, and on television in New York City. In the 1960s, Lowe composed music for films and television in New York City and Los Angeles. He has performed and/or recorded with Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Helen Humes, Roy Buchanan, Charles Mingus, Stan Getz, Doc Severinsen, Kai Winding, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, Benny Carter, Herb Ellis, Tal Farlow, Barry Manilow, André Previn, Ray Brown, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tete Montoliu, Harry Belafonte and others. Lowe is a regular featured performer at the annual W. C. Handy Music Festival and a member of the W. C. Handy Jazz All-Stars.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s Mr. Lowe was also a well-respected teacher at Dick Grove Music Workshop, later the Grove School of Music, in Studio City, California, one of the top professional level music schools in the world. He taught guitar as well as film scoring.

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Niño Josele
Niño Josele (born Juan José Heredia in 1974 in Almería) is a Spanish guitarist, and exponent of the New Flamenco style.
His first two albums show a vibrant, pure, modern flamenco style.
He then released a tribute to Bill Evans' music via his album Paz, showing his versatility as a musician. Having originated in a flamenco background, Josele adapts to complicated jazz music themes as well as creating his own mixture of various genres in his own compositions.
He has participated in the award-winning short film Almendros los Plaza Nueva and "La sombra de las cuerdas" 2009 (By Annabelle Ameline,Benoît Bodlet & Chechu G.Berlanga), a portrait of the guitar genius "El Niño Miguel".

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Oliver Nelson
Oliver Edward Nelson (June 4, 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri – October 28, 1975) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger and composer.
Oliver Nelson's family was musical: his brother was also a saxophonist who played with Cootie Williams in the 1940s, and his sister sang and played piano. Nelson began learning to play the piano when he was six, and started on the saxophone at eleven. From 1947 he played in "territory" bands around Saint Louis, before joining the Louis Jordan big band from 1950 to 1951, playing alto saxophone and arranging.
After military service in the Marines, Nelson returned to Missouri to study music composition and theory at Washington and Lincoln Universities, graduating in 1958. While back in his hometown of St. Louis, he met and married Eileen Mitchell; the couple had a son, Oliver Nelson Jr., but soon divorced. After graduation, Nelson married Audrey McEwen, a union which lasted until his death; they had a son, Nyles. Audrey was a native of St. Louis, Missouri.

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Orrin Keepnews
Orrin Keepnews (born March 2, 1923 in The Bronx, New York City) is an American writer and jazz record producer. In June 2010, he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Keepnews graduated from Columbia with a degree in English in 1943. Subsequently, he was involved in bombing raids over Japan in the final months of World War II, before returning for graduate studies at Columbia in 1946.
While working as an editor for the book publishers Simon and Schuster, Keepnews moonlighted as editor of The Record Changer magazine after fellow Columbia graduate Bill Grauer became its owner in 1948. In 1952 Grauer and Keepnews produced a series of reissues on RCA Victor's Label "X". The following year the partners founded Riverside Records, which was originally devoted to reissue projects in the traditional and swing jazz idioms.

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Paul Motian
Stephen Paul Motian (25 March 1931 – 22 November 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist and composer of Armenian extraction.
He first came to prominence in the late 1950s in the piano trio of Bill Evans, and later led several groups. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties.
Motian was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. After playing guitar in his childhood, Motian began playing the drums at age 12, eventually touring New England in a swing band. During the Korean War he joined the Navy.
Motian became a professional musician in 1954, and briefly played with pianist Thelonious Monk. He became well known as the drummer in pianist Bill Evans's trio (1959–64), initially alongside bassist Scott LaFaro and later with Chuck Israels.
Subsequently, he played with pianists Paul Bley (1963-64) and Keith Jarrett (1967–76). Other musicians with whom Motian performed and/or recorded in the early period of his career included Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz,Joe Castro, Arlo Guthrie (Motian performed briefly with Guthrie in 1968-69, and performed with the singer at Woodstock), Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, and Don Cherry. Motian subsequently worked with musicians such as Marilyn Crispell, Bill Frisell, Leni Stern, Joe Lovano, Alan Pasqua, Bill McHenry, Stephane Oliva, Frank Kimbrough, and many more.

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Philly Joe Jones
Joseph Rudolph (Philly Joe) Jones (July 15, 1923 – August 30, 1985) was a Philadelphia-born American jazz drummer, known as the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet.
Philly Joe Jones was often confused with another influential jazz drummer, Jo Jones. The two died only a few days apart from each other.
In 1947 he became the house drummer at Café Society in New York City, where he played with the leading bebop players of the day. Among them, the most important influence on Jones was Tadd Dameron. Jones toured and recorded with Miles Davis Quintet from 1955 to 1958 – a band that became known as "The Quintet" (along with Red Garland on piano, John Coltrane on sax, and Paul Chambers on bass). Miles acknowledged that Jones was his favorite drummer (in his autobiography, Davis mentions that he would always listen for Jones in other drummers).
From 1958 onwards Jones worked as a leader, but continued to work as a sideman with other musicians, including Bill Evans and Hank Mobley. Evans also openly admitted that Philly Joe was his all-time favorite drummer. For two years (1967–69) he taught at a specially organized school in Hampstead, London, but was prevented from otherwise working in the UK by the Musicians' Union.

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Richie Beirach
Richard "Richie" Beirach (born May 23, 1947) is a jazz pianist and composer born in New York City.
He initially studied both classical and jazz before entering the Berklee College of Music.
In 1972 he began working with Stan Getz. He also worked with Chet Baker and in the 1990s worked well with Swedish saxophonist Henrik Frisk. He maintained an ongoing musical partnership with David Liebman from the 1970s to the 90s, in Lookout Farm, Quest and many duos.
Richie Beirach's style is influenced by Art Tatum, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea and his earlier classical training. It is also individualistic with many touches all its own. Several of his compositions, "Leaving" and "Elm" for instance, have found their way into the jazz standard repertoire.
With George Adams
With John Abercrombie
With Jeremy Steig

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Ron Carter
Ron Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that instrument.
Carter was born in Ferndale, Michigan. He started to play cello at the age of 10, but when his family moved to Detroit, he ran into difficulties regarding the racial stereotyping of classical musicians and instead moved to bass. He attended the historic Cass Technical High School in Detroit, and, later, the Eastman School of Music, where he played in its Philharmonic Orchestra. He gained his bachelor's degree at Eastman in 1959, and in 1961 a master's degree in double bass performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
His first jobs as a jazz musician were with Jaki Byard and Chico Hamilton. His first records were made with Eric Dolphy (another former member of Hamilton's group) and Don Ellis, in 1960. His own first date as leader, Where?, with Dolphy and Mal Waldron and a date also with Dolphy called Out There with George Duvivier and Roy Haynes and Carter on cello; its advanced harmonies and concepts were in step with the third stream movement.

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Roseanna Vitro
Roseanna Vitro is a jazz singer and educator.
Born Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro in Hot Springs, Arkansas on February 28, 1951, Vitro began singing at an early age, drawing inspiration from various musical genres like gospel, rock, and R&B, theatre, and classical music. Her father owned a night club in Hot Springs, Arkansas in the '50s called The Flamingo. He loved Dean Martin's music and opera, and her mother's family sang gospel. By the 1960s, she was determined to be a rock singer. She was exposed to jazz and it became her genre of choice after moving to Houston, TX in the 1970s. Ray Sullenger discovered Roseanna and presented her to the Houston Jazz Community where she studied with voice coach, Ray Sullenger and sang frequently with tenor great, Arnett Cobb. Vitro worked for two years in Houston's Green Room with her group "Roseanna with Strings and Things" hosting a radio show on KUHF-Fm, which featured guests like Arnett Cobb. Many jazz greats stopped in and played with Strings and Things, such as Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Tommy Flanagan and Keeter Betts. While in Houston, she performed many times with saxophonist Arnett Cobb, who, along with Sullenger and pianist Oscar Peterson, encouraged her to dedicate herself to jazz. In 1978 she moved to New York City with guitarist Scott Hardy and began to study with Gabore Carelli, a professor from the Manhattan School of Music and started performing with Kenny Werner and Fred Hersch. She also sat in with and ultimately toured with Lionel Hampton. In New York, she appeared at all the major jazz clubs including The Blue Note, Iridium, Birdland, and Dizzy's Jazz Club at Lincoln Center. She also appeared with Steve Allen at New York's The Town Hall and recorded an album of Mr.Allen's original compositions (Seabreeze label,"The Time of My Life"). In 2005 she performed and recorded live with Kenny Werner at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

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Rusyns
Carpatho-Rusyns or Ruthenes (Rusyn: Русины, Rusyns, also sometimes referred to as Carpatho-Russians or Rusnaks) are a primarily diasporic ethnic group who speak an Eastern Slavic language, known as Rusyn. Carpatho-Rusyns descend from a minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt the use of the ethnonym "Ukrainian" in the early twentieth century. The use of the term Rusyn was prohibited by some governments, as seen after 1945 in Soviet Transcarpathia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
Today, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia officially recognize contemporary Rusyns (or Ruthenes) as an ethnic minority. In 2007, Carpatho-Rusyns were recognized as a separate ethnicity in Ukraine by the Zakarpattia Regional Council. Rusyns within Ukraine have Ukrainian citizenship, and most have adopted a Ukrainian ethnic identity. Most contemporary self-identified ethnic Rusyns live outside of Ukraine.
Of the estimated 1.2 million people of Rusyn origin, only 55,000 have officially identified themselves politically or ethnically as such, according to contemporary censuses.^[who?] The ethnic classification of Rusyns as a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians is, however, controversial. The majority of Ukrainian scholars, as well as some Rusyns when considering their self-identification, consider Rusyns to be an ethnic subgroup of the Ukrainian people. This is disputed by some Lemko scholars.

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Scott LaFaro
Rocco Scott LaFaro (April 3, 1936 – July 6, 1961) was an influential American jazz bassist, perhaps best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio.
Born in Irvington, New Jersey, LaFaro grew up in a musical family (his father played in many big bands). His family moved to parent's hometown of Geneva, New York when Scott was five years old. He started on piano while in elementary school, began on the bass clarinet in junior high school, changing to tenor saxophone when he entered high school. He only took up the double bass at 18, in the summer before he entered college, when he learned a string instrument was required for music education majors. About three months into his studies at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, LaFaro decided to concentrate on bass. He often played in groups at the College Spa and Joe's Restaurant on State Street in downtown Ithaca.
He entered college to study music but left during the early weeks of his sophomore year, when he joined Buddy Morrow and his big band. He left that organization in Los Angeles after a cross country tour and decided to try his luck in the Los Angeles music scene. There, he quickly found work and became known as one of the best of the young bassists. In 1959, after many gigs with such luminaries as Chet Baker, Victor Feldman, Stan Kenton, Cal Tjader, and Benny Goodman, LaFaro joined Bill Evans, who had recently left the Miles Davis Sextet. It was with Evans and drummer Paul Motian that LaFaro developed and expanded the counter-melodic style that would come to characterize his playing. LaFaro replaced Charlie Haden as Ornette Coleman's bassist in January, 1961.

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Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott Yanow as "one of the all-time great tenor saxophonists". Getz went on to perform in bebop, cool jazz and third stream, but is perhaps best known for popularizing bossa nova, as in the worldwide hit single "The Girl from Ipanema" (1964).
Getz was born on February 2, 1927, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Ukrainian Jews who emigrated from the Kiev area in 1903. The family later moved to New York City for better employment opportunities. Getz worked hard in school, receiving straight As, and finished sixth grade close to the top of his class. Getz's major interest was in musical instruments, and he felt a need to play every instrument in sight. He played a number of them before his father bought him his first saxophone at the age of 13. Even though his father also got him a clarinet, Getz instantly fell in love with the saxophone and began practicing eight hours a day.

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Stefano Battaglia
Stefano Battaglia (b. 1965, Milan - ) is an Italian classical and jazz pianist.
He has played extensively on the international circuit, performing as a soloist with the European Youth Orchestra in Barcelona (1981), and winning the "J.S. Bach Festival" award in Düsseldorf as the best new pianist of the year (1986) and the Brussels National Radio Award as the best young European pianist (1997). He has taught at major Italian jazz seminars such as the "Siena Jazz" summer program. Battaglia is a founder of the jazz group Triplicity and Theatrum as part of the Permanent Workshop for Musical Research in Siena. He has recorded more than 60 CDs and is currently working on an anthology of recordings called The Book of Jazz. He also recorded with Michele Rabbia.

wn.com/Stefano_Battaglia

Stefano Bollani
Stefano Bollani (born 5 December 1972, Milan) is an Italian jazz pianist from Milan.
He made his professional debut at fifteen and received his diploma in piano from the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence. He performs classical music, smooth jazz, avant-garde jazz, Brazilian jazz, and pop rock. In 1998, Musica Jazz magazine voted him Best Jazz Talent of the Year and later he would be awarded for jazz by a New Swing group in Japan. While he is mostly known for his collaborations with Enrico Rava, he has made several albums as a leader, and has been favourably acknowledged by several long established jazz musicians, such as Martial Solal. The album Mi ritorni in mente, includes an interpretation of the standard "Nature Boy" which has been acclaimed by many.
He is married to the Italian singer Petra Magoni.
With Enrico Rava
Michele Francesco Schiavon Stefano Bollani: Portrait in Blue – HARVEY FILM, 2009

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Steve Kuhn
Steve Kuhn (born March 24, 1938, Brooklyn, New York City) is an American jazz pianist, composer and trio leader.
He began studying piano at the age of five and studied under Boston piano teacher Margaret Chaloff, mother of jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff, who taught him the "Russian style" of piano playing. At an early age he began improvising classical music. As a teenager he appeared in jazz clubs in the Boston area, gigging with the likes of Coleman Hawkins, Vic Dickerson, Chet Baker, and Serge Chaloff. He graduated from Harvard and attended the Lenox School of Music where he was associated with such other future jazz masters as Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Gary McFarland, with a supportive faculty that included George Russell, Gunther Schuller, the Modern Jazz Quartet members, and Bill Evans. This allowed Kuhn to play, study, and create with some of the most forward-thinking innovators of jazz improvisation and composition, culminating with his joining trumpeter Kenny Dorham's group for an extended time and (briefly) John Coltrane's quartet at New York's Jazz Gallery club.

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Sylvia Syms
Sylvia M. L. SymsOBE (born 6 January 1934) is an English actress. She is probably best known for her roles in the films Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957), Ice Cold in Alex (1958), No Trees in the Street (1959), Victim (1961) and The Tamarind Seed (1974). She remains active in films, television and theatre.
Syms was born in Woolwich, London, England, the daughter of Daisy (née Hale) and Edwin Syms, a trade unionist and civil servant. She was educated at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, on whose council she later served. Her daughter Beatie Edney is also an actress. She is the aunt of musicians Nick Webb (musician) (1954-98) and Alex Webb (1961 - ).
Syms started her career as a starlet. In her second film, My Teenage Daughter (1954), she played Anna Neagle's "problem" daughter. In 1958, she appeared in the film Ice Cold in Alex (alongside John Mills, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews) which, in recent years, has become something of a cult film following its use in a beer commercial. A love scene between Mills and Syms was dropped from the film because it was considered too strong.

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Teddy Kotick
Teddy Kotick (June 4, 1928 – April 17, 1986) was a jazz bassist who appeared as a sideman with many of the leading figures of the 1940s and 1950s, including Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, Artie Shaw, Horace Silver, Phil Woods and Bill Evans. He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

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Toni Frissell
Toni Frissell, or Antoinette Frissell Bacon, (March 10, 1907 - April 17, 1988) was an American photographer, known for her fashion photography, World War II photographs, portraits of famous Americans and Europeans, children, and women from all walks of life.
Antoinette Frissell was born in 1907 in New York City, New York, but took photos under the name Toni Frissell, even after her marriage to Manhattan socialite McNeil Bacon. She worked with many famous photographers of the day, as an apprentice to Cecil Beaton, and with advice from Edward Steichen. Her initial job, as a fashion photographer for Vogue in 1931, was due to Condé Montrose Nast personally. She later took photographs for Harper's Bazaar. Her fashion photos, even of evening gowns and such, were often notable for their outdoor settings, emphasizing active women.
In 1941, Frissell volunteered her photographic services to the American Red Cross. Later she worked for the Eighth Army Air Force and became the official photographer of the Women's Army Corps. On their behalf, she took thousands of images of nurses, front-line soldiers, WACs, African-American airmen, and orphaned children. She traveled to the European front twice. Her moving photographs of military women and African American fighter pilots in the elite 332d Fighter Group (the "Tuskegee Airmen") were used to encourage public support for women and African Americans in the military.

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Tony Bennett
Anthony Dominick Benedetto, better known as Tony Bennett (born August 3, 1926), is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter, having created works — under the name Benedetto — that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City.
Raised in New York City, Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in the European Theatre. Afterwards, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records, and had his first number one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several top hits such as "Rags to Riches" followed in the early 1950s. Bennett then further refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and his personal life then suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.

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Warne Marsh
Warne Marion Marsh (26 October 1927 – 18 December 1987) was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his restrained, cerebral playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protege of pianist Lennie Tristano, and earned attention in the 1970s as a member of Supersax.
Marsh came from an affluent background: his father was the cinematographer Oliver T. Marsh (1892–1941), and his mother Elizabeth was a violinist. Mae Marsh, the actress, was his aunt.
He was tutored by Lennie Tristano and, along with Lee Konitz, became one of the pre-eminent saxophonists of the Tristano-inspired "Cool School". Of all of Tristano's students, Marsh arguably came closest to typifying Tristano's ideals of improvised lines, in some respects, even transcending the master himself.^{[citation needed]} Marsh was often recorded in the company of other Cool School musicians, and remained one of the most faithful to the Tristano philosophy of improvisation – the faith in the purity of the long line, the avoidance of licks and emotional chain-pulling, the concentration on endlessly mining the same small body of jazz standards. Nevertheless, his distinctively pure tone without the inflections popular among many other tenor saxophonists at that time such as honks, growls, exaggerated vibrato, slurs and glisses, etc. set Marsh apart from other Lester Young and Ben Webster-influenced saxophonists. However, critic Scott Yanow notes that Marsh played with "more fire than one would expect" in certain contexts.

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Warren Bernhardt
Warren Bernhardt (born in November, 1938 in Wausau, Wisconsin) is a noted pianist in jazz, pop and classical music.
His father was a pianist, leading him to have early childhood exposure to piano, and he learned some rudiments of keyboarding from his friends. At five his parents moved to New York City where he began studying seriously under varied instructors. After the death of his father in 1957 he quit music for a time to study chemistry and physics at the University of Chicago. In that city he would be exposed to the blues and jazz, which would influence the rest of his career.
From 1961 to 1964 he worked in Paul Winter's sextet, which led to his return to New York. Once in New York, he worked with George Benson, Gerry Mulligan, Jeremy Steig and others. He also developed a close relationship with the legendary pianist Bill Evans, who served as a mentor to Bernhardt. Bernhardt released several solo LPs in the 1970s, and eventually became a member of the jazz fusion group Steps Ahead while continuing to work on solo projects.

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Welsh people
The Welsh people (Welsh: Cymry) are an ethnic group and nation native to Wales and associated with the Welsh language. Welsh people historically spoke the Welsh language; however, in recent years English has predominated in most of Wales.
John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have been spoken in Wales far longer. The term Welsh people applies to people from Wales and people of Welsh ancestry perceiving themselves or being perceived as sharing a cultural heritage and shared ancestral origins. Today Wales is a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of people living in Wales are British citizens.
An analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by the Welsh Government found that 718,000 people, or nearly 35% of the Welsh population, have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of the United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in the countries studied having Welsh ancestry.

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Wikipedia Persondata
wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata

Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims (October 29, 1925 - March 23, 1985) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.
He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age. His father was a vaudeville hoofer, and Sims prided himself on remembering many of the steps his father taught him.
Following in the footsteps of Lester Young, Sims developed into an innovative tenor saxophonist. Throughout his career, he played with renowned bands, including Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Stan Kenton, and Buddy Rich. Sims was also one of Woody Herman's "Four Brothers", and he was known among his peers as one of the strongest swingers in the field. He frequently led his own combos and sometimes toured with his friend Gerry Mulligan's sextet, and later with Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band.
In the 1950s and '60s, Sims had a long, successful partnership as co-leader of a quintet with Al Cohn, which recorded under the name "Al and Zoot". That group was a favorite at the New York club The Half Note. Always fond of the higher register of the tenor sax, Zoot also liked to play alto and late in his career added the soprano saxophone to his performances, while recording a series of albums for the Pablo Records label of impresario Norman Granz. Zoot also played on some of Jack Kerouac's recordings.

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Bill Evans
Bill Evans performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland) with his trio consisting of Marc Johnson, bass & Philly Joe Jones, drums, July 13, 1978. (Photo by Brian McMillen)
Background information
Birth name	William John Evans
Also known as	Bill Evans
Born	(1929-08-16)August 16, 1929 Plainfield, New Jersey, United States
Died	September 15, 1980(1980-09-15) (aged 51) Fort Lee, New Jersey, United States
Genres	Jazz, modal jazz, third stream, cool jazz, post-bop
Occupations	Pianist Composer Arranger
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1950s–1980^[1]
Labels	Riverside, Verve, Fantasy
Associated acts	George Russell, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Philly Joe Jones, Scott LaFaro, Paul Motian, Eddie Gomez, Marty Morell, Tony Bennett, Jim Hall, Monica Zetterlund

Persondata
Name	Evans, Bill
Alternative names	Evans, William John
Short description	American Jazz Pianist
Date of birth	August 16, 1929
Place of birth	Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
Date of death	September 15, 1980
Place of death	New York City

Alex Riel
Photo by Gorm Valentin
Background information
Birth name	Alex Riel
Born	September 13, 1940
Origin	Copenhagen, Denmark
Genres	Jazz, hard bop, rock
Occupations	Musician, composer
Instruments	Drums
Years active	1962 -
Associated acts	Alex Riel Trio
Website	Alex Riel Official Site

Persondata
Name	Riel, Alex
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1940-09-13
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death

Eddie Gómez
Gómez on tour with Chick Corea in May 2010 in Santiago, Chile
Background information
Birth name	Edgar Gómez
Born	(1944-10-04) October 4, 1944 (age 67) Santurce, Puerto Rico
Genres	Jazz, jazz fusion
Occupations	Musician, bandleader
Instruments	Double bass
Labels	Columbia
Associated acts	Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Mark Kramer, Steps Ahead
Website	www.eddiegomez.com

Persondata
Name	Gomez, Eddie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	October 4, 1944
Place of birth	Santurce, Puerto Rico
Date of death
Place of death

Evans, Bill Filmography

Evans, Bill Filmography

Evans, Bill Filmography

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