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• 
  

• 
  Benin
  Benin ⁱ/bɨˈniːn/ (formerly, Dahomey), officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, by Nigeria to the east and by Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. A majority of the population live on its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city. Benin covers an area of approximately 110,000 square kilometers (42,000 sq mi), with a population of approximately 9.05 million. Benin is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment and income arising from subsistence farming.
  The official language of Benin is French, however, indigenous languages such as Fon and Yoruba are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun and Protestantism. Benin is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the African Petroleum Producers Association and the Niger Basin Authority.
  
  wn.com/Benin
• 
  Brazil
  Brazil ⁱ/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil,  listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
  Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
  Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.
  
  wn.com/Brazil
• 
  Chicago
  Chicago (ⁱ/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in the US state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. The city has around 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland", is the third largest in the United States, with an estimated 9.8 million people. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, though a small portion also extends into DuPage County.
  Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, Chicago is listed as an alpha+ global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranks seventh in the world on the 2012 Global Cities Index. The city retains its status as an international hub for finance, industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. In 2008^[update], the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. Among metropolitan areas, Chicago has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world, ranking just behind Tokyo, New York City, and Los Angeles. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.
  
  wn.com/Chicago
• Different Fur
  Different Fur (formerly Different Fur Trading Company, currently Different Fur Studios) is a recording studio located in the Mission District of San Francisco, California, at 3470 19th Street. Since 1968, Different Fur has recorded music from a wide range of artists, including major Grammy and Oscar-winning musicians as well as many important independent musicians.
  Different Fur was founded in 1968 by the electronic music composer and keyboardist Patrick Gleeson. Its name was suggested by poet Michael McClure, while he was being recorded by Gleeson. By the early 1970s Gleeson was doing sessions with Jefferson Starship on his recently acquired 8-track recorder and Moog synthesizer. It was his expertise in early synthesizers, like the Moog, which eventually led Gleeson to collaborations with Herbie Hancock, whom Gleeson credits with helping Different Fur get off the ground. By 1971 Gleeson was working with Hancock on his albums Crossings and Sextant. He went on to record many of the synthesizers on Hancock's master work Head Hunters, as well as several solo albums at Different Fur.
  
  wn.com/Different_Fur
• 
  Paris
  Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508
  Paris (ⁱ/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). As of January 2008 the city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297 and a metropolitan population of 12,089,098, and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.
  Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the International Chamber of Commerce or the European Space Agency. Paris is considered one of the greenest and most liveable cities in Europe. It is also one of the most expensive.
  
  wn.com/Paris
• 
  Roosevelt University
  Coordinates: 41°52′34″N 87°37′29″W / 41.87611°N 87.62472°W / 41.87611; -87.62472
  Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on principles of social justice. Currently the university enrolls around 7,000 students between its undergraduate and graduate programs and is ranked #81 in the Best Colleges 2012 from US News and World Report  Regional Universities-Midwest category. The current president is Charles R. Middleton; he was inaugurated in 2002.
  The university was founded in 1945 after the president of Central YMCA College in Chicago, Edward J. Sparling, refused to provide his board with the demographic data of his student body, fearing that it would provide the basis for a quota system to limit the number of African Americans, Jews, immigrants, and women at the school. As a result, Sparling resigned under protest and left, followed by a number of faculty and students, to start a new college after a vote in favor 62 to 1 (for faculty) and 488 to 2 (with the student body). In the beginning, the university had no library, campus, or endowment.
  
  wn.com/Roosevelt_University

• 
  Adam Clayton
  Adam Charles Clayton (born 13 March 1960) is a musician, best known as the bassist of the Irish rock band U2. Clayton has resided in County Dublin since the time his family moved to Malahide when he was five years old in 1965. Clayton is well known for his bass playing on songs such as "New Year's Day", "Bullet the Blue Sky", "With or Without You", "Mysterious Ways", "Get on Your Boots", and "Magnificent". His work on No Line on the Horizon has been cited as his best bass playing. He has worked on several solo projects throughout his career, such as his work with fellow band member Larry Mullen Jr. on the theme of 1996's Mission: Impossible. Clayton, as a part of U2, has won 22 Grammy awards.
  Clayton is the elder child of Brian and Jo Clayton, born on 13 March 1960 in Chinnor, Oxfordshire, England. When Clayton was five years old, his family moved from Oxfordshire to Malahide, County Dublin, where Clayton's brother Sebastian was born. The Clayton family became friends with the Evans family, with their sons Dik and Dave (more commonly known as The Edge), who were both in the original group, Feedback, that spawned U2.
  
  wn.com/Adam_Clayton
• Al Schmitt
  Al Schmitt is a recording engineer and record producer.
  Schmitt grew up in New York City. After serving in the U.S. Navy he began working at Apex Recording Studios at the age of 19. In the late 1950's Schmitt moved to Los Angeles and became a staff engineer at Radio Recorders on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. In the early 1960's he moved to RCA in Hollywood as a staff engineer. While at RCA he engineered albums for Henry Mancini, Cal Tjader, Al Hirt, Rosemary Clooney, Liverpool Five, The Astronauts, Sam Cooke "Bring It on Home to Me" "Cupid" "Another Saturday Night" in 1961. He also did a lot of motion-picture scoring work for Alex North and Elmer Bernstein.
  In 1966 Schmitt left RCA and became an independent producer. He produced albums for Jefferson Airplane, Eddie Fisher, Glenn Yarborough, Jackson Browne and Neil Young. In the mid 70's he began spending more time engineering again, recording and mixing artists from Willy DeVille and Dr. John.
  Other career highlights include engineering both Frank Sinatra Duets albums, Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company and some of Diana Krall's albums. Much of his work in the last few years has been with producer Tommy LiPuma.
  
  wn.com/Al_Schmitt
• Alan Bergman
  Alan Bergman (born September 11, 1925) is an American lyricist and songwriter.
  Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows. He and his wife Marilyn Bergman, whom he married in 1958, were born in the same hospital and raised in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, but did not meet until each had relocated to Los Angeles. Together they have written the music and lyrics for numerous television shows, films, and stage musicals.
  In 1983, the couple became the first songwriters ever to have written three of the five tunes nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song - "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" from Best Friends, "It Might Be You" from Tootsie (with Dave Grusin), and "If We Were in Love" from Yes, Giorgio (with John Williams); "Up Where We Belong" from "An Officer and a Gentleman" won that year.They also wrote the popular theme song And Then There's Maude for the hit Norman Lear television series Maude .
  
  wn.com/Alan_Bergman
• Alan Menken
  Alan Menken (born July 22, 1949) is a pianist and composer of American musical theatre and film.
  Menken is best known for his scores for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas have each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Home on the Range, The Shaggy Dog, Enchanted, and most recently, Tangled. Menken has collaborated on several occasions with lyricists including Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, Glenn Slater, and Stephen Schwartz. With nineteen nominations and eight wins, Menken has won the third most Oscars of any person, after Walt Disney (twenty-two wins) and Alfred Newman (nine wins).
  
  
  Menken was born in New York, NY to a Jewish family, the son of Judith and Norman Menken, a dentist. He developed an interest in music at an early age, studying piano and violin. He went to New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, New York. He attended college as a pre-med student, but later changed his focus to music at NYU Steinhardt. After college, he attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. He performed frequently in local clubs and worked as a composer of jingles and songs and as an accompanist.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Menken
• 
  Alison Krauss
  Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS), and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
  She has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and helped renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards. As of 2012, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 41 nominations, making her the most awarded living recipient, and three back of the most honoured artist, classical conductor Sir Georg Solti. She is also the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history. At the time of her first award, at the 1991 Grammy Awards, she was the second youngest winner ever (currently tied as third youngest).
  
  wn.com/Alison_Krauss
• 
  André 3000
  André Lauren Benjamin (born May 27, 1975), better known by his stage name André 3000 (formerly known as Dre), is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and actor, best known for being part of hip-hop duo OutKast alongside fellow rapper Big Boi. As an actor, Benjamin has made appearances in a number of TV series and films, including Families, The Shield, Be Cool, Revolver, Semi-Pro, and Four Brothers.
  In addition to music and acting, Benjamin has also been an active entrepreneur. In the spring of 2008, he launched a clothing line called Benjamin Bixby. He has also been an advocate for animal rights. He is also known for his work on the Cartoon Network animated series Class of 3000.
  Benjamin was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the only child of Sharon Benjamin Hodor, a single mother who sold real estate, and Lawrence Walker, a collections agent. He is of African and Native American descent. Growing up in East Point, Georgia and Buckhead He attended Willis A. Sutton Middle School, and Tri-Cities High School.
  
  wn.com/André_3000
• Anne Dudley
  Anne Dudley (born Anne Jennifer Beckingham, 7 May 1956, Chatham, Kent) is an English composer and pop musician, and was the first BBC Concert Orchestra's Composer in Association in 2001. She has worked in both the classical and pop genres. She is perhaps best known, however, as one of the core members of the synthpop band Art of Noise and also as a film composer. In 1998, she won an Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score for The Full Monty.
  Trained as a classical performer, Dudley then moved to the competitive commercial field as a session musician, where her professional relationship with Trevor Horn began. In 1982 Dudley made significant contributions to the Horn produced The Lexicon of Love album by ABC. She went from fleshing-out keyboard parts to scoring the album's orchestrations (her first ever string arrangements according to Horn) and also co-writing some of the songs. Her association with Horn, led on to working with groups such as Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Seal, Marc Almond, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams and more recently with Siphiwo. She has co-written songs with Malcolm McLaren "Buffalo Gals", Cathy Dennis "Too Many Walls", and a 1930's inspired song with Sting called "This Was Never Meant To Be".
  
  wn.com/Anne_Dudley
• 
  Annie Lennox
  Ann "Annie" Lennox, OBE (born 25 December 1954), is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s as part of the New Wave band The Tourists, she and fellow musician David A. Stewart went on to achieve major international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. Lennox is the most recognized female artist at the Brit Awards, winning a total of eight awards. She has also been named the "Brits Champion of Champions".
  Lennox embarked on a solo career in the 1990s with her debut album, Diva (1992), which produced several hit singles including "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". To date, she has released five solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection (2009). She is the recipient of eight Brit Awards, four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award; the highest accolade from Billboard Magazine. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
  
  wn.com/Annie_Lennox
• 
  Arif Mardin
  Arif Mardin (March 15, 1932 – June 25, 2006) was a Turkish-American music producer, who worked with hundreds of artists across many different styles of music, including jazz, rock, soul, disco, and country. He worked at Atlantic Records for over 30 years, as both an assistant, producer, arranger, studio manager, and vice president, before moving to EMI and serving as vice president and general manager of Manhattan Records. His collaborations include working with Queen, The Bee Gees, Anita Baker, Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, Laura Branigan, Chaka Khan, Scritti Politti, Phil Collins, Daniel Rodriguez, Norah Jones, Richard Marx, Culture Club and Jewel. Mardin was awarded 11 Grammy Awards.
  Arif Mardin was born in Istanbul into a renowned family that included statesmen, diplomats and leaders in the civic, military and business sectors of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. His father was co-owner in a petroleum gas station chain.
  Mardin grew up listening to the likes of Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller. Through his sister he met jazz critic Cuneyt Sermet, who turned him onto this music and eventually became his mentor. After graduating from Istanbul University in Economics and Commerce, Mardin studied at the London School of Economics. Influenced by his sister's music records and jazz, he was also an accomplished orchestrator and arranger, but he never intended to pursue a career in music. However, he made two solo albums: Glass Onion, in 1970, and Journey, in 1975. In Journey, he was the composer and arranger, but he also played electric piano and percussion, and was accompanied by many stars of jazz (Randy and Michael Brecker, Joe Farrell, Gary Burton, Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, Billy Cobham and many others).
  
  wn.com/Arif_Mardin
• 
  Aung San Suu Kyi
  Aung San Suu Kyi MP AC (Burmese: ; MLCTS: aung hcan: cu. krany, IPA: [ʔàʊɴ sʰáɴ sṵ tɕì]; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese opposition politician and General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma. In the 1990 general election, the NLD won 59% of the national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament. She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of the 21 years from 20 July 1989 until her most recent release on 13 November 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent (now former) political prisoners.
  Suu Kyi received the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the government of India and the International Simón Bolívar Prize from the government of Venezuela. In 2007, the Government of Canada made her an honorary citizen of that country; at the time, she was one of only four people ever to receive the honor. In 2011, she was awarded the Wallenberg Medal.
  
  wn.com/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
• 
  Barack Obama
  
  
  Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
  Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
  Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.
  
  wn.com/Barack_Obama
• Barry Bales
  Barry Turner Bales [1] (born August 23, 1969 in Kingsport, Tennessee) is the bass player and harmony vocalist for Alison Krauss and Union Station.
  Barry grew up in Colonial Heights, Tennessee outside of Kingsport, Tennessee and attended Sullivan South High School (Tennessee). Early memories of music include listening to the records of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, Bob Wills, Buck Owens and Hank Thompson from his father's extensive collection. He started experimenting with various instruments at the age of 10, starting with guitar. By age 15, Barry had found the bass and was playing regionally in various groups. Bales attended East Tennessee State University, participating in the Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music program, as did future Union Station members Tim Stafford and Adam Steffey. [2] It was while performing with many of these musicians that he began traveling in ever-wider musical circles, eventually landing the bass job with Union Station in 1990.
  Over the years, Barry has become one of the most in-demand session players in acoustic music. He has recorded and performed with such artists as Reba McEntire, Susan Ashton, Merle Haggard, Ronnie Bowman, the Cox family, Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Dan Tyminski, Patty Loveless and many others.
  
  wn.com/Barry_Bales
• Bennie Maupin
  Bennie Maupin (born 29 August 1940) is a Detroit Michigan jazz multireedist. He performs on various saxophones, flute and bass clarinet.
  He is probably best known for his participation in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi sextet and Headhunters band, and for performing on Miles Davis's seminal fusion record, Bitches Brew. Maupin has collaborated with Horace Silver, Roy Haynes and many others. He has also performed on several Meat Beat Manifesto albums. He is noted for having a harmonically-advanced, "out" improvisation style, while having a different sense of melodic direction than other "out" jazz musicians such as Eric Dolphy. As a composer, he has an ability to create brief melodies and song forms that create vast landscapes for improvisation.
  Maupin was also a member of Almanac, a group with Cecil McBee (bass), Mike Nock (piano) and Eddie Marshall (drums).
  With John Beasley
  With Marion Brown
  With Mike Clark
  With Miles Davis
  With Jack DeJohnette
  With Herbie Hancock
  With Eddie Henderson
  With Lee Morgan
  
  wn.com/Bennie_Maupin
• Bernie Grundman
  Bernie Grundman is an American audio engineer.
  He is most known for his mastering work and his studio, Bernie Grundman Mastering, which he opened in 1983 in Hollywood. The studio, which includes engineers Chris Bellman, Patricia Sullivan and Brian Gardner, mastered 37 projects which received Grammy Award nominations in 2005.
  Grundman and his studio have both won numerous TEC Awards, including Best Mastering Facility and several production awards.
  Previously, Grundman worked at Contemporary Records and then was head of the A&M Records mastering department in Los Angeles. Now his studio also has been established in Tokyo, Japan with engineer Yasuji Maeda.
  Airwolf Themes
  
  
  
  wn.com/Bernie_Grundman
• 
  Big Boi
  Antwan André Patton (born February 1, 1975), better known by his stage name Big Boi, is an American rapper, song-writer, record producer and actor, best known for being a member of American hip hop duo OutKast alongside André 3000. His work in the duo has produced six studio albums. During the duo's hiatus, he and André 3000 each announced plans to release a solo album. Big Boi's solo debut Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty was released in July 2010 to respectable sales and critical acclaim.
  Patton was born and spent the first half of his childhood in Savannah, Georgia, attending Herschel V. Jenkins High School before moving to Atlanta with his Aunt Renne. Eventually he decided to pursue his interest in music at Tri-Cities High School, a Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School.
  He had a strong interest in hip-hop music, and met André "3000" Benjamin while attending Tri Cities High School in the early-1990s. The two eventually joined forces as OutKast and signed with LaFace Records.
  
  wn.com/Big_Boi
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  Bill Conti
  William "Bill" Conti (born April 13, 1942) is an American film music composer who is frequently the conductor at the Academy Awards ceremony.
  Conti, an Italian American, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Lucetta and William Conti. He graduated from North Miami High School in 1959. He is a past winner of the Silver Knight Award presented by the Miami Herald. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University, and also studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
  His big break into celebrity came in 1976, when he was hired to compose the music for a small United Artists film called Rocky. The film became a phenomenon, and Conti's training montage tune, "Gonna Fly Now" topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977. He also composed music for the sequels Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006).
  Conti also worked for some other films and, eventually, for television series. In 1981, he wrote the music for the James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only, when John Barry was unwilling to return to the United Kingdom for tax reasons, and provided the score for playwright Jason Miller's film version of his Pulitzer Prize winning play That Championship Season the following year.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Conti
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  Bill Cosby
  William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the situation comedy The Bill Cosby Show. He was one of the major characters on the children's television series The Electric Company for its first two seasons, and created the educational cartoon comedy series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, about a group of young friends growing up in the city. Cosby has also acted in a number of films.
  During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in what is considered to be one of the decade's defining sitcoms, The Cosby Show, which aired eight seasons from 1984 to 1992. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an affluent African-American family. He also produced the spin-off sitcom A Different World, which became second to The Cosby Show in ratings. He starred in the sitcom Cosby from 1996 to 2000 and hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things for two seasons.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Cosby
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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.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Evans
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  Bill Laswell
  Bill Laswell (born February 12, 1955 in Salem, Illinois and raised in Albion, Michigan) is an American bassist, producer and record label owner.
  Laswell ranks among the most prolific of modern musicians, being involved in hundreds of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. Laswell's music draws upon many different genres, most notably funk, various world music, jazz, dub and ambient styles. He has also played or produced music from the noisier, more aggressive end of the rock spectrum, such as hardcore punk and metal.
  According to music critic Chris Brazier, "Laswell’s pet concept is 'collision music' which involves bringing together musicians from wildly divergent but complementary spheres and seeing what comes out." The credo of one record label run by Laswell, and which typifies much of his work, is “Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted”. Though projects arranged by Laswell may be credited under the same name and often feature the same roster of musicians, the styles and themes explored on different albums can vary dramatically: Material began as a noisy dance music project, but subsequent releases have been centered around hip hop, jazz, or backing spoken word readings by beat generation icon William S. Burroughs. Similarly, most versions of Praxis have featured guitarist Buckethead, but have explored different permutations with each new album.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Laswell
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  Billy Cobham
  William C. Cobham (born May 16, 1944 in Panama) is a Panamanian American jazz drummer, composer and bandleader, who permanently relocated to Switzerland during the late 1970s.
  Coming to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Allmusic's reviewer claims Cobham is "generally acclaimed as fusion's greatest drummer with an influential style that combines explosive power and exacting precision.
  Born in Panama, Cobham's family moved to New York City during his early childhood. A drummer from his youth, Cobham attended New York's High School of Music and Art, graduating in 1962.
  He played in a U.S. Army Band from 1965 to 1968. Following his discharge, Cobham joined an ensemble led by pianist Horace Silver for about a year, also playing or recording with saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, organist Shirley Scott, and guitarist George Benson.
  Cobham branched out to jazz fusion, which blended elements of jazz, rock and roll and funk, playing and recording with the Brecker Brothers (notably in their 1970-founded group Dreams), and guitarist John Abercrombie, before recording and touring extensively with trumpeter Miles Davis. Cobham's work with Davis appears on A Tribute to Jack Johnson, among other recordings. Cobham is also one of the first drummers to play open-handed lead: a drummer that plays on a right-handed set but leads with his left hand on the hi-hat instead of crossing over with his right (and also has his ride cymbal on the left side, instead of the traditional right). He typically plays with multiple toms and double bass drums and was well known in the '70s for his large drum kits.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Cobham
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  Billy Hart
  William "Billy" Hart (born November 29, 1940 in Washington, D.C.) is a jazz drummer and educator who has performed with some of the most important jazz musicians in history.
  Early on Hart performed in Washington, D.C. with soul artists such as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, and then later with Buck Hill and Shirley Horn, and was a sideman with the Montgomery Brothers (1961), Jimmy Smith (1964–1966), and Wes Montgomery (1966–1968). Following Montgomery’s death in 1968, Hart moved to New York, where he recorded with McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Zawinul, and played with Eddie Harris, Pharoah Sanders, and Marian McPartland.
  Hart was a member of Herbie Hancock's sextet (1969–1973), and played with McCoy Tyner (1973–1974), Stan Getz (1974–1977), and Quest (1980s), in addition to extensive freelance playing (including recording with Miles Davis on 1972's On the Corner).
  At age 70, Billy Hart works steadily and teaches widely.^{[citation needed]} Since the early 1990s Hart spends considerable time at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and is adjunct faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music and Western Michigan University. He also conducts private lessons through The New School and New York University. Hart often contributes to the Stokes Forest Music Camp and the Dworp Summer Jazz Clinic in Belgium.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Hart
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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.
  
  wn.com/Bob_Brookmeyer
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  Bobby Hutcherson
  Bobby Hutcherson (born January 27, 1941, Los Angeles) is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodicism, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern. Hutcherson has influenced younger vibraphonists like Steve Nelson, Joe Locke and Stefon Harris.
  "Little B's Poem" (from his album Components) is one of his best-known compositions.
  Attracted foremost to more experimental free jazz and post-bop, Hutcherson made early recordings in this style for the Blue Note label with Jackie McLean, Eric Dolphy, Andrew Hill, Grachan Moncur III, Joe Chambers, and Freddie Hubbard, both as a leader and a sideman. In spite of the numerous avant-garde recordings made during this period however, Hutcherson's first session for Blue Note, The Kicker (1963) (not released until 1999), demonstrates his background in hard bop and the blues, as well as the early session Idle Moments for Grant Green, for example. Many of his later recordings return to this hard bop and less adventurous, soulful sound.
  
  wn.com/Bobby_Hutcherson
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  Bono
  Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), most commonly known by his stage name Bono (/ˈbɒnoʊ/ BON-oh), is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his future wife, Alison Stewart, and the future members of U2. Bono writes almost all U2 lyrics, often using political, social, and religious themes. During their early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to U2's rebellious and spiritual tone. As the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with members of U2.
  Outside the band, he has collaborated and recorded with numerous artists, is managing director and a managing partner of Elevation Partners, and has refurbished and owns The Clarence Hotel in Dublin with The Edge. Bono is also widely known for his activism concerning Africa, for which he co-founded DATA, EDUN, the ONE Campaign and Product Red. He has organised and played in several benefit concerts and has met with influential politicians. Bono has been praised and criticised for his activism and involvement with U2. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and was named as a Person of the Year by Time, among other awards and nominations.
  
  wn.com/Bono
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  Branford Marsalis
  Branford Marsalis (born August 26, 1960) is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.
  Marsalis was born in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the son of Dolores (née Ferdinand) and Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr., a pianist and music professor. His brothers Jason Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis III, and Delfeayo Marsalis, and father Ellis are also jazz musicians.
  In the summer of 1980, while still a Berklee College of Music student, Marsalis toured Europe playing alto and baritone saxophone in a large ensemble led by drummer Art Blakey. Other big band experience with Lionel Hampton and Clark Terry followed over the next year, and by the end of 1981 Marsalis, on alto saxophone, had joined his brother Wynton in Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Other performances with his brother, including a 1981 Japanese tour with Herbie Hancock, led to the formation of his brother Wynton’s first quintet, where Marsalis shifted his emphasis to soprano and tenor saxophones. He continued to work with Wynton until 1985, a period that also saw the release of his own first recording, Scenes in the City, as well as guest appearances with other artists including Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.
  
  wn.com/Branford_Marsalis
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  Brian Eno
  Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born 15 May 1948), commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno ( /ˈiːnoʊ/^{[citation needed]}), is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer, and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.
  Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex, England, taking inspiration from minimalist painting. During his time on the art course at the Institute, he also gained experience in playing and making music through teaching sessions held in the adjacent music school.
  He joined the band Roxy Music as keyboard and synthesiser player in the early 1970s. Roxy Music's success in the glam rock scene came quickly, but Eno soon tired of touring and of conflicts with lead singer Bryan Ferry.
  Eno's solo music has explored more experimental musical styles and ambient music. It has also been extremely influential, pioneering ambient and generative music, innovating production techniques, and emphasising "theory over practice". He also introduced the concept of chance music to popular audiences, partially through collaborations with other musicians.
  
  wn.com/Brian_Eno
• Brian Gardner
  Brian Gardner, also known as Brian "Big Bass" Gardner is a mastering engineer. He has worked on a number of recordings since the mid-1960s, including classic rock, funk, disco, alternative rock, R&B, hip hop, pop punk, and dance pop. He is perhaps best known for his work on hip hop albums and in particular in his collaborations with Dr. Dre.
  He is currently employed at Bernie Grundman Mastering, a mastering house founded and run by Bernie Grundman.
  
  Brian has been awarded seven Grammy nominations six of which were for Album Of The Year and one Grammy win for Album of the Year (SpeakerBox - Outkast)
  
  
  
  wn.com/Brian_Gardner
• Buster Williams
  Charles Anthony Williams (born April 17, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey) is an American jazz bassist.
  Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing. He started his professional career in Philadelphia with Jimmy Heath, then played and recorded with the Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt quintet (1960–61). After that, he played in Los Angeles for the vocalists Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and Nancy Wilson (until late '60's), recording with Vaughn and Wilson, and also with The Jazz Crusaders and the Bobby Hutcherson/Harold Land quintet while working with Miles Davis.
  In 1969, Williams moved to New York City and joined the Herbie Hancock Mwandishi Sextet for the next three years, doubling in acoustic and electric basses, and also worked with Mary Lou Williams (1973–75) and Ron Carter's quartet (1977–78). Since the 1980s, Williams has appeared as a sideman in a significative number of session records with notable jazz instrumentalists and vocalists, although opportunities to lead his own sessions are rare.
  
  wn.com/Buster_Williams
• 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.
  
  wn.com/Cannonball_Adderley
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  Carlos Santana
  Carlos Augusto Alves Santana (born July 20, 1947) is a Mexican and American rock guitarist. Santana became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band, Santana, which pioneered rock, Latin music and jazz fusion. The band's sound featured his melodic, blues-based guitar lines set against Latin and African rhythms featuring percussion instruments such as timbales and congas not generally heard in rock music. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed Santana at number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He has won 10 Grammy Awards and 3 Latin Grammy Awards.
  Santana was born in Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico. Carlos learned to play the violin at age five and the guitar at age eight. His younger brother, Jorge Santana, would also become a professional guitarist. Young Carlos was heavily influenced by Ritchie Valens at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. The family moved from Autlán de Navarro to Tijuana In La Colonia Libertad, the city on Mexico's border with California, and then San Francisco. Carlos stayed in Tijuana but joined his family in San Francisco later and graduated from James Lick Middle School and Mission High School there. He graduated from Mission High in 1965. Carlos was accepted into the California State University, Northridge and Humboldt State University, but turned down both of the offers. Javier Bátiz, a famous guitarist from Tijuana, was said to have been Carlos's guitar teacher who taught him to play a different style of guitar soloing. After learning Javier Batiz's techniques, Santana would make them his own as well.
  
  wn.com/Carlos_Santana
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  Chester Thompson
  Chester Cortez Thompson (born December 11, 1948 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American drummer and session musician.
  Thompson made his name as a session drummer, going on to play in Frank Zappa's touring band (as part of the 1973–1974 lineups, which also featured percussionist Ruth Underwood and jazz keyboardist George Duke) and in Weather Report's album Black Market (1976). He played on such noted Zappa albums as Roxy & Elsewhere (Live recording 8-10.12.1973 & 8.5.1974), You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 2 (Live in Helsinki, Finland 22–23.9.1974, released 1988) and One Size Fits All (1975).
  His longest-standing gig was with Genesis as the touring drummer (1977-2007). His relationship with the band began with the departure of frontman Peter Gabriel. Then-drummer, Phil Collins, assumed Gabriel's role in live shows, but remained behind the drum kit in the studio. Thompson became the touring drummer in 1977, playing on their tours in that year and in 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983/4, 1986/7, 1992 and the 2007 reunion Turn It On Again Tour. Chester is featured on their live albums Seconds Out (1977), Three Sides Live (1982), The Way We Walk Volume 1 (1992) & Volume 2 (1993) and Live Over Europe 2007. He chose not to be involved in the band's Calling All Stations European 1998 tour, following the band's failure to invite him to join the studio band following Phil Collins's departure.
  
  wn.com/Chester_Thompson
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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.
  
  wn.com/Chick_Corea
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  Chris Carmouche
  Chris Carmouche (born December 19, 1978), known as "Mouche" is a producer, recording engineer and rapper. In 2004, Carmouche won a Grammy for his work on Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below.
  Chris was born December 19, 1978 in Church Point, LA to Robert and Elizabeth Carmouche. He was raised in Sunset, LA outside of Metro-Lafayette. Carmouche's early musical influences included Duran Duran, Big Daddy Kane, N.W.A., Michael Jackson, and Prince. Carmouche got his musical start playing classical piano in grade school, laying the foundation for his musical career as a drum major in high school marching band and playing the Ensoniq ASR-10 keyboard he received as a gift at the age of 15.
  Carmouche graduated from Georgia State University in 2002 with a Bachelors Degree in music with a focus in audio engineering.
  Carmouche got an internship with Stankonia Studios during his senior year of college, helping to engineer Outkast's Grammy-winning album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Carmouche stayed with Stankonia as an engineer, mixer and performer, working closely on artists’ projects such as Lil Jon, Big Boi, Usher, Beyonce, Akon, Cee-Lo Green, Nelly, Ice Cube and Chamillionaire.
  
  wn.com/Chris_Carmouche
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  Chris Thomas King
  Chris Thomas King (born October 14, 1962) is an American New Orleans, Louisiana-based blues musician and actor.
  King was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. He is the son of blues musician Tabby Thomas. He has won awards including "Album of the Year" for both Grammy Award and Country Music Awards. King has sold more than 10 million records in the United States. He is featured playing the part of Tommy Johnson in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, Ethan Coen & Joel Coen) He is also featured in Down From the Mountain and More Music From Ray soundtracks.
  King is known as the pioneer of rap/blues. He conceived the first sample based blues concept album in the early 1990s by writing and producing the first all-rap/blues album for RCA Records titled 21st Century Blues… From Da Hood.
  As an entrepreneur King took control of his master recordings in the early 1990s, forming 21st Century Blues Records. He also established a publishing company, Young Blues Rebel, LLC. 21st Century Records signed the New Orleans Ninth Ward rap/blues duo the 21C-B-Boyz and the London, England based NuBlues, to 21st Century Blues Records in 2003.
  
  wn.com/Chris_Thomas_King
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  Christina Aguilera
  Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American recording artist and actress. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The Mickey Mouse Club from 1993 to 1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection", the theme song for the animated film Mulan (1998).
  In 1999, Aguilera came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera, which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100—"Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants", and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)." Her sophomore and her debut Latin-pop album, Mi Reflejo (2000), a Christmas third studio album, My Kind of Christmas (2000), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success, though she was displeased with her lack of input in her music and image. After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her fourth studio album, Stripped (2002). The album's second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success and helped the album's commercial performance amidst controversy over Aguilera's image. Aguilera followed up Stripped with the soul, jazz and blues inspired, Back to Basics (2006), released to positive critical acclaim. The album produced three singles "Ain't No Other Man", "Hurt" and "Candyman". Four years later Aguilera released her sixth studio album, Bionic (2010), which incorporated aspects of R&B, electropop, and synthpop and was met with mixed reviews and low sales. Aguilera's seventh studio album is set to be released in 2012.
  
  wn.com/Christina_Aguilera
• Clare Fischer
  Clare Fischer (October 22, 1928 – January 26, 2012) was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University, he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group The Hi-Lo’s in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Dizzy Gillespie and Donald Byrd, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the jazz standard, "Pensativa". Fischer was nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, winning two for his albums, Clare Fischer and Salsa Picante Present 2+2 (1981) and Free Fall (1986), where he merged Latin and vocal music. Fischer also became an in-demand arranger for pop albums, working with (primarily) Rufus featuring Chaka Kahn, Prince, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, Robert Palmer, and many others.
  Fischer was born in Durand, Michigan. His parents were of German, French, Irish-Scot, and English backgrounds. In grade school he started his general music study with violin and piano as his first instruments. At the age of 7 he began to pick out four-part harmony on the piano. After two years of piano lessons the family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Fischer began composing classical music and making instrumental arrangements for dance bands.
  
  wn.com/Clare_Fischer
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  Claude Debussy
  Claude-Achille Debussy (French pronunciation: [klod aʃil dəbysi]) (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. In France, he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. A crucial figure in the transition to the modern era in Western music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.
  His music is noted for its sensory component and for not often forming around one key or pitch. Often Debussy's work reflected the activities or turbulence in his own life. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.
  
  wn.com/Claude_Debussy
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  Clive Davis
  Clive Davis (born April 4, 1932) is an American record producer and music industry executive. He won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. From 1967 to 1973 he was the President of Columbia Records. He was the founder and president of Arista Records from 1975 through 2000 until founding J Records. From 2002 until April 2008, Davis was the Chairman and CEO of the RCA Music Group (which included RCA Records, J Records and Arista Records), Chairman and CEO of J Records, and Chairman and CEO of BMG North America. Currently Davis is the Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment. He currently plays a part in the careers of Alicia Keys, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera, Carlos Santana, Kelly Clarkson, Harry Connick, Jr., Leona Lewis, Barry Manilow, BC Jean and Seattle De Luca. Davis is credited with bringing Whitney Houston to prominence. Clive Davis is an alumnus of New York University, and the recorded music division of its Tisch School for the Arts is named after him.
  
  wn.com/Clive_Davis
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  Coleman Hawkins
  Coleman Randolph Hawkins (November 21, 1904 – May 19, 1969) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". While Hawkins is most strongly associated with the swing music and big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.
  Lester Young, who was called "Pres", in a 1959 interview with The Jazz Review, said "As far as I'm concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, right? As far as myself, I think I'm the second one." Miles Davis once said: "When I heard Hawk, I learned to play ballads." Hawkins was nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean".
  Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, in 1904. Some out-of-date sources say 1901, but there is no evidence to prove an earlier date; instead, there is record of Hawkins's parents' first female child being born on 8 March 1901 and dying in 1903 at the age of two, possibly basis for the mistaken belief. He was named Coleman after his mother Cordelia's maiden name.
  
  wn.com/Coleman_Hawkins
• Cong Su
  Cong Su (simplified Chinese: 苏聪; traditional Chinese: 蘇聰; pinyin: Sū Cōng; born 1957 in Tianjin, China) is a Chinese composer.
  He studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, then in Germany. He has lectured on music theory, music analysis, film music and ballet music at the Musikhochschule in Munich. Since 1991 he is professor of film and media composition at the newly founded State Film Academy in the Stuttgart area.
  Together with Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Byrne, Su won the Best Original Score Academy Award for the Bernardo Bertolucci film The Last Emperor in 1987. He has scored other film soundtracks, mostly for Asian films.
  Su divides his time between Beijing, Lake Constance and Lucca, Italy.
  
  
  
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  Corinne Bailey Rae
  Corinne Bailey Rae (born Corinne Jacqueline Bailey on 26 February 1979) is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist from Leeds, West Yorkshire. Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2006. She released her debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae, in February 2006, and became the fourth female British act in history to have her first album debut at number one. In 2007, Bailey Rae was nominated for three Grammy Awards and three Brit Awards, and won two MOBO Awards. In 2008, she won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year (for her work as a featured artist in Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters).
  Bailey Rae released her second album, The Sea, on 26 January 2010, after a hiatus of almost three years. It was produced by Steve Brown and Steve Chrisanthou (who produced her debut album in 2006). She was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize for Album of the Year. In 2012, she won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance (for "Is This Love)". Bailey Rae was married to fellow musician Jason Rae from 2001 until his death in 2008, and as part of the grieving process, she channeled her emotions into her music. Her two albums have together sold over five million copies worldwide.
  
  wn.com/Corinne_Bailey_Rae
• Craig Street
  Craig Street, born in Oakland, California, is a noted record producer.
  Craig moved with his family to Los Angeles at the age of 11, but returned to the Bay Area for his high school years. He began playing guitar at age 14, playing in a number of Berkeley bands. In 1981 he interviewed Alan Douglas for NPR for a documentary about Jimi Hendrix he co-produced with then KPFA-FM 3rd World Director Bari Scott, and San Jose radio broadcaster Don West, and began producing shortly thereafter.
  He has worked with artists such as Norah Jones, k. d. lang, Rebekka Bakken, Cassandra Wilson, Charlie Sexton, Meshell Ndegeocello, Joe Henry, John Legend, The Manhattan Transfer, Chris Whitley and others. Come Away with Me, which he produced for Norah Jones, won a Grammy for album of the year in 2002.
  
  
  
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  Cyro Baptista
  Cyro Baptista (born December 23, 1950) is a Brazilian musician, teacher, and recording artist specializing in percussion in the genres of jazz and world music.
  Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Baptista arrived in the U.S. in 1980 with a scholarship to the Woodstock-based Creative Music Studio. He has recorded and toured regularly with popular musicians and groups. Baptista creates many of the percussion instruments he plays.
  Baptista recorded with pianist Herbie Hancock on his 2005 release, Possibilities. In 2002 Baptista toured with Yo-Yo Ma’s Brazil Project and also appeared on the Obrigado Brazil album - winner of two Grammy awards. He also toured with Trey Anastasio of Phish and John Zorn. He recorded and performed worldwide with Herbie Hancock’s Grammy award winning Gershwin’s World. Baptista collaborated with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra for a Brazilian Carnival modern jazz concert. For over two years, he toured with Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints tour and appears on his Concert in Central Park release. He also toured worldwide with Sting in 2001.
  
  wn.com/Cyro_Baptista
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  Dan Tyminski
  Daniel John "Dan" Tyminski (born June 20, 1967 in Rutland, Vermont) is a bluegrass composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist. He is a member of the band Alison Krauss and Union Station and has released two solo albums, Carry Me Across the Mountain (2000), on the Doobie Shea Records label, and Wheels (2008), on the Rounder Records label.
  He is best known for his updated version of the song "Man of Constant Sorrow," which was featured in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and won the 2001 CMA award for best single as well as a Grammy Award for best Country Collaboration with Vocals (along with Harley Allen and Pat Enright, filling out the vocals for the movie's Soggy Bottom Boys). In total, he has won 10 Grammy awards for solo and collaborative projects.
  Tyminski was born June 20, 1967 in Rutland, Vermont and plays a bluegrass style that blends traditional and pop traditions. Before becoming a member of Union Station in 1994, Tyminski played mandolin and sang in the Lonesome River Band. Though Tyminski's love and feel for traditional bluegrass didn't come from growing up in the southern Appalachians, he absorbed and learned the music just the same. He credits his brother Stan with getting him hooked on the guitar and mandolin at the age of 6. While Stan was in the Navy and home on leave, he left his mandolin with his younger brother.
  
  wn.com/Dan_Tyminski
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  Daniel Lanois
  Daniel Lanois ( /lænˈwɑː/ lan-WAH; born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Brandon Flowers and Ron Sexsmith. Lanois is best known for his work with Brian Eno, the pair collaborating on a number of projects together and producing several platinum albums for U2, including The Joshua Tree. Three albums produced or co-produced by Lanois have won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and four others received nominations.
  Lanois started his production career when he was 17, working in his own studio with his brother Bob Lanois in the basement of their mother's Ancaster, Ontario home, recording local artists including Simply Saucer. Later Daniel started Grant Avenue Studios in an old house he purchased in Hamilton, Ontario. He worked with a number of local bands, including Martha and the Muffins (for whom his sister Jocelyne played bass), Ray Materick, as well as the Canadian children's singer Raffi.
  
  wn.com/Daniel_Lanois
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  Dave Grusin
  Robert David "Dave" Grusin (born June 26, 1934) is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys. He has had a prolific recording career as an artist, arranger, producer and executive producer.
  Born in Littleton, Colorado, he studied music at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was awarded his bachelor's degree in 1956. He produced his first single, "Subways are for Sleeping" in 1962 and composed the score to his first feature film, Divorce American Style five years later. Other scores followed including Winning in 1969, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), The Midnight Man (1974) and Three Days of the Condor in 1975.
  In the late 70s, he formed GRP records along with his partner, Larry Rosen, and began to create some of the first commercial digital recordings. Grusin was also at the forefront of soundtrack albums. He was the composer for the legendary Mike Nichols Oscar-winning film, The Graduate. The film is noted for being one of the first films to integrate popular songs into a film score. Later scores included On Golden Pond (1981), Tootsie (1982) and The Goonies (1985).
  
  wn.com/Dave_Grusin
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  Dave Holland
  Dave Holland (born October 1, 1946) is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for 40 years.
  His work ranges from pieces for solo performance to big band. Holland runs his own independent record label, Dare2, which he launched in 2005. He has explained his musical philosophy by quoting fellow jazz artist Sam Rivers. "Sam said, ‘Don’t leave anything out — play all of it,’ ”
  Holland has played with some of the greatest names in jazz, and has participated in several classic recording sessions.
  Born in Wolverhampton, England, Holland taught himself how to play stringed instruments, beginning at four on the ukulele, then graduating to guitar and later bass guitar. He quit school at the age of 15 to pursue his profession in a top 40 band, but soon gravitated to jazz. After seeing an issue of Down Beat where Ray Brown had won the critics' poll for best bass player, Holland went to a record store, and bought a couple of LPs featuring Brown backing pianist Oscar Peterson. He also bought two Leroy Vinnegar albums (Leroy Walks! and Leroy Walks Again) because the bassist was posed with his instrument on the cover. Within a week, Holland traded in his bass guitar for an acoustic bass and began practicing with the records. In addition to Brown and Vinnegar, Holland was drawn to the bassists Charles Mingus and Jimmy Garrison.
  
  wn.com/Dave_Holland
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  David Byrne
  David Byrne (born May 14, 1952) is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, and non-fiction. He has received Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards and been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
  Byrne was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, to Tom and Emma Byrne. He was the elder of two children. Two years later, his parents moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and then to Arbutus, Maryland, when he was 8 or 9 years old. His father worked as an electronics engineer. Before high school, David Byrne already knew how to play the guitar, accordion, and violin. He was rejected from his middle school’s choir because they claimed he was "off-key and too withdrawn." From a young age, Byrne had a strong interest in music. His parents say that he would constantly play his phonograph from age three and he learned how to play the harmonica at age five. In his journals he says, "I was a peculiar young man — borderline Asperger's, I would guess." As revealed by Tina Weymouth in the commentary for the concert film Stop Making Sense, Byrne is left handed but plays guitar right handed.
  
  wn.com/David_Byrne
• Donald Byrd
  Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II, (born December 9, 1932) is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd is best known as one of the only bebop jazz musicians who successfully pioneered the funk and soul genres while simultaneously remaining a pop artist.
  In 1973, he created The Blackbyrds, a fusion group consisting of his best students. They scored several major hits including "Happy Music" (#3 R&B, #19 pop), "Walking In Rhythm" (#4 R&B, #6 pop) and "Rock Creek Park".
  Byrd attended Cass Technical High School. He performed with Lionel Hampton before finishing high school. After playing in a military band during a term in the United States Air Force, he obtained a bachelor's degree in music from Wayne State University and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music.
  While still at the Manhattan School, he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, as replacement for Clifford Brown. In 1955, he recorded with Jackie McLean and Mal Waldron. After leaving the Jazz Messengers in 1956, he performed with many leading jazz musicians of the day, including John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and later Herbie Hancock.
  
  wn.com/Donald_Byrd
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  Donald Fagen
  Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and the principal songwriter of the rock band Steely Dan (along with partner Walter Becker).
  Fagen is known for his use of jazz harmonies, elaborate arrangements, and attention to detail. Following the breakup of Steely Dan in 1981, he launched a long-running, if sporadic, solo career in 1982, spawning three albums to date, with a fourth album in progress. Fagen has toured with Becker since Steely Dan reunited in 1993.
  Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on January 10, 1948 to Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant and his wife Elinor. From the age of 12 to 17, Elinor sang in a hotel band in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains until bouts of stage fright (a condition her son would later be afflicted with) forced her to discontinue performing live. Fagen would later recall: "I can't ever remember when there was silence around the house. She was either playing records or singing."
  
  wn.com/Donald_Fagen
• Dust Brothers
  The Dust Brothers are the Los Angeles, California based, Grammy Award winning producers, E.Z. Mike (Michael Simpson) and King Gizmo (John King), famous for their sample-based music in the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically for their work on the albums Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys, Odelay by Beck, and the soundtrack to the film Fight Club.
  The Dust Brothers started working together in 1985 at the Pomona College radio station, KSPC, hosting a weekly hip-hop show, started by Simpson in 1983, called 'The Big Beat Showcase'.
  They eventually turned to DJing at parties, and 1987 began writing and producing for the Delicious Vinyl label. There they produced and sequenced tracks on Tone Lōc's album, Lōc-ed After Dark. They also produced two tracks on Young MC's debut album Stone Cold Rhymin.
  Through a mutual friend, Matt Dike, the Dust Brothers were introduced to Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys. Dike played some instrumental music created by the Dust Brothers for Yauch, and he recruited the Dust Brothers to make the music for the Beastie Boys' highly acclaimed sophomore album, Paul's Boutique, which was considered one of the best albums of all-time by Time Magazine in 2006.
  
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  Eli Degibri
  Eli Degibri (Hebrew: אלי דג'יברי‎) (born May 3, 1978 in Jaffa, Israel) is an Israeli jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger.
  Degibri first began playing the mandolin at age 7 in an after school music program at the Jaffa Conservatory of Music. Three years later, after attending a jazz concert, he became enamored with the saxophone and switched his studies to that instrument.
  In 1994 Degibri was selected to receive a full scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music's Summer Performance Program. The following year Degibri was again awarded a full scholarship, and participated in the Berklee program for a second summer.
  In 1997, at age 18, Degibri received a full scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music and relocated to the United States. After a year at Berklee, he was one of only six musicians to be selected, with a full scholarship, to attend the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz program, where he studied and performed with Ron Carter, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath and Clark Terry.
  
  wn.com/Eli_Degibri
• Elliot Scheiner
  Elliot Scheiner is a record producer and record engineer. Scheiner has received 24 Grammy Award nominations, 7 of which he won, and he has been awarded four Emmy nominations, one Emmy award for his work with the Eagles on their farewell tour broadcast, three TEC Awards nominations, a TEC Hall of Fame inductee, and recipient of the Surround Pioneer Award. Elliot holds an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music and is one of the only Americans to be awarded the Master of Sound honor from the Japan Audio Society.
  In 2012 he received his 24th Grammy Award nomination in the category of Best Surround Sound Album for Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs (Super Deluxe Edition), which he also won, making him a 7 time Grammy Award winner.
  He started as Phil Ramone's assistant at A&R Recording in New York City, and quickly advanced to an engineer. By 1973 he had begun to freelance as an engineer and producer, becoming the first person ever to work as a freelance engineer for other artists. Scheiner is considered to be among the most accomplished sound engineers and producers in his field [not identified].
  
  wn.com/Elliot_Scheiner
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  Emily Robison
  Emily Robison (born Emily Burns Erwin on August 16, 1972) is an American songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and a founding member of the female country band the Dixie Chicks. Robison plays banjo, dobro, guitar, bass, mandolin, accordion, and sitar. Initially in her career with the Dixie Chicks, she limited her singing to harmony with backing vocals, but within her role in the Court Yard Hounds, she has taken on the role of lead vocalist.
  Emily Erwin was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Parents Paul Erwin and Barbara Trask moved the family to the northern suburban town of Addison, Texas on the edge of Dallas, where she was raised with her two older sisters, Julia and Martha. Her parents were both educators and nurtured the growing interest that both Emily and Martha (later nicknamed Martie) shared, and together both sisters became proficient on several instruments while in elementary school.
  Emily began playing the violin at age seven, and the banjo at age ten, afterward learning all the string instruments she could find. Years later, Martie joked that Emily was better than she at the fiddle, and because she wanted to keep the fiddle as her instrument, she forced Emily to learn something else. Emily responded by mastering the five string banjo, by reading books to teach herself the chord progressions.
  
  wn.com/Emily_Robison
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  Emmylou Harris
  Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She has released many chart-topping albums and singles over the course of her career, and has won 12 Grammys and numerous other awards.
  In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including Gram Parsons, The Band, Linda Ronstadt, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton, Mark Knopfler, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Rodney Crowell, and Neil Young.
  Emmylou Harris is the daughter of a career military family, her father, Walter Harris, was a military officer and her mother, Eugenia was a wartime military wife. Her father, a member of the Marine Corps, was reported missing in action in Korea in 1952 and spent ten months as a prisoner of war. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Harris spent her childhood in North Carolina and Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian. In high school she also won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar. Leaving college to pursue her musical aspirations, she moved to New York, working as a waitress to support herself while performing folk songs in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. She married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969 and recorded her first album, Gliding Bird. Harris and Slocum soon divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved in with her parents in the Maryland suburbs on the edge of Washington, D.C.
  
  wn.com/Emmylou_Harris
• Foday Musa Suso
  Foday Musa Suso (born in Sarre Hamadi Village, Wuli District, in the Upper River Division of eastern Gambia) is a musician and composer from the West African nation of Gambia. He is a member of the Mandinka ethnic group, and is a jali. Griots are the oral historians and musicians of the Mandingo people who live in several west African nations. Griots are a living library for the community providing history, entertainment, and wisdom while playing and singing their songs. It is an extensive verbal and musical heritage that can only be passed down within a griot family.
  Suso is a direct descendent of Jali Madi Wlen Suso, the griot who invented the kora over four centuries ago. He spent his childhood in a traditional Gambian village, in a household filled with kora music. Though his father was a master kora player, in griot tradition a father does not teach his own children the instrument. When Foday was 9, his father sent him to live with master kora teacher Sekou Suso in the village of Pasamasi, Wuli District. He trained with Sekou Suso until the age of 18. Suso's primary instrument is the kora, but he also plays the gravikord and several other instruments.
  
  wn.com/Foday_Musa_Suso
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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.
  
  wn.com/Freddie_Hubbard
• Gabriel Yared
  Gabriel Yared (born 7 October 1949) is a Lebanese composer, best known for his work in French and American cinema.
  Born in Beirut, Lebanon, his work in France included the scores for Betty Blue and Camille Claudel. He later began working on English language films, particularly those directed by Anthony Minghella. He won an Oscar and a Grammy Award for his work on The English Patient (1996) and was also nominated for The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Cold Mountain (2003).
  At the age of 7, his father sent Yared to an accordion teacher. Two years later he stopped his accordion lessons and started music theory and piano lessons. His piano teacher thought that he had no future in music.
  Although he was not a natural pianist, he was interested in reading music.
  At the age of 14, his piano teacher died, so he was to replace him as the organist of Université Saint-Joseph. He used the university's library to read all the work of Bach, Schumann, and many others. This extensive reading inspired his first original composition, a piano waltz.
  
  wn.com/Gabriel_Yared
• Gavin Lurssen
  Gavin Lurssen is a mastering engineer. He owns Lurssen Mastering in Hollywood, California. Lurssen's Grammy Award–winning work includes Raising Sand, a collaborative album featuring Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, and the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He has also mastered recordings by Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow, Loretta Lynn, Matchbox Twenty, T-Bone Burnett, Jennette McCurdy and many others.
  This is a partial discography of recordings mastered by Gavin Lurssen.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Gavin_Lurssen
• George Coleman
  George Edward Coleman (born March 8, 1935) is an American hard bop saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, known chiefly for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s.
  Coleman was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He taught himself to play the alto saxophone in his teens, inspired (like many jazz musicians of his generation) by Charlie Parker. Among his schoolmates were Harold Mabern, Booker Little, Frank Strozier, Hank Crawford and Charles Lloyd. After working with Ray Charles, Coleman started working with B.B. King in 1953, at which point he switched to tenor saxophone. In 1956 Coleman moved to Chicago, along with Booker Little, where he worked with Gene Ammons and Johnny Griffin before joining Max Roach Quintet 1958-1959. Coleman recorded with organist Jimmy Smith's Houseparty (1957), with Lee Morgan, Curtis Fuller, Eddie McFadden, Kenny Burrell, and Donald Bailey. Moving to New York with Max Roach in that year, he went on to play with Slide Hampton (1959–1962), Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, and Wild Bill Davis (1962), before joining Miles Davis Quintet in 1963-1964.
  
  wn.com/George_Coleman
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  George Gershwin
  George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, as well as the opera Porgy and Bess.
  Born in Brooklyn to a Ukrainian father of Jewish descent and a Russian mother, Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell. He began his career as a song plugger, but soon thereafter started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris in an attempt to study with Nadia Boulanger, where he began to compose An American in Paris. After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the Twentieth Century. Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a brain tumor.
  
  wn.com/George_Gershwin
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  Gil Evans
  Gil Evans (13 May 1912, Toronto, Canada – 20 March 1988, Cuernavaca, Mexico) was a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader, active in the United States. He played an important role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz fusion, and collaborated extensively with Miles Davis.
  Born Ian Ernest Gilmore Green, his name was changed early on to Evans, the name of his stepfather. His family moved to Stockton, California where he spent most of his youth. After 1946, he lived and worked primarily in New York City, living for many years at Westbeth Artists Community.
  Between 1941 and 1948, he worked as an arranger for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Evans' modest basement apartment behind a New York City Chinese laundry soon became a meeting place for musicians looking to develop new musical styles outside of the dominant bebop style of the day. Those present included the leading bebop performer Charlie Parker himself, as well as Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi. In 1948, Evans, with Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and others, collaborated on a band book for a nonet. These ensembles, larger than the trio-to-quintet "combos", but smaller than the "big bands" which were on the brink of becoming economically unviable, allowed the arrangers to have a larger pallette of colors by using French horns and tuba. Claude Thornhill had employed hornist John Graas in 1942,and composer-arranger Bob Graettinger had scored for horns and tubas with the Stan Kenton orchestra, but the "Kenton sound" was in the context of a dense orchestral wall of sound that Evans avoided.
  
  wn.com/Gil_Evans
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  Gillian Welch
  Gillian Welch (/ˈɡɪliən ˈwɛltʃ/; born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, Bluegrass, and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".
  Welch and Rawlings have released five critically acclaimed albums. Their 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Their 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, they released their fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011.
  Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. Welch has collaborated and recorded with distinguished musicians such as Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, The Decemberists, and Ani DiFranco. Welch and Rawlings perform at many music festivals.
  
  wn.com/Gillian_Welch
• Grant Green
  Grant Green (St. Louis, Missouri, June 6, 1935 – New York, January 31, 1979; some sources erroneously give the birth year as 1931) was a jazz guitarist and composer.
  Recording prolifically and almost exclusively for Blue Note Records (as both leader and sideman) Green performed well in hard bop, soul jazz, bebop and Latin-tinged settings throughout his career. Critics Michael Erlewine and Ron Wynn write, "A severely underrated player during his lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz guitar ... Green's playing is immediately recognizable -- perhaps more than any other guitarist." Critic Dave Hunter described his sound as "lithe, loose, slightly bluesy and righteously groovy". He often performed in an organ trio, a small group with an organ and drummer.
  Apart from Charlie Christian, Green's primary influences were saxophonists, particularly Charlie Parker, and his approach was therefore almost exclusively linear rather than chordal. The simplicity and immediacy of Green's playing, which tended to avoid chromaticism, derived from his early work playing rhythm and blues and, although at his best he achieved a synthesis of this style with bop, he was essentially a blues guitarist and returned almost exclusively to this style in his later career. Green used a Gibson ES-330, then a Gibson L7 with a Gibson McCarty pickguard/pick-up, an Epiphone Emperor (with the same pick-up) and finally had a custom built D'Aquisto. George Benson said he would turn all the bass and treble off the amp, and max the midrange. This way he could get his signature punchy, biting tone.
  
  wn.com/Grant_Green
• Hank Mobley
  Henry (Hank) Mobley (July 7, 1930 – May 30, 1986) was an American hard bop and soul jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Stan Getz. In addition, as his style was laid-back, subtle and melodic, especially in contrast with players like Sonny Rollins and Coltrane. The critic Stacia Proefrock claimed he is "one of the more underrated musicians of the bop era."
  Mobley was born in Eastman, Georgia, but was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, near Newark. When he was 16, an illness kept him in the house for several months. His uncle thought of buying a saxophone to help him occupy his time. It was then that Mobley began to play sax. He tried to enter a music school in Newark, but couldn't, since he was not a resident, so he kept studying through books at home. At 19, he started to play with local bands and, months later, worked for the first time with musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach. He took part in one of the earliest hard bop sessions, alongside Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Doug Watkins and trumpeter Kenny Dorham. The results of these sessions were released as Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers. They contrasted with the classical pretensions of cool jazz, with Mobley's rich lyricism being bluesier, alongside the funky approach of Horace Silver. When The Jazz Messengers split in 1956, Mobley continued on with pianist Horace Silver for a short time, although he did work again with Blakey some years later, when the drummer appeared on Mobley's albums in the early 1960s.
  
  wn.com/Hank_Mobley
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  Hans Zimmer
  Hans Florian Zimmer, German pronunciation: [hans ˈfloːʁi̯aːn ˈtsɪmɐ]; (born 12 September 1957) is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including award winning film scores for The Lion King (1994), Crimson Tide (1995), Gladiator (2000), The Last Samurai (2003),The Dark Knight (2008), and Inception (2010).
  Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the United Kingdom before moving to the United States. He is the head of the film music division at DreamWorks studios, and works with other composers through the company which he founded, Remote Control Productions.
  Zimmer's works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. He has received four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Classical BRIT Award, and an Academy Award. He was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.
  Zimmer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As a young child, he lived in Königstein-Falkenstein, where he played the piano at home, but had piano lessons only briefly as he disliked the discipline of formal lessons. He moved to London as a teenager, where he attended Hurtwood House school. In an interview with the German television station ZDF in 2006, he commented: "My father died when I was just a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend."
  
  wn.com/Hans_Zimmer
• Harley Allen
  Harley Lee Allen (January 23, 1956 – March 30, 2011) was an American bluegrass and country singer and songwriter.
  He was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of the bluegrass performer Red Allen.
  Allen appeared on several 1970s albums with his brothers as The Allen Brothers. He recorded three solo albums, "Across the Blueridge Mountains" (Folkways Records 1983), "Another River" (1996) and "Live at the Bluebird" (2001).
  He was most known for providing background vocals on the song "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" from the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Soundtrack. He won two Grammy Awards for that recording in 2002, in the Best Country Collaboration with Vocals and Album of the Year categories.
  Allen is survived by his wife, singer Debbie Nims, and their two daughters, Katie and Maggie and son, Aaron.
  Allen died of lung cancer on March 30, 2011 at his home in Brentwood, Tennessee.
  The singles/songs written or co-written by Allen are, among others, performed by:
  
  
  
  wn.com/Harley_Allen
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  Harvey Mason
  Harvey William Mason (born February 22, 1947 in Atlantic City, New Jersey) is an American jazz drummer. He has worked with many jazz and fusion artists such as Bob James, The Brecker Brothers, Lee Ritenour, Herbie Hancock's Headhunters and almost all the Mizell Brothers productions with Donald Byrd, Johnny Hammond, Bobbi Humphrey and Gary Bartz. He is featured on George Benson's 1976 album, Breezin'. Harvey is also the Percussionist for the Contemporary Jazz group Fourplay, which includes keyboardist Bob James, Guitarist Chuck Loeb Bassist Nathan East.
  Mason's son, Harvey Mason, Jr., is one-half of the production team The Underdogs with Damon Thomas. The Underdogs have produced tracks for artists including Fantasia Barrino, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey and Luther Vandross. Harvey Sr.'s work is featured on one of the The Underdogs' major works, the soundtrack of the 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls.
  In 1979 Mason Sr, released the hit single "Groovin' You", a disco-stomping tune, from the album with the same name. This music was then, sampled by House producer Gusto, in his 1995 hit-single "Disco's Revenge".
  
  wn.com/Harvey_Mason
• Henry Mancini
  Enrico Nicola "Henry" Mancini (April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards (20), plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995. His best-known works include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme"), the Peter Gunn Theme from the television series, and back-to-back Academy Awards for the songs "Moon River" from the Blake Edwards film Breakfast at Tiffany's and "Days of Wine and Roses" from Edwards' film Days of Wine and Roses. He also composed the score of famous films such as Charade, The Great Race, Wait Until Dark or Silver Streak.
  Mancini was born in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, and grew up near Pittsburgh, in the steel town of West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. His parents emigrated from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Mancini's father, Quinto, (born March 13, 1893, Scanno, Italy) was a steelworker, who made his only child begin piccolo lessons at the age of eight. When Mancini was 12 years old, he began piano lessons. Quinto and Henry played flute together in the Aliquippa Italian immigrant band, "Sons of Italy". After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini attended the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York. In 1943, after roughly one year at Juilliard, his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the United States Army. In 1945, he participated in the liberation of a concentration camp in southern Germany.
  
  wn.com/Henry_Mancini
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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.
  
  wn.com/Herbie_Hancock
• Ira Coleman
  Ira Coleman is an American jazz bassist.
  He appears on four albums by Paris-based pianist Laurent de Wilde and has worked with artists such as Dee Dee Bridgewater, Milt Jackson, Ulf Wakenius, John Esposito, Joanne Brackeen, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams.
  Coleman is currently touring with Sting and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra on his Symphonicity tour.
  
  wn.com/Ira_Coleman
• Ira Gershwin
  Ira Gershwin (December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century.
  With George he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm", "Embraceable You", "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me". He was also responsible, along with DuBose Heyward, for the libretto to George's opera Porgy and Bess.
  The success the brothers had with their collaborative works has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. However, his mastery of songwriting continued after the early death of George. He wrote additional hit songs with composers Jerome Kern ("Long Ago (and Far Away)"), Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen.
  His critically acclaimed book Lyrics on Several Occasions of 1959, an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age of American popular song.
  
  wn.com/Ira_Gershwin
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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.
  
  wn.com/Jack_DeJohnette
• Jacknife Lee
  Garret "Jacknife" Lee is an Irish music producer and mixer. He has worked with a variety of artists, including The Cars, U2, R.E.M., Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, AFI, The Hives, Weezer, Vega4 and Editors.
  Lee started as a guitarist for the punk band Compulsion, then pursued a solo career in the field of electronica after the band's break-up. His first solo work, the EP A Dog Named Snuggles, was released under the name Jacknife Lee in 1998 by Pussyfoot Records, a label founded by Howie B.
  Lee released his first album Muy rico in 1998. His second album Punk Rock High Roller was released in 2001 by Palm Pictures. To Hell With You I'll Make My Own People was recorded as Jack Planck for the One Little Indian label. Jacknife Lee released his self titled third solo album in 2007.
  Jacknife Lee has also remixed a variety of artists' work including a version of Run-DMC's "It's Tricky 2003", The Future Sound of London's "The Mello Hippo Disco Show" and versions of U2's "Vertigo" which was limited released onto 7", 10" and 12" vinyl, Christina Aguilera, TLC, Pink, Blur, Radiohead, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, The Raveonettes, Dirty Vegas, Kraftwerk, New Order, Aqualung and Kasabian. In 2008 he produced R.E.M.'s Accelerate, Bloc Party's Intimacy and Hadouken!. Crystal Castles worked with him for a few weeks in 2009 for their second album, after which he worked with LostAlone. In 2010 he produced R.E.M.'s latest album Collapse into Now, which was released in 2011.
  
  wn.com/Jacknife_Lee
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  Jaco Pastorius
  John Francis Anthony Pastorius III (December 1, 1951 – September 21, 1987), known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician, composer, and electric bass player.
  His playing style was noteworthy for containing intricate solos in the higher register and for the "singing" quality he achieved on the fretless bass. His innovations also included the use of harmonics. Pastorius suffered from mental illness including a substance-related disorder, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1982. He died in 1987 at age 35 following a violent altercation at a Fort Lauderdale bar.
  Pastorius was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988, one of only six bassists to be so honored (and the only electric bass guitarist). He is one of the most influential electric bass players of all time.
  John Francis Pastorius III was born December 1, 1951 in Norristown, Pennsylvania to Jack Pastorius (big band singer and drummer) and Stephanie Katherine Haapala Pastorius, the first of their three children, Jaco Pastorius was of Finnish, German, Swedish and Irish ancestry.
  
  wn.com/Jaco_Pastorius
• James Horner
  James Roy Horner (born August 14, 1953) is an American composer, orchestrator, and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements. His score to the 1997 film Titanic remains the best selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time.
  In addition, Horner has scored over 100 films, frequently collaborating with acclaimed directors such as James Cameron and Ron Howard. Some of his most noteworthy works include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Cocoon (1985), An American Tail (1986), Aliens (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), Willow (1988), Glory (1989), Field of Dreams (1989), The Rocketeer (1991), Legends of the Fall (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Braveheart (1995), The Mask of Zorro (1998), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Troy (2004), and Avatar (2009).
  Horner has won two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, three Satellite Awards, three Saturn Awards, and has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards. His body of work is also notable for including the scores to the two highest-grossing films of all time; Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009), both of which were directed by James Cameron.
  
  wn.com/James_Horner
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  Jerry Douglas
  Jerry Douglas (born Gerald Calvin Douglas, May 28, 1956 in Warren, Ohio) is an American record producer and resonator guitar player. Called "Dobro's matchless contemporary master," by The New York Times, and lauded as "my favorite musician" by John Fogerty, Douglas is one of the world’s most renowned musicians.
  In addition to his thirteen solo recordings, Douglas has played on more than 1600 albums. As a sideman, he has recorded with artists as diverse as Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Phish, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon, Mumford & Sons, Keb' Mo', Ricky Skaggs, Elvis Costello, and Johnny Mathis, as well as performing on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. He has been part of such notable groups as The Whites, J. D. Crowe and the New South, The Country Gentlemen, Strength in Numbers, and Elvis Costello's "Sugar Canes".
  As a producer, he has overseen albums by Alison Krauss, the Del McCoury Band, Maura O'Connell, Jesse Winchester and the Nashville Bluegrass Band. Along with Aly Bain, he serves as Music Director of the popular BBC Television series, "Transatlantic Sessions".
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Douglas
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  Jerry Duplessis
  Jerry 'Wonder' Duplessis is a Grammy Award nominated Haitian-born musical composer and record producer. His first major success was as producer for The Fugees' 1996 album The Score. He also played the bass guitar with The Fugees, and band member Wyclef Jean is his cousin.
  Jerry 'Wonda' Duplessis was born and raised in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. At 14, he began playing the bass. Early influences at this time included Aston Barrett, and James Jamerson. At 16, he was sent to the US and was raised by his father and his aunt who was also Wyclef's mother. The basement of their family home soon became their home studio.
  From church to some time at the Institute of Audio Research, and gigs wherever he could play, their home studio "Booga Basement" was opened serving artists near New Jersey. Wyclef, Samuel Pras Michel, and Lauryn Hill would then unite to create a new Caribbean style group ultimately known as The Fugees. Wonda and Wyclef would align to provide production for the group which would be signed by Ruffhouse/Columbia. Label mates at the time would include Cypress Hill and Kris Kross.
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Duplessis
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  Jim Brickman
  Jim Brickman (born November 20, 1961) is an American songwriter and pianist. He has been named the most charted male Adult Contemporary artist to date, with six of his albums receiving Gold and Platinum status. He is known for his solo piano compositions, pop-style instrumentals, and vocal collaborations with artists such as Michael W. Smith, Martina McBride, Donny Osmond, Delta Goodrem, Misha Omar, Olivia Newton-John, Lady Antebellum, and others. He earned a Grammy nomination in 2003, SESAC "Songwriter of the Year" award, Canadian Country Music Award for "Best Vocal/ Instrumental Collaboration", and a Dove Award presented by the Gospel Music Association. His CD entitled Faith has been nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award for Best New Age Album.
  Since 1997, he has hosted his own radio show called Your Weekend with Jim Brickman, which is carried on radio stations throughout the United States. Brickman has also released three PBS specials, and hosts an annual fan cruise. He is founder of Brickhouse Direct, a company that provides strategic marketing and e-commerce solutions for clients in a variety of industries.
  
  wn.com/Jim_Brickman
• Jim Whiting
  
  Jim Whiting (born 1951) is a British artist and inventor. He was born in Paris and spent his early childhood in Salisbury (now Harare), Zimbabwe before returning to the UK with his family in 1959. He studied Electronic Engineering & Systems control at Queen Mary College and then sculpture at St Martins School of Art after a foundation at High Wycombe Art College.
  Whiting's first major installation was in 1979 at The Hayward gallery in London, His Business Machine was chosen by artist Helen Chadwick as part of the summer show. Other shows of his animated figurative works followed, including Purgatory at British museums, galleries and festivals, and Heavenly Bodies on the roof of the Royal National Theatre in 1981. He received International recognition in 1984 after his robot-like sculptures were featured dancing in the Herbie Hancock's Rockit music video directed by duo Godley & Creme, winning the first MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction.
  Whiting's Mechanical Theatre was commissioned in 1987 by Andre Heller for his Luna Luna art/amusement park in Hamburg. From 1988 to 1992 he took his Unnatural Bodies show on tour, exhibiting in Cologne, Zürich, Berlin, Basel, with Galerie Littmann , and later in Glasgow , Linz (Ars Electronica) and also as the Tower in London's Broadgate and Aurillac Festival. In 1994 he created a waggon installation for Klaus Littmann’s KunstZug, which was exhibited at stations in Switzerland, France and Germany.
  
  wn.com/Jim_Whiting
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  Joe Farrell
  Joseph Carl Firrantello (December 16, 1937 – January 10, 1986), known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name on the CTI record label and for playing in the initial incarnation of Chick Corea's Return to Forever.
  Farrell was born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, United States.
  In the 1960s, Farrell played with The Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Orchestra. He also recorded with Charles Mingus, Andrew Hill, Jaki Byard, Players Association and Elvin Jones.
  With the group Fuse One, he released two albums in 1980 and 1982. He also can be heard on the pop recordings of Hall & Oates playing oboe and soprano saxophone.
  Farrell performs with Brazilian percussionist Airto and Airto's wife Flora Purim on the album "Three-Way Mirror." A message on the CD jacket dedicates the 1987 album to Farrell and states it contains his final recordings.
  Farrell died of bone cancer in Los Angeles, California on January 10, 1986 at the age of 48.
  In 2008, Farrell's daughter Kathleen Firrantello filed a lawsuit against rappers Kanye West, Method Man, Redman and Common, and their record labels for allegedly using portions of Farrell's 1974 musical composition "Upon This Rock" in their songs without approval. Firrantello was seeking punitive damages of at least US$1 million and asked that no further copies of the songs be made, sold or performed.
  
  wn.com/Joe_Farrell
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  Joe Zawinul
  Josef Erich Zawinul (July 7, 1932 – September 11, 2007) was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.
  First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with elements of rock and world music. Later, Zawinul co-founded the groups Weather Report and the world fusion music-oriented Zawinul Syndicate. Additionally, he made pioneering use of electric piano and synthesizers. Zawinul was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" 28 times by the readers of Down Beat magazine.
  Several artists have honored Zawinul with songs, notably Brian Eno's instrumental "Zawinul/Lava", John McLaughlin's instrumental "Jozy", Warren Cuccurullo's "Hey Zawinul", Bob Baldwin's "Joe Zawinul", Chucho Valdés's "Zawinul's Mambo", Biréli Lagrène's instrumental "Josef" and Toninho Horta's instrumental "Balada para Zawinul". Zawinul's playing style is often dominated by quirky melodic improvisations — traversing bebop, ethnic and pop styles — combined with sparse but rhythmic playing of big-band sounding chords or bass lines. In Weather Report, he often employed a vocoder as well as pre-recorded sounds played (i.e. filtered and transposed) through a synthesizer, creating a very distinctive synthesis of jazz harmonics and "noise" ("using all the sounds the world generates").
  
  wn.com/Joe_Zawinul
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  John Coltrane
  John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He organized at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.
  As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane, and their son Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He received many posthumous awards and recognitions, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane. In 2007, Coltrane was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."
  
  wn.com/John_Coltrane
• John Corigliano
  John Corigliano (born 16 February 1938, New York City, New York) is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.
  Italian American Corigliano was born to a musical family. His father, John Corigliano Sr., was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 23 years, and his mother, Rose Buzen, is an accomplished educator and pianist. He is a former student of Otto Luening,Vittorio Giannini and Paul Creston. Corigliano attended P.S. 241 and Midwood High School in Brooklyn. He studied composition at Columbia University (BA 1959) and at the Manhattan School of Music. Before achieving success as composer, Corigliano worked as assistant to the producer on the Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts, and as a session producer for classical artists such as André Watts.
  Most of Corigliano's work has been for symphony orchestra. He employs a wide variety of styles, sometimes even within the same work, but aims to make his work accessible to a relatively large audience. He has written symphonies, as well as works for string orchestra, and wind band. Additionally, Corigliano has written concerti for clarinet, flute, violin, oboe, and piano; film scores; various chamber and solo instrument works, and the opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, which enjoyed a success at the premiere.
  
  wn.com/John_Corigliano
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  John Hartford
  John Cowan Hartford (December 30, 1937 – June 4, 2001) was an American folk, country and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore. Hartford performed with a variety of ensembles throughout his career, and is perhaps best known for his solo performances where he would interchange the guitar, banjo, and fiddle from song to song. He also invented his own shuffle tap dance move, and clogged on an amplified piece of plywood while he played and sang.
  John Harford (he would change his name to Hartford later in life at the behest of Chet Atkins) was born on December 30, 1937 in New York City to parents Dr. Carl and Mary Harford. He spent his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. There he was exposed to the influence that would shape much of his career and music—the Mississippi River. From the time he got his first job on the river, at age 16, Hartford was on, around, or singing about the river.
  
  wn.com/John_Hartford
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  John Scofield
  John Scofield (born December 26, 1951, Dayton, Ohio), often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham, Medeski Martin & Wood, George Duke, Jaco Pastorius, John Mayer, and many other well-known artists. At ease in the bebop idiom, Scofield is also well versed in jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul, and other forms of modern American music.
  Early in his life, Scofield's family left Ohio and relocated to the small, then mostly rural location of Wilton, Connecticut; it was here that he discovered his interest in music.
  Educated at the Berklee College of Music, Scofield eventually left school to record with Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan. He joined the Billy Cobham/George Duke Band soon after and spent two years playing, recording and touring with them. Scofield recorded with Charles Mingus in 1976, and replaced Pat Metheny in Gary Burton's quartet. In autumn 1976 he signed a contract with Enja Records, and he released his first album, John Scofield, in 1977. Around this time, he toured and recorded with Pianist Hal Galper, first on his own solo album Rough House in 1978, and Galper's album Ivory Forest (1980), where he is heard playing a solo rendition of Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Mood". In 1979 he formed a trio with his mentor Steve Swallow and Adam Nussbaum which, with drummer Bill Stewart replacing Nussbaum, has become the signature group of Scofield's career. In 1982, he joined Miles Davis, with whom he remained for three and a half years. He contributed tunes and guitar work to three Davis recordings, Star People, You're under Arrest and Decoy.
  
  wn.com/John_Scofield
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  John Williams
  John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, War Horse, Home Alone and the first three Harry Potter films. He has had a long association with director Steven Spielberg, composing the music for all but two (Duel and The Color Purple) of Spielberg's major feature films.
  Other notable works by Williams include theme music for four Olympic Games, NBC Sunday Night Football, the NBC Nightly News, the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, and the television series Lost in Space. Williams has also composed numerous classical concerti, and he served as the principal conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993; he is now the orchestra's conductor laureate.
  Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, and 21 Grammy Awards. With 47 Academy Award nominations, Williams is the second most nominated person, after Walt Disney. John Williams was honored with the prestigious Richard Kirk award at the 1999 BMI Film and TV Awards. The award is given annually to a composer who has made significant contributions to film and television music. Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2000, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.
  
  wn.com/John_Williams
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  Joni Mitchell
  Joni Mitchell, CC (born Roberta Joan Anderson; November 7, 1943) is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto. In 1965 she moved to the United States and, touring constantly, began to be recognized when her original songs ("Urge for Going," "Chelsea Morning," "Both Sides, Now," "The Circle Game") were covered by notable folk singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her own debut album in 1968. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell and her popular songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock" helped define an era and a generation. Her more starkly personal 1971 recording Blue has been called one of the best albums ever made. Musically restless, Mitchell switched labels and began moving toward jazz rhythms by way of lush pop textures on 1974's Court and Spark, her best-selling LP, featuring her radio hits "Help Me" and "Free Man in Paris."
  
  wn.com/Joni_Mitchell
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  Josh Groban
  Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban (born February 27, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. His first four solo albums have been certified multi-platinum, and in 2007, he was charted as the number-one best selling artist in the United States with over 21 million records in that country. To date, he has sold over 24 million albums worldwide, and is the top selling classical artist of the 2000s in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
  Groban originally studied acting, but as his voice changed, it developed into a "significant instrument". Groban attended the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, a free public school where students received a conservatory-style education. His life changed when his vocal coach, Seth Riggs, submitted a tape of Josh singing "All I Ask of You", from The Phantom of the Opera, to Riggs' friend, producer, composer and arranger David Foster. Foster called him to stand in for an ailing Andrea Bocelli to rehearse a duet, "The Prayer," with Celine Dion at the rehearsal for the Grammy Awards in 1998.Rosie O'Donnell immediately invited him to appear on her talk show. Foster asked him to sing at the California Governor's Gray Davis' 1999 inauguration. He was cast on Ally McBeal by the show's creator, David E. Kelley, performing "You're Still You" for the 2001 season finale.
  
  wn.com/Josh_Groban
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  Joss Stone
  Jocelyn Eve Stoker (born 11 April 1987), better known by her stage name Joss Stone, is an English soul singer-songwriter and actress. Stone rose to fame in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist. Her second album, the equally multiplatinum Mind Body & Soul, topped the UK Albums Chart for one week and spawned the top ten hit "You Had Me", Stone's most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date. Both album and single each received one nomination at the 2005 Grammy Awards, while Stone herself was nominated for Best New Artist, and in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2004 was ranked fifth as a predicted breakthrough act of 2004. She became the youngest British female singer to top the UK Albums Chart in history to have her first album at number one. In early 2009, she joined the eclectic supergroup SuperHeavy.
  
  wn.com/Joss_Stone
• Julian Priester
  Julian Priester (born 29 June 1935 in Chicago) is an American jazz trombone player and composer.
  He has played with many artists including Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock.
  Priester attended Chicago's DuSable High School, where he studied under Walter Dyett. In his teens he played with blues and R&B artists such as Muddy Waters, Dinah Washington, and Bo Diddley, and had the opportunity to jam with jazz players like Max Roach, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and saxophonist Sonny Stitt.
  In the early 1950s Priester was a member of Sun Ra's big band, recording several albums with the group before leaving Chicago in 1956 to tour with Lionel Hampton. In 1958 he settled in New York and joined the band of drummer Max Roach. While playing in Roach's group Priester also recorded two albums as a leader, Keep Swingin' and Spiritsville for Riverside, both of which came out in 1960.
  In 1961 Priester left the Max Roach band, and between 1961 and 1969 appeared as a sideman on albums by Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Blue Mitchell, Art Blakey, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Johnny Griffin, and Sam Rivers. During that period he also took part in John Coltrane's Africa/Brass ensemble, which played with Coltrane's quartet on the album by the same name recorded in 1961. In 1969 he accepted an offer to play with Duke Ellington's big band, and he stayed with that ensemble for six months before leaving in 1970 to join pianist Herbie Hancock's fusion sextet.
  
  wn.com/Julian_Priester
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  Kanye West
  Kanye Omari West ( /ˈkɑːnjeɪ/; born June 8, 1977) is an American musician, film director and fashion designer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. His style of production originally used pitched-up vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. However, subsequent productions saw him broadening his musical palette and expressing influences encompassing '70s R&B, baroque pop, trip hop, arena rock, folk, alternative, electronica, synthpop, and classical music.
  West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, his second album Late Registration in 2005, his third album Graduation in 2007, his fourth album 808s & Heartbreak in 2008, and his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. West released a collaborative album, Watch the Throne with Jay-Z in 2011, which is the duo's first collaborative album. His five solo albums, all of which have gone platinum, have received numerous awards and critical acclaim. As of 2012, West has won a total of eighteen Grammy Awards, making him one of the most awarded artists of all-time. All albums have been very commercially successful, with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy becoming his fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the U.S. upon release. West has had 5 songs exceed 3 million in digital sales as of July 2011, with "Gold Digger" selling 3,086,000, "Stronger" selling 4,402,000, "Heartless" selling 3,742,000, "E.T." selling over 4,000,000 and "Love Lockdown" selling over 3,000,000 placing him third in overall digital sales of the past decade. He has sold over 30 million digital songs in the United States making him one of the best-selling digital artists of all-time.
  
  wn.com/Kanye_West
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  Kenny Dorham
  McKinley Howard (Kenny) Dorham (August 30, 1924 – December 5, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did or public recognition. For this reason, his name has become (in the words of writer Gary Giddins) "virtually synonymous with underrated." He also composed the jazz standard "Blue Bossa," which first appeared on Joe Henderson's album Page One.
  Dorham was one of the most active bebop trumpeters. He played in the big bands of Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton and Mercer Ellington and the quintet of Charlie Parker. He was a charter member of the original cooperative Jazz Messengers. He also recorded as a sideman with Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, and he replaced Clifford Brown in the Max Roach Quintet after Brown's death in 1956. In addition to sideman work, he led his own groups, including the Jazz Prophets (formed shortly after Art Blakey took over the Jazz Messengers name). The Jazz Prophets, featuring a young Bobby Timmons on piano, bassist Sam Jones and tenorman J. R. Monterose with guest Kenny Burrell on guitar, recorded a live album 'Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia in 1956 for Blue Note.
  
  wn.com/Kenny_Dorham
• Larry Klein
  Larry Klein (born 1956) is a music producer, songwriter and bass guitar player, commonly known for being the frequent musical collaborator, and ex-husband, of Joni Mitchell.
  He began his musical career while still in his teens, as a session musician, playing bass guitar on a string of albums, most notably several by jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.
  Klein met Mitchell when he was hired as a bassist and sound engineer for her 1982 album Wild Things Run Fast. The two quickly became romantically attached, and were married in November 1982. He helped produce that album, as well as her next four, occasionally contributing his own musical compositions to which Mitchell would add lyrics. It was during the recording of Turbulent Indigo, in 1994, that their marriage broke apart. He has continued to be involved, in various capacities, in the production of her albums.
  Since his work with Mitchell, Klein has tended to produce albums by female singer–songwriters, although he was the co-producer (with Herbie Hancock) on Hancock's Grammy-winning River: The Joni Letters.
  
  wn.com/Larry_Klein
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  Lauryn Hill
  Lauryn Noelle Hill (born May 26, 1975) is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, and actress.
  Early in her career, she established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. In 1998, she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The recording earned Hill 5 Grammy Awards, including the coveted Album of the Year and Best New Artist.
  Following the success of her debut album, Hill largely dropped out of public view, in part due to her displeasure with fame and the music industry. After a four-year hiatus, she released MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, a live recording of "deeply personal songs" performed mostly solo with an acoustic guitar. In more recent years, she has recorded songs for soundtracks and mixtapes, as well as performing live at several music festivals. Hill has 6 children, five of whom are with Rohan Marley, one of reggae musician Bob Marley's sons.
  Lauryn Hill was born in South Orange, New Jersey of Haitian and African-American descent,^{[citation needed]} the second of two children born to high school English teacher Valerie Hill and computer programmer Mal Hill. As a child, Hill listened to her parents' Motown 1960s soul records. Music was a central part of the Hill home. Mal Hill sang at weddings, Valerie played the piano, and Lauryn's older brother Malaney played the saxophone, guitar, drums, harmonica, and piano. In 1988, Hill appeared as an Amateur Night contestant on It's Showtime at the Apollo. She sang her own version of Smokey Robinson's song "Who's Lovin' You?", where she was booed tremendously, but persevered and ended up with audience applause.
  
  wn.com/Lauryn_Hill
• Lee Morgan
  Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – February 19, 1972, New York City) was an American hard bop trumpeter.
  Edward Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1938, the youngest of Otto Ricardo and Nettie Beatrice Morgan's four children.
  Lee Morgan, a leading trumpeter and composer, recorded prolifically from 1956 until a day before his death in February 1972. Originally interested in the vibraphone, he soon showed a growing enthusiasm for the trumpet. Morgan also knew how to play the alto saxophone. On his thirteenth birthday, his sister Ernestine gave him his first trumpet. His primary stylistic influence was Clifford Brown, who gave the teenager a few lessons before he joined the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band at 18, and remained a member for a year and a half, until the economical situation forced Dizzy to disband the unit in 1958. He began recording for Blue Note Records in 1956, eventually recording 25 albums as a leader for the company, with more than 250 musicians. He also recorded on the Vee-Jay label.
  
  wn.com/Lee_Morgan
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  Leonard Cohen
  Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQ (born 21 September 1934) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and novelist. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour.
  While giving the speech at Cohen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 10 March 2008, Lou Reed described Cohen as belonging to the "highest and most influential echelon of songwriters."
  Cohen was born on 21 September 1934 in Westmount, Montreal, Quebec, into a middle-class Jewish family. He attended Roslyn Elementary School. His mother, Marsha Klinitsky, of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, emigrated from Lithuania while his great-grandfather emigrated from Poland. He grew up in Westmount on the Island of Montreal. His grandfather was Lyon Cohen, founding president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His father, Nathan Cohen, who owned a substantial Montreal clothing store, died when Cohen was nine years old. On the topic of being a Kohen, Cohen has said that, "I had a very Messianic childhood." He told Richard Goldstein in 1967. "I was told I was a descendant of Aaron, the high priest." Cohen attended Westmount High School, beginning in 1948 where he was involved with the Student Council and studied music and poetry. He became especially interested in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. As a teenager, he learned to play the guitar, and formed a country-folk group called the Buckskin Boys. Although he initially played a regular acoustic guitar as a teenager, he soon switched to playing a classical guitar after meeting a young Spanish flamenco guitar player who taught him "a few chords and some flamenco."
  
  wn.com/Leonard_Cohen
• Leslie Bricusse
  Leslie Bricusse (born 29 January 1931) is an English composer, lyricist, and playwright.
  Although best known for his partnership with Anthony Newley, Bricusse has worked with many other composers. He was educated at University College School in London and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge University, he was Secretary of Footlights between 1952 and 1953 and Footlights President during the following year. He currently lives in California in the United States, and he is married to the actress Yvonne Romain.
  Sammy Davis, Jr. had hits with two of Bricusse's songs - "What Kind of Fool Am I?" (from Stop the World - I Want to Get Off) and the #1 hit "The Candy Man" (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory). Other recording artists who have had popular success with his songs include Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra ("My Kind of Girl"), Shirley Bassey ("Goldfinger"), Harry Secombe ("If I Ruled the World"), Nancy Sinatra ("You Only Live Twice"), Maureen McGovern ("Can You Read My Mind"), and Diana Krall ("When I Look in Your Eyes"). Bricusse also partnered with George Tipton to write the opening theme of the U.S. television series It's a Living.
  
  wn.com/Leslie_Bricusse
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  Lionel Loueke
  Lionel Loueke (born 27 April 1973) is a guitarist born in the west African country of Benin. He moved to Ivory Coast in 1990 to study at the National Institute of Art. He attended the American School of Modern Music in Paris, France from 1994-1998. In 1999, Loueke was awarded a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where he earned a degree in Jazz Performance in 2000.
  Lionel Loueke grew up in what he has described as a family of poor intellectuals in the west African country of Benin. He began playing percussion instruments around the age of 9, but was influenced by an older brother who played guitar, which he began playing himself in his late teens. It took Loueke a year to earn the $50 he needed to buy his first guitar. However, he could not afford to replace the strings, which had to be special-ordered from Nigeria. Instead, he soaked his strings in vinegar to keep them clean. When the strings broke, he had to replace them with bicycle brake cables which were very hard on his fingers. Loueke got his first professional job by accident, when a club manager heard him playing a guitar he had grabbed off the bandstand during a break and offered him work. He played African pop music, but discovered jazz when a friend returned from Paris with a copy of an album by jazz guitarist George Benson.
  
  wn.com/Lionel_Loueke
• Luis Bacalov
  Luis Enríquez Bacalov (30 March 1933, Buenos Aires) is a prolific Argentine, naturalized Italian, composer of film scores. Early on in his career, he composed scores for Spaghetti Western films. In the early 1970s, he collaborated with Italian progressive rock bands. Bacalov has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Original Score, winning it in 1996 for Il Postino. Bacalov has composed significant works for chorus and orchestra. Presently he is the artistic director of the Orchestra della Magna Grecia in Taranto, Italy.
  Luis Enríquez Bacalov was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 March 1933. Early on in his career, he composed scores for Spaghetti Western films, including Django, Storm Rider, also known as Il Grande Duello, and The Price of Power.
  Bacalov has been nominated twice for Academy Award for Original Score—music adaptation or treatment— in 1967 for The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and winning the award for Il Postino in 1996.
  In the early 1970s, he collaborated with Italian progressive rock bands such as New Trolls, on their 1971 album, Concerto grosso per i New Trolls,Osanna, on the band's second album, Preludio Tema Variazioni e Canzona releaased in 1972, and Il Rovescio della Medaglia for the 1973 release of their third album, Contaminazione.
  
  wn.com/Luis_Bacalov
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  Marcus Miller
  Marcus Miller (born William Henry Marcus Miller Jr., June 14, 1959, Brooklyn, New York) is an American jazz composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Miller is best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, as well as maintaining a prolific solo career. Miller is classically trained as a clarinetist and also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar.
  Miller was born in 1959 and raised in a musical family that includes his father, William Miller (a church organist and choir director) and jazz pianist Wynton Kelly. By 13, Marcus was proficient on clarinet, piano and bass guitar, and already writing songs. Two years later he was working regularly in New York City, eventually playing bass and writing music for jazz flautist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith. Miller soon became a first call session musician, gracing well over 500 albums, a short list of which includes Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J, Me'shell Ndegé Ocello and Flavio Sala.
  
  wn.com/Marcus_Miller
• Marilyn Bergman
  Marilyn Bergman (born November 10, 1929) is a composer, songwriter and author.
  She was born Marilyn Katz in Brooklyn, New York and studied psychology and English at New York University. She and her husband Alan Bergman, whom she married in 1958, were born in the same hospital and raised in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, but their first meeting did not take place till each had relocated to Los Angeles. Together they have written the music and lyrics for numerous television shows, films, and stage musicals. One of their early successes was "Sleep Warm" the title track to Dean Martin's 1959 album on which Frank Sinatra was the 'guest' conductor. Sinatra sang his first of their compositions, "Love Looks So Well On You", on Sinatra Sings of Love and Things, which came out in 1962.
  In 1983, the couple became the first songwriters ever to have written three of the five tunes nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song - "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" from Best Friends, "It Might Be You" from Tootsie (with Dave Grusin), and "If We Were in Love" from Yes, Giorgio (with John Williams).
  
  wn.com/Marilyn_Bergman
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  Martie Maguire
  Martie Maguire (born Martha Elenor Erwin; October 12, 1969) is an American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and a founding member of the female alternative country band, the Dixie Chicks. She won awards in national fiddle championships while still a teenager. Maguire is accomplished on several other instruments, including the mandolin, viola, acoustic bass, and guitar. She has written and co-written a number of the band's songs, some of which have become chart-topping hits. She also contributes her skills in vocal harmony and backing vocals, as well as orchestrating string arrangements for the band. She is left-handed but plays right-handed.^{[citation needed]}
  Maguire learned several instruments at a young age, honing her skills with her younger sister, Emily Robison (born Emily Erwin) and two schoolmates (a brother and sister team, Troy and Sharon Gilchrist) for over five years as a part of a high school touring bluegrass quartet. After graduation, the sisters forged an alliance with two other women they had met through the Dallas music scene, Laura Lynch and Robin Lynn Macy, forming a bluegrass and country music band, busking and touring the bluegrass festival circuits for six years. After the departure of Macy, and the replacement of Lynch with singer-songwriter Natalie Maines, the band widened their musical repertoire and appearance. The result was a trio so commercially successful that it took the country music industry by surprise, with a number of hit songs, albums, and awards that have set records in the music industry. Maguire subsequently stood by her bandmates as they were engulfed in political controversy.
  
  wn.com/Martie_Maguire
• Matt Serletic
  Matt Serletic is a record producer who has worked with several popular bands and artists for Atlantic Records, including Collective Soul, Matchbox Twenty, Blessid Union of Souls, Edwin McCain, Stacie Orrico, Taylor Hicks, Rob Thomas, and singer/songwriter Angie Aparo. Serletic will be working with American Idol Season 7 Winner David Cook on his second studio album. He also preceded Jason Flom as chairman of Virgin Records. Most recently he has been working with Joe Cocker, writing and producing his latest album, Hard Knocks.
  Serletic is the owner of Emblem Music Group and currently resides in Calabasas, California with his wife, Ramona and two children. Matt was a member of the 1999 Alternative band class of '99 as a keyboardist.
  
  wn.com/Matt_Serletic
• Maurice Jarre
  Maurice-Alexis Jarre (13 September 1924 – 28 March 2009) was a French composer and conductor. His son is the electronic composer Jean Michel Jarre.
  Although he composed several concert works, Jarre is best known for his film scores, particularly for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films since Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Other notable scores include The Train (1964), Mohammad, Messenger of God (1976), Witness (1985) and Ghost (1990).
  Jarre was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Three of his compositions spent a total of 42 weeks on the UK singles chart chart; the biggest hit was "Somewhere My Love" (to his tune "Lara's Theme", with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) by the Michael Sammes Singers, which reached Number 14 in 1966 and spent 38 weeks on the chart.
  Jarre was a three time Academy Award winner, for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984), all of which were directed by David Lean. He was Oscar nominated a total of eight times.
  
  wn.com/Maurice_Jarre
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  Maurice Ravel
  Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.
  Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.
  Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music".
  According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to the law of most countries (including all members of the World Trade Organization), Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries.
  
  wn.com/Maurice_Ravel
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  Michael Brecker
  Michael Leonard Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 2007.
  Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Cheltenham Township, a local suburb, Michael Brecker was exposed to jazz at an early age by his father, an amateur jazz pianist. He grew up a part of the generation of jazz musicians who saw rock music not as the enemy but as a viable musical option. Brecker began studying clarinet, then moved to alto saxophone in school, eventually settling on the tenor saxophone as his primary instrument. He graduated from Cheltenham High School in 1967 and after only a year at Indiana University, Michael Brecker moved to New York City in 1969 where he carved out a niche for himself as a dynamic and exciting jazz soloist. He first made his mark at age 21 as a member of the jazz-rock band Dreams—a band that included his older brother Randy, trombonist Barry Rogers, drummer Billy Cobham, Jeff Kent and Doug Lubahn. Dreams was short-lived, lasting only a year, but Miles Davis was seen at some gigs prior to his recording Jack Johnson.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Brecker
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  Michel Legrand
  Michel Jean Legrand (born 24 February 1932, in Bécon-les-Bruyères in the Paris suburbs) is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist. His father Raymond Legrand was a conductor and composer renowned for hits such as Irma la douce and his mother, Marcelle Der Mikaëlian (sister of conductor Jacques Hélian), who married Legrand Senior in 1929, was descended from the Armenian bourgeoisie.
  Legrand is a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores in addition to many memorable songs. He is best known for his often haunting film music and scores, such as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) featuring the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" for which he won his first Academy Award.
  Legrand has composed more than two hundred film and television scores and several musicals and has made well over a hundred albums. He has won three Oscars (out of 13 nominations) and five Grammys and has been nominated for an Emmy. He was twenty-two when his first album, I Love Paris, became one of the best-selling instrumental albums ever released. He is a virtuoso jazz and classical pianist and an accomplished arranger and conductor who performs with orchestras all over the world.
  
  wn.com/Michel_Legrand
• Mike Piersante
  Mike Piersante is a recording engineer and mixer.
  Mike Piersante won two Grammy Awards in 2009 for his work as Engineer/Mixer. The first Grammy was for Please Read the Letter a duet track by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. Krauss and Plant sang this track as a duet which was released on the album Raising Sand , available on Rounder which won another 2009 Grammy for Mike Piersante for Album of the Year.
  
  wn.com/Mike_Piersante
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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]}
  
  wn.com/Miles_Davis
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  Mongo Santamaría
  Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez (April 7, 1917 in Havana, Cuba – February 1, 2003 in Miami, Florida) was a rumba quinto master and an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950 he moved to New York where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All Stars, etc. He was an integral figure in the fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms with R&B and soul, paving the way for the boogaloo era of the late 1960s. His 1963 hit rendition of Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.
  Mongo Santamaría was one of a handful of Cuban congueros ('conga players') who came to the United States in the 1940s and 50s. Other notable congueros who came to the U.S. during that time include Armando Peraza, Chano Pozo, Francisco Aguabella, Julito Collazo, Carlos Vidal Bolado and Modesto Durán. Many consider Santamaría to have been the greatest conga drummer of the twentieth century.
  
  wn.com/Mongo_Santamaría
• Morton Subotnick
  Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933, in Los Angeles, California) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the founding members of California Institute of the Arts where he taught for many years.
  Subotnick has worked extensively with interactive electronics and multi-media, co-founding the San Francisco Tape Music Center with Ramon Sender, and often collaborating with his wife Joan La Barbara. Morton Subotnick is one of the pioneers in the development of electronic music and multi-media performance and an innovator in works involving instruments and other media, including interactive computer music systems. Most of his music calls for a computer part, or live electronic processing; his oeuvre utilizes many of the important technological breakthroughs in the history of the genre.
  Subotnick graduated from the University of Denver. In the early 60s, Subotnick taught at Mills College and with Ramon Sender, co-founded the San Francisco Tape Center. During this period he collaborated with Anna Halprin in two works (the 3 legged stool and Parades and Changes) and was music director of the Actors Workshop. It was also during this period that Subotnick worked with Buchla on what may have been the first analog synthesizer.
  
  wn.com/Morton_Subotnick
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  Natalie Maines
  Natalie Louise Maines Pasdar (born October 14, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter who achieved success as the lead vocalist for the female alternative country band, the Dixie Chicks. Born in Lubbock, Texas, Maines considers herself a rebel who "loved not thinking in the way I knew the majority of people thought."
  In 1995, after leaving Berklee College of Music, Maines was recruited by the Dixie Chicks to replace their lead singer, Laura Lynch. With Maines as lead vocalist, the band earned 10 Country Music Association Awards and 13 Grammy Awards for their work between 1998 and 2007.
  On the eve of the Iraq invasion, while in concert in London for the 2003 Top of the World Tour, Maines commented that the Dixie Chicks were "...ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." Negative public reaction in the United States to this comment resulted in boycotts by country music radio stations and death threats.
  In 2006, with Maines still acting as lead singer, the Dixie Chicks released Taking the Long Way. The album subsequently won five Grammy Awards (including Album of the Year).
  
  wn.com/Natalie_Maines
• Nellee Hooper
  Nellee Hooper (born 1963, Bristol, England) is a British producer/remixer/composer best known for his work with Björk, No Doubt/Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Sinéad O'Connor, Garbage, Andrea Corr, U2, Sneaker Pimps, Soul II Soul and Massive Attack. He also debuted as a motion picture music composer with famed Scottish composer Craig Armstrong and Marius De Vries for the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet in 1996.
  Hooper began his career as a DJ and as a member of the Wild Bunch, the Bristol-based group that would turn into Massive Attack.
  Between 1989 and 1992 he produced the debut albums for Soul II Soul (Club Classics Vol. I), Massive Attack (Blue Lines) and Björk (Debut), which in 1995 Mixmag magazine ranked the 31st, 1st and 3rd best dance albums of all time.
  The 1995 BRIT Awards honored Hooper as Best Producer for his work on Massive Attack's Protection, Björk's Post and Madonna's Bedtime Stories albums.
  In 1998 he won a BAFTA Award (Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music) for his work arranging the score and soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.
  
  wn.com/Nellee_Hooper
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  Nicola Piovani
  Nicola Piovani (b. 26 May 1946, Rome, Italy) is a light-classical musician, theater and film score composer, and winner of the 1998 Best Original Dramatic Score Oscar for the score of the Roberto Benigni film La Vita è bella, better known to English-speaking audiences as Life Is Beautiful.
  After high school, Piovani enrolled at the Sapienza University of Rome, receiving his degree in piano from the Verdi Conservatory in Milan in 1967, and later studied orchestration under the Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis.
  Among his more popular works is the score for the Federico Fellini film Intervista, his second of three collaborations with the famous director, the others being Ginger e Fred (Ginger and Fred in English) and La voce della luna (The Voice of the Moon). Years later, he composed a ballet titled Balletto Fellini.
  In 2000, his Academy Award-winning score for La Vita è bella was further nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media" category, losing to Randy Newman. In light of his recent work with French directors, notably Danièle Thompson, Philippe Lioret, and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, the French Minister of Culture gave him the title of Cavalier (Knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on 21 May 2008 at the Cannes Film Festival.
  
  wn.com/Nicola_Piovani
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  Norah Jones
  Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress. She is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. She is also the paternal half-sister of Anoushka Shankar.
  In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album Come Away With Me, a fusion of jazz, pop, and country music, which was certified a diamond album in 2002, selling over 20 million copies. The record earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Her subsequent studio albums, Feels Like Home, released in 2004, Not Too Late, released in 2007, the same year she made her film debut in My Blueberry Nights, and her 2009 release The Fall all gained Platinum status after selling over a million copies and were generally well received by critics. Jones' fifth studio album, Little Broken Hearts was released on April 27, 2012.
  Jones has won nine Grammy Awards and was Billboard magazine's 60th-best-selling music artist of the 2000–2009 decade. Throughout her career, Jones has won numerous awards and has sold over 40 million albums worldwide.Billboard named her the top jazz artist of the 2000–2009 decade, establishing herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time.
  
  wn.com/Norah_Jones
• 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.
  
  wn.com/Oliver_Nelson
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  Pat Metheny
  Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny (/məˈθiːni/mə-THEE-nee; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.
  He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, post-bop, latin jazz and jazz fusion. Pat Metheny has three gold albums and 19 Grammy Awards. He is the brother of jazz flugelhornist and journalist Mike Metheny.
  Metheny was born and raised in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb southeast of Kansas City. Following his graduation from Lee's Summit High School, he briefly attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in 1972, where he was quickly offered a teaching position. He then moved to Boston to take a teaching assistantship at the Berklee College of Music with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton. He first made his name as a teenage prodigy under the wing of Burton. In 1974 he made his recording debut on two sessions for pianist Paul Bley's and Carol Goss' Improvising Artists label, along with fretless electric bassist Jaco Pastorius.
  
  wn.com/Pat_Metheny
• Paul Chambers
  Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was a jazz bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his impeccable time, intonation, and virtuosic improvisations.
  Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 22, 1935, Chambers was raised in Detroit, Michigan following the death of his mother. He began playing music with several of his schoolmates; the baritone horn was his first instrument. Later he took up the tuba. "I got along pretty well, but it's quite a job to carry it around in those long parades, and I didn't like the instrument that much." Chambers became a string bassist around 1949. His formal bass training got going in earnest in 1952, when he began taking lessons with a bassist in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Chambers did some classical work himself, with a group called the Detroit String Band that was, in effect, a rehearsal symphony orchestra. Studying at Cass Technical High School off and on from 1952 to 1955, he played in Cass' own symphony, and in various other student groups, one of which had him playing baritone saxophone. By the time he left for New York at the invitation of tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, he had absorbed a working knowledge of many instruments.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Chambers
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  Paul Simon
  Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is a grammy award winning American singer-songwriter, poet and guitarist.
  Simon's international fame and success began as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, launched in 1964 with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached No. 1 on the U.S. singles charts: "The Sound of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", and "Bridge Over Troubled Water". The duo split up in 1970 at the height of their popularity, and Simon began a successful solo career, recording three highly acclaimed albums over the next five years. In 1986, he released Graceland, an album inspired by South African township music. Simon also wrote and starred in the film One-Trick Pony in 1980 and co-wrote the Broadway musical The Capeman in 1998.
  Simon has earned 12 Grammys for his solo and collaborative work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2006 was selected as one of the "100 People Who Shaped the World" by Time magazine. Among many other honors, Simon was the first recipient of the Library of Congress' Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2007. In 1986 Simon was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Simon
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  Peter Gabriel
  Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. His 1986 album, So, is his most commercially successful, and the album's biggest hit, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, and the song is the most played music video in the history of the station.
  More recently, Gabriel has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel has won numerous music awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 1987, six Grammy Awards, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2007 he was honoured as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI London Awards for his “influence on generations of music makers.” Gabriel was also awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2009, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Gabriel
• Peter Kurland
  Peter Franklin Kurland (born 1958) is a production sound mixer.
  Kurland has done boom operation work along with sound mixing on many films, such as Walk the Line, The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty, Men in Black, Wild Wild West, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He won two Grammy's for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a BAFTA award and a CAS award for Walk the Line, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound for Walk the Line.
  In 2008 he won the CAS award for No Country for Old Men was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound as well as the BAFTA award. In 2011, he was nominated again for the Best Sound Oscar, this time for the film True Grit.
  Kurland has worked on every Coen Brothers' film for the past 25 years. List of frequent Coen Brothers collaborators
  He attended Peabody Demonstration (Now University School of Nashville) School in Nashville, Tennessee. He was once the fire chief at Antioch College. He has two children, Julian David Kurland, who currently attends the University of Connecticut, and Benjamin Franklin Kurland, by his wife, Shannon Dee Wood. She ran for the US Senate seat from Tennessee in 2000 against Bill Frist.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Kurland
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  Phil Ramone
  Phil Ramone (born 1941) is a South-African violinist, composer, recording engineer, and record producer.
  As a young child in South Africa, Ramone was a musical prodigy, beginning to play the violin at age three and performing for Queen Elizabeth II at age ten. In the late 1940s he trained as a classical violinist at The Juilliard School, where one of his classmates was Phil Woods.
  In 1959, he established an independent recording studio A&R Recording (the initials were derived from the last initials of Ramone and his then-business partner Jack Arnold). There he quickly gained a reputation as a sound engineer and music producer, in particular for his use of innovative technology. Among those whose music he has produced are Clay Aiken, Burt Bacharach, Laura Branigan, Ray Charles, Karen Carpenter, Chicago, Peter Cincotti, Natalie Cole, Bob Dylan, Sheena Easton, Melissa Errico, Gloria Estefan, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel, Elton John, Quincy Jones, Patricia Kaas, B. B. King, Julian Lennon, Madonna, Barry Manilow, Richard Marx, Paul McCartney, George Michael, Liza Minnelli, Anne Murray, Olivia Newton-John, Sinéad O'Connor, Fito Páez, Luciano Pavarotti, Peter Paul and Mary, Andre Previn, Diane Schuur, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, The Guess Who, and Dionne Warwick. He is also credited with recording Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" to President John F. Kennedy [1].also Phoebe Snow
  
  wn.com/Phil_Ramone
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  Phil Woods
  Philip Wells Woods (born November 2, 1931) is an American jazz bebop alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader and composer.
  Woods was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He studied music with Lennie Tristano, who influenced him greatly, at the Manhattan School of Music and at The Juilliard School. His friend, Joe Lopes, coached him on clarinet as there was no saxophone major at Juilliard at the time. Although he did not copy Charlie "Bird" Parker, bop's greatest saxophonist, he was known as the New Bird, a label which was also attached to other alto players such as Sonny Stitt and Cannonball Adderley at one time or another in their careers.
  After moving to France in 1968, Woods led The European Rhythm Machine, a group which tended toward avant-garde jazz. He returned to the United States in 1972 and, after an unsuccessful attempt to establish an electronic group, he formed a quintet which was still performing, with some changes of personnel, in 2004. As his theme, Woods uses a piece titled "How's Your Mama?"
  
  wn.com/Phil_Woods
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  Quincy Jones
  Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. (born March 14, 1933) is an American record producer, conductor, arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend Award in 1991. He is particularly recognized as the producer of the album Thriller, by pop icon Michael Jackson, which has sold more than 110 million copies worldwide, and as the producer and conductor of the charity song “We Are the World”.
  In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song "The Eyes of Love" from the Universal Pictures film Banning. That same year, he became the first African American to be nominated twice within the same year when he was nominated for Best Original Score for his work on the music of the 1967 film In Cold Blood. In 1971, Jones would receive the honor of becoming the first African American to be named musical director/conductor of the Academy Awards ceremony. He was the first African American to win the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1995. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African American, each of them having seven nominations. At the 2008 BET Awards, Quincy Jones was presented with the Humanitarian Award. He was played by Larenz Tate in the 2004 biopic about Ray Charles, Ray.
  
  wn.com/Quincy_Jones
• Rachel Portman
  Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman,OBE (born 11 December 1960) is a British composer, best known for her film work. She was the first female composer to win an Academy Award in the category of Best Original Score (for Emma in 1996). (Previously, female songwriters Barbra Streisand, in 1977, Buffy Sainte-Marie, in 1983, and Carly Simon, in 1989, each won Oscars, but in the category of Best Original Song).
  Portman was born on 11 December 1960 in Haslemere, England, the daughter of Penelope (née Mowat) and Berkeley Charles Portman. She was educated at Charterhouse School and Worcester College, Oxford.
  Portman was nominated for an Academy Award for her scores for The Cider House Rules in 1999 and Chocolat in 2000. She has also composed the scores for dozens of other feature films, as well as an unused score for the film Dangerous Beauty (George Fenton replaced her, but some of her material still remains in the film). For television, she composed the score for all thirteen episodes of Jim Henson's The Storyteller, and two episodes of The Jim Henson Hour ("Monster Maker" and "Living with Dinosaurs").
  
  wn.com/Rachel_Portman
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  Ralph Stanley
  Ralph Stanley (born February 25, 1927), also known as Dr. Ralph Stanley, is an American bluegrass artist, known for his distinctive singing and banjo playing.
  Ralph Edmond Stanley was born, grew up, and lives today in rural southwestern Virginia—"in a little town called McClure at a place called Big Spraddle, just up the holler" from where he moved in 1936 and has lived ever since in Dickenson County. The son of Lee and Lucy Stanley, Ralph did not grow up around a lot of music in his home. As he says, his "daddy didn't play an instrument, but sometimes he would sing church music. And I'd hear him sing songs like 'Man of Constant Sorrow,' 'Pretty Polly' and 'Omie Wise.'"
  He learned to play the banjo, clawhammer style, from his mother:
  He graduated from high school on May 2, 1945 and was inducted into the Army on May 16, serving "little more than a year." He immediately began performing when he got home:
  After initially considering a course in "veterinary," he decided to throw in with his older guitar-playing brother, Carter, and form the Clinch Mountain Boys, in 1946. Drawing heavily on the musical traditions of the area, which included the unique minor-key singing style of the Primitive Baptist Universalist church and the sweet down-home family harmonies of the Carter Family, the Stanleys began playing on local radio stations. They first performed at Norton, Virginia's WNVA, but didn't stay long there, moving on instead to Bristol, Virginia and WCYB to start the show Farm and Fun Time where they stayed "off and on for 12 years."
  
  wn.com/Ralph_Stanley
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  Ray Charles
  Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004), known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records. He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums. While with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.Frank Sinatra called Charles “the only true genius in show business.”
  The influences upon his music were mainly jazz, blues, rhythm and blues and country artists of the day such as Art Tatum, Nat King Cole, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Louis Armstrong. His playing reflected influences from country blues and barrelhouse, and stride piano styles.
  Rolling Stone ranked Charles number ten on their list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" in 2004, and number two on their November 2008 list of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". In honoring Charles, Billy Joel noted: "This may sound like sacrilege, but I think Ray Charles was more important than Elvis Presley. I don't know if Ray was the architect of rock & roll, but he was certainly the first guy to do a lot of things . . . Who the hell ever put so many styles together and made it work?"
  
  wn.com/Ray_Charles
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  Rick Rubin
  Frederick Jay "Rick" Rubin (born March 10, 1963) is an American record producer and the co-president of Columbia Records. Along with Russell Simmons, Rubin is the founder of Def Jam Records and also established American Recordings. With the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Run–D.M.C., Rubin helped popularize hip hop music.
  Rubin has worked with artists as varied as Tom Petty, Black Sabbath, Trouble, Slipknot, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Mars Volta, Danzig, Dixie Chicks, Metallica, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Weezer, Linkin Park, The Cult, Neil Diamond, Mick Jagger, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, Beastie Boys, Audioslave, The Avett Brothers, Adele and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. In the 1990s and 2000s, he produced the "American Recordings" albums with Johnny Cash. MTV called him "the most important producer of the last 20 years." In 2007, Rubin was listed among Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World.
  Rubin was born in Long Beach, New York and grew up in Lido Beach, New York, in a Jewish family. His father was a shoe wholesaler and his mother a housewife. While a student at Long Beach High School he befriended the school's AV Director Steve Freeman who gave him a few lessons in guitar playing and songwriting and helped him create a punk band called "The Pricks". Their biggest claim to fame was being thrown off the stage at CBGB after two songs for brawling with the heckling audience. These hecklers were friends of the band instructed to instigate a confrontation so as to get the show shut down and create a buzz. Although he had no authority in New York City, Rubin's father traveled all the way from Nassau county to Manhattan wearing his Lido Beach auxiliary police uniform as he attempted to "shut down" the show.
  
  wn.com/Rick_Rubin
• Rob Swift
  Rob Swift (born Robert Aguilar) is an American hip hop DJ and turntablist. Swift is a former member of the legendary turntablist group The X-Ecutioners as of late 2005 and as of 2006; with Mike Patton’s project Peeping Tom. Rob Swift is on the faculty of Scratch DJ Academy in New York City.
  
  
  Born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens, Swift (born Robert Aguilar) initially got into DJing at the age of 12 by watching his father and brother. “My dad was a salsa and merengue DJ. My brother learned how to scratch and do all the hip hop deejaying stuff on my dad’s equipment (without his permission) and I’d sit there and watch him. When I entered the sixth grade, I decided I wanted to learn.” So unlike those who got influenced through hip hop records, DMC^{[disambiguation needed ]} and NMS^{[disambiguation needed ]} tapes, or movies, Swift educated himself with the classic turntable beats of the early '80s New York playground pioneers while listening to funk and jazz at home. “My older brother exposed me to all that,” he says. “All the stuff I create as a DJ is rooted in the songs that I heard from Bob James, Herbie Hancock and James Brown to Quincy Jones and old DJs like Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizard Theodore. That’s where my roots are.”
  
  wn.com/Rob_Swift
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  Robert Plant
  Robert Anthony Plant, CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career. In 2007, Plant released Raising Sand, an album produced by T-Bone Burnett with American bluegrass soprano Alison Krauss, which won the 2009 Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.
  With a career spanning more than 40 years, Plant is regarded as one of the most significant singers in the history of rock music, and has influenced contemporaries and later singers such as Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose. In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist of All-Time". In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock. In 2011, a Rolling Stone readers' pick placed Plant in first place of the magazine's "Best Lead Singers of All Time".
  Plant was born in the Black Country town of West Bromwich (then in Staffordshire now in West Midlands) to parents Robert C. who worked as a civil engineer and Annie C. (Cain) Plant, but grew up in Kidderminster, in Worcestershire. Plant gained an interest in singing and rock and roll music at an early age.
  
  wn.com/Robert_Plant
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  Roland
  Roland (Frankish: Hruodland) (died 14 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons. His only historical attestation is in Einhard's Vita Karoli Magni, which describes him as Hruodlandus Brittannici limitis praefectus ("Roland, prefect of the limits of Brittany") when narrating his death at the Battle of Roncesvalles, when the rearguard, under his command, and the baggage train of a Frankish army was beset by rebellious Basques.
  Roland's death during retreat from the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in Iberia was transmogrified in later medieval and Renaissance literature. He became the chief paladin of the emperor Charlemagne and a central figure in the legendary material surrounding him, collectively known as the Matter of France. The first and most famous of these epic treatments was the Old French Chanson de Roland of the eleventh century. Two masterpieces of Italian Renaissance poetry, the Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso, are even further detached from history than the earlier Chansons. Roland is poetically associated with his sword Durendal, his horse Veillantif, and his horn Oliphaunt.
  
  wn.com/Roland
• Ron Block
  Ronald Franklin "Ron" Block (born July 30, 1964) is an American bluegrass and alternative country musician, mainly playing the banjo and the guitar, singing, and writing gospel music.
  Block was born in 1964 in Inglewood, California. He received his first guitar at 11. He first became interested in banjo at 13, after seeing Earl Scruggs play on television. His interest in guitars and singing grew after seeing The Stanley Brothers and Larry Sparks. He is best known for his participation in the Grammy Award winning band, Alison Krauss & Union Station.
  For the past twenty years, Ron Block has been the spiritual touchstone of Alison Krauss and Union Station, contributing sterling musicianship on banjo, guitar, vocals, and songwriting.
  Alison Krauss and Union Station have recorded 10 of Block’s songs since 1992, including There Is A Reason," "In The Palm of Your Hand," "Jesus Help Me To Stand," and "A Living Prayer, which received a 2006 Gospel Music Association Dove award. His songs have also been recorded and performed by Rhonda Vincent (“You’re In My Heart”), Randy Travis (“Which Way Will You Choose”), Dan Tyminski (“Be Assured,” “The One You Lean On,” and “It All Comes Down To You”), Michael W. Smith (“Loving You Eternally”), Rhonda Vincent (“You’re In My Heart”), the Cox Family, and the Forbes Family.
  
  wn.com/Ron_Block
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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.
  
  wn.com/Ron_Carter
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  Roy Hargrove
  Roy Anthony Hargrove (born October 16, 1969) is an American jazz trumpeter. He won worldwide notice after winning two Grammy Awards for differing types of music, in 1997, and in 2002. Hargrove has played primarily with jazz musicians with stellar careers, from Wynton Marsalis to Herbie Hancock.
  Hargrove is the bandleader of the progressive group the RH Factor, which combines elements of jazz, funk, hip-hop, soul, and gospel music. Its members include Chalmers "Spanky" Alford, Pino Palladino, James Poyser, Jonathan Batiste and Bernard Wright.
  Hargrove was born October 16, 1969 in Waco, Texas, to parents who early in his childhood discovered his musical potential, and with lessons on the trumpet, was discovered as a potential jazz talent when trumpet player Wynton Marsalis visited his high school, Dallas's Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. One of his influences was saxophone player David "Fathead" Newman, who performed in Ray Charles' Band at Hargrove's junior high school.
  
  wn.com/Roy_Hargrove
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  Ryuichi Sakamoto
  Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一, Sakamoto Ryūichi^?, born January 17, 1952) is a Japanese musician, composer, record producer, writer, singer, pianist, and actor, based in Tokyo and New York. He began his career in 1978 as a member of the pioneering electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), where he played keyboards and was an occasional vocalist. The band was an international success, with worldwide hits such as "Computer Game / Firecracker" (1978) and "Behind the Mask" (1978), the latter written and sung by Sakamoto. He concurrently began pursuing a solo career, debuting with the experimental electronic fusion album The Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto (1978), and later released the pioneering album B-2 Unit (1980), which included the electro classic "Riot in Lagos". After YMO disbanded in 1983, he produced more solo records, including collaborations with various international artists, through to the 1990s.
  
  wn.com/Ryuichi_Sakamoto
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  Sam Bush
  Sam Bush (born April 13, 1952 in Bowling Green, Kentucky) is an American bluegrass mandolin player considered an originator of the Newgrass style.
  Sam Bush was exposed to country and bluegrass music at an early age through his father Charlie's record collection, and later by the Flatt & Scruggs television show. Buying his first mandolin at the age of 11, his musical interest was further piqued when he attended the inaugural Roanoke, VA Bluegrass Festival in 1965. As a teen Bush took first place three times in the junior division of the National Oldtime Fiddler's Contest in Weiser, ID. He joined guitarist Wayne Stewart, his mentor and music teacher during Sam's teen years, and banjoist Alan Munde (later of Country Gazette) and the three recorded an instrumental album, Poor Richard's Almanac, in 1969. In the spring of 1970, Bush attended the Fiddlers Convention at Union Grove, NC, and was inspired by the rock-flavored progressive bluegrass of the New Deal String Band. Later that year, he moved to Louisville and joined the Bluegrass Alliance. In the fall of 1971, the band dissolved and reformed as the New Grass Revival.
  
  wn.com/Sam_Bush
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  Sam Rivers
  Samuel Carthorne Rivers (September 25, 1923 – December 26, 2011) was an American jazz musician and composer. He performed on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica and piano.
  Rivers was born in Enid, Oklahoma. Active in jazz since the early 1950s, he earned wider attention during the mid-1960s spread of free jazz. With a thorough command of music theory, orchestration and composition, Rivers was an influential and prominent artist in jazz music.
  Rivers's father was a gospel musician who had sung with the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the Silverstone Quartet, exposing Rivers to music from an early age. Rivers moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1947, where he studied at the Boston Conservatory with Alan Hovhaness.
  He performed with Quincy Jones, Herb Pomeroy, Tadd Dameron and others.
  In 1959 Rivers began performing with 13-year-old drummer Tony Williams, who later went on to have an impressive career. Rivers was briefly a member of the Miles Davis's quintet in 1964, partly at Williams's recommendation. This quintet recorded a single album, Miles in Tokyo. However, Rivers' playing style was too free to be compatible with Davis's music at this point, and he was soon replaced by Wayne Shorter. Rivers was signed by Blue Note Records, for whom he recorded four albums as leader and made several sideman appearances. Among noted sidemen on his own Blue Note albums were Jaki Byard, who appears on Fuchsia Swing Song, Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard. He appeared on Blue Note recordings by Tony Williams, Andrew Hill and Larry Young.
  
  wn.com/Sam_Rivers
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  Sly Stone
  Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart, March 15, 1943, Denton, Texas) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
  The Stewart family was a deeply religious middle-class household from Denton, Texas. The parents, K.C. and Alpha Stewart, held the family together as Christians, part of the doctrines of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and encouraged musical expression in the household. Born 15 March 1943, Sylvester Stewart was the second of five children raised in Vallejo, in the northern San Francisco Bay Area. After the family moved from Denton, Texas to Vallejo, Sylvester and his brother Freddie and their sisters Rose and Vaetta formed "The Stewart Four" as children, performing gospel music in the Church of God in Christ and even recording a single local release 78 rpm single, "On the Battlefield" b/w "Walking in Jesus' Name", in 1952. The eldest sister, Loretta, was the only Stewart child not to pursue a musical career. All of the other Stewart children would later adopt the surname "Stone" and become members of Sly & the Family Stone.
  
  wn.com/Sly_Stone
• Stephen Warbeck
  Stephen Warbeck (born 3. May 1953 in Southampton) is an English composer, best known for his film and television scores.
  Warbeck was born in Southampton, Hampshire. He first became known for the music for Prime Suspect and won an Academy Award for his score for Shakespeare in Love. He won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play in 1994.
  Warbeck attended Bristol University, and began his career as an actor. He plays the accordion and co-leads the group the Kippers with Paul Bradley.
  Stephen Warbeck at the Internet Movie Database
  
  
  
  wn.com/Stephen_Warbeck
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  Steve Lillywhite
  Stephen Lillywhite, CBE (born 1955) is an English Grammy Award winning record producer. Since he began his career in 1977, Lillywhite has been credited for working on over 500 records and has collaborated with a variety of musicians including XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Simple Minds, Chris Cornell, The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, U2, Peter Gabriel, Morrissey, The Psychedelic Furs, The Pogues, Beady Eye, Blue October and Phish.
  Lillywhite entered the music industry in 1972, when he worked as a tape operator for Polygram. He produced a demo recording for Ultravox, which led to them being offered a recording contract with Island Records. Lillywhite soon joined Island as a staff producer, where he worked with many of the leading new wave musicians. His first commercial success was with Siouxsie and the Banshees in August 1978, after producing their first single, "Hong Kong Garden". He also produced "Ku Klux Klan" - the first single that Steel Pulse released under Island Records in 1978.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Lillywhite
• 
  Stevie Wonder
  Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950 as Stevland Hardaway Judkins), known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.
  Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Well known albums also include Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.
  
  wn.com/Stevie_Wonder
• Stuart Duncan
  Stuart Duncan (born April 14, 1964) is a bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo. Born in Quantico, Virginia and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school band, he has been a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band since 1985, and is a much-in-demand session musician who has worked with such stars as George Strait, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire and Barbra Streisand, to name a few.. Recently Duncan joined forces with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile in The Goat Rodeo Sessions, an "ambitious and groundbreaking project that brings together four string virtuosos."
  As a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, he won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 1994 and 1996, and was named the Academy of Country Music Fiddle Player of the Year for 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2004, and Specialty Instrument Player of the Year for 2006. In 2006, he toured with the Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris Roadrunning tour and is on the All The Roadrunning and Real Live Roadrunning albums. In 2008, he toured with the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss Raising Sand tour, to much acclaim. He appeared on Transatlantic Sessions Series 4 broadcast by the BBC in September/October 2009.
  
  wn.com/Stuart_Duncan
• Suzanne Cox
  Suzanne Cox (born 19 March 1972) is an English aerobic instructor. She was formerly a gladiator in the UK television show Gladiators, in which she went by the name Vogue.
  Cox was born in Hertfordshire, England on March 19, 1972. She joined a local gymnastics club at a young age and reached regional level. She also competed in athletics in county meetings in 100 metres, shot putt and long jump. At college she gained a PEA and RSA certificate in Exercise and Health Studies which qualifies her to teach aerobics and circuit training.
  Cox progressed into competitive aerobics, becoming the UK Champion in 1991, '92, '93 and '94. She also competed at International and European level, becoming European Champion in 1993 and was ranked 7th in the world at the World International Championships in Las Vegas.
  In 1995, Cox joined the UK version of Gladiators. Cox was a firm favourite with fans, dazzling them with a display of backflips upon entering the arena. She excelled in Hang Tough and Powerball, although she could turn her hand to any event. Her theme music was "Vogue" by Madonna.
  
  wn.com/Suzanne_Cox
• 
  Tan Dun
  Tan Dun (simplified Chinese: 谭盾; traditional Chinese: 譚盾; pinyin: Tán Dùn, Mandarin pronunciation: [tʰǎn tu̯ə̂n]) (born August 15, 1957, Si Mao, Hunan) is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.
  Tan Dun was born in the village of Simaonae, Changsha in the Hunan province of China. As a child, he was fascinated by the role of the shaman in his village, who conducted rituals and ceremonies, often set to music made with organic objects such as rocks and water. However, as a child in the midst of China's cultural revolution, he found this kind of "backward thinking" frowned upon, and he was sent to work as a rice planter on a government commune.
  That, however, had little effect on his affinity for music. He created his own musical group, utilizing peasants in the village playing whatever they could, sometimes just banging on pots and pans. It was from these peasants that he began to learn to play traditional Chinese string instruments. He went on to play the viola for the Beijing Opera Orchestra.
  
  wn.com/Tan_Dun
• 
  The Edge
  David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his stage name The Edge (or just Edge), is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record. As a guitarist, The Edge has crafted a minimalistic and textural style of playing. His use of a rhythmic delay effect yields a distinctive ambient, chiming sound that has become a signature of U2's music.
  The Edge was born in England to a Welsh family, but was raised in Ireland after moving there as an infant. In 1976, at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, he formed U2 with his fellow students and his older brother Dik. Inspired by the ethos of punk rock and its basic arrangements, the group began to write its own material. They eventually became one of the most popular acts in popular music, with successful albums such as 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1991's Achtung Baby. Over the years, The Edge has experimented with various guitar effects and introduced influences from several genres of music into his own style, including American roots music, industrial music, and alternative rock. With U2, The Edge has also played keyboards, co-produced their 1993 record Zooropa, and occasionally contributed lyrics. The Edge met his second and current wife, Morleigh Steinberg, through her collaborations with the band.
  
  wn.com/The_Edge
• 
  Thomas Dolby
  Thomas Dolby (born Thomas Morgan Robertson; 14 October 1958) is an English musician and producer. Best known for his 1982 hit "She Blinded Me with Science", and 1984 single "Hyperactive!", he has also worked extensively in production and as a session musician.
  Robertson was born in London, England, contrary to information in early 1980s press releases that reported his birthplace as Cairo, Egypt. His father, Martin Robertson, was an internationally distinguished professor of classical Greek art and archeology at the University of London and Oxford University, and in his youth Thomas lived or worked in France, Italy and Greece. He attended Abingdon School in 1975-76, completing his A Levels whilst there. Thomas Dolby spoke of his early musical experiences in a 2012 interview:
  He later married actress Kathleen Beller in 1988; the couple have three children together.
  Dolby is member #00001 of the current incarnation of the Flat Earth Society, a pseudoscientific group.
  The Thomas Dolby stage name originated from a nickname that Thomas picked up around the age of 13. Thomas was always messing around with keyboards and tapes and the like, so his friends nicknamed him Dolby, which came from the name Dolby Laboratories. Later, when Thomas was 18 or 19 years old, British singer Tom Robinson was popular, so the then-Thomas Robertson chose to adopt the stage name "Thomas Dolby" when he began working professionally. Early publicity implied that "Dolby" was a middle name, and that the artist's full name was Thomas Morgan Dolby Robertson; this is not true, but he does sometimes informally go by the initials TMDR.
  
  wn.com/Thomas_Dolby
• Tim Blake Nelson
  Tim Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.
  Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father. Nelson is Jewish. His maternal grandparents escaped the Nazis shortly before World War II, fleeing to the UK in 1938 and immigrating to the United States in 1940. His father's family had immigrated from Russia. His maternal uncle is businessman George Kaiser.
  Nelson attended the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain Resort Arts and Conference Center in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma. He is a 1982 graduate of Holland Hall School in Tulsa, and a graduate of Brown University, where he was a Classics major as well as Senior Orator for his class of 1986. Additionally, Nelson won the Workman/Driskoll award for excellence in Classical Studies. He graduated from Juilliard in 1990.
  Nelson's debut play, Eye of God was produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1992. The Grey Zone premiered at MCC Theater in New York in 1996 where his 1998 work Anadarko was also produced.
  
  wn.com/Tim_Blake_Nelson
• 
  Tina Turner
  Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards. Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of hits including "River Deep, Mountain High" and the 1971 hit "Proud Mary". With the publication of her autobiography I, Tina (1986), Turner revealed severe instances of spousal abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce. After virtually disappearing from the music scene for several years following her divorce from Ike Turner, she rebuilt her career, launching a string of hits beginning in 1983 with the single "Let's Stay Together" and the 1984 release of her fifth solo album Private Dancer.
  Her musical career led to film roles, beginning with a prominent role as The Acid Queen in the 1975 film Tommy, and an appearance in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. She starred opposite Mel Gibson as Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome for which she received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, and her version of the film's theme, "We Don't Need Another Hero", was a hit single. She appeared in the 1993 film Last Action Hero.
  
  wn.com/Tina_Turner
• 
  Trey Anastasio
  Trey Anastasio (born Ernest Joseph Anastasio III on September 30, 1964) is an American guitarist, composer, and vocalist noted for his work with the rock band Phish, and his orchestral "Evenings with Trey Anastasio" performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Denver Symphony.
  In addition to his orchestral compositions, he is credited by name as composer of 152 Phish original songs, 140 of them as a solo credit, in addition to 41 credits attributed to the band as a whole.
  Anastasio was born in Fort Worth, Texas and moved to Princeton, New Jersey when he was three. His father, Ernest Anastasio Jr., was an executive vice president at the Educational Testing Service. His mother Dina (née Brown) was a children's book author and editor of Sesame Street Magazine. He grew up with his sister Kristy.
  Anastasio attended Princeton public schools through the fourth grade, then transferred to Princeton Day School. He graduated from The Taft School along with The Dude of Life, who helped pen such Phish compositions as "Suzy Greenberg", "Run Like An Antelope", "Slave to the Traffic Light", and "Dinner and a Movie". At Taft, he created his first two bands, Red Tide and Space Antelope. In 1978, he saw concerts by Pat Metheny and King Crimson and refers to this period as the "one year that changed me."
  
  wn.com/Trey_Anastasio
• 
  Vangelis
  Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Greek: Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου [evˈaɲɟelos oðiˈseas papaθanaˈsiu]; born 29 March 1943) is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis /væŋˈɡɛlɨs/. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, composing scores for the films Blade Runner, 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Alexander, and the use of his music in the PBS documentary Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.
  Vangelis began his professional musical career working with several popular bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite's Child, with the latter's album 666 going on to be recognized as a psychedelic "classic". Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed music scores for several animal documentaries, including L'Apocalypse Des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo went on to release several albums together as Jon & Vangelis. In 1981, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. The soundtrack's single, "Titles", won Vangelis the Academy Award for Best Original Music Score and also reached the top of the American Billboard.
  
  wn.com/Vangelis
• Vittorio Giannini
  Vittorio Giannini (October 19, 1903, Philadelphia – November 28, 1966, New York City) was a neoromantic American composer of operas, songs, symphonies, and band works.
  
  wn.com/Vittorio_Giannini
• Wallace Roney
  Wallace Roney (born May 25, 1960) is an American hard bop and post-bop trumpeter.
  Roney took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie and studied with Miles Davis from 1985 until the latter's death in 1991. Wallace credits Davis as having helped to challenge and shape his creative approach to life as well as being his music instructor, mentor and friend; indeed he holds the distinction of being the only trumpet player Davis ever personally mentored.
  Roney was born in Philadelphia and attended Howard University [1] and Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, after graduating from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts of the D. C. Public Schools, [2] where he studied trumpet with Langston Fitzgerald of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Diagnosed with having perfect pitch at four years old, Wallace began his musical and trumpet studies at Philadelphia's Settlement School of Music. He studied with trumpeter Sigmund Hering of the Philadelphia Orchestra from the age of seven until Hering's death in 1980. Under the watchful eye of Eugene Ormandy, Hering regularly presented Wallace at recitals at the Settlement School, and with the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble, during his studies as a youth in Philadelphia. When he entered the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Wallace Roney had already made his recording debut at age 14, and had attained distinction as a gifted local performer in the Washington, D.C area. In 1979 and 1980, Roney won the Down Beat Award for Best Young Jazz Musician of the Year, and in 1989 and 1990, he won Down Beat Magazine's Critic's Poll for Best Trumpeter to Watch.
  
  wn.com/Wallace_Roney
• Walter Becker
  Walter Carl Becker (born February 20, 1950 in Queens, New York) is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, bassist and co-songwriter in Steely Dan.
  Becker met his future songwriting partner Donald Fagen while studying at Bard College. After a brief period of activity in New York, the two relocated to California in 1971 and formed the nucleus of Steely Dan, who enjoyed a critically and commercially successful ten-year career. Following the group's disbanding, Becker relocated to Hawaii and reduced his musical activity, working primarily as a record producer.
  Becker and Fagen reformed Steely Dan in 1993 and have remained active, most notably including their 2000 Two Against Nature album, which won four Grammy Awards. Becker has also released two solo albums, 1994's 11 Tracks of Whack and 2008's Circus Money.
  Becker was born in Queens, grew up in Westchester County and Forest Hills, Queens, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in the class of 1967. After starting out on saxophone, he switched to guitar and received instruction in blues technique from neighbor Randy Wolfe.
  
  wn.com/Walter_Becker
• 
  Wayne Shorter
  Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.
  He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards. Shorter's output has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and various commendations, including multiple Grammy Awards.
  Shorter first came to wide prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he went on to join Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and from there he co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader.
  Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, and attended Newark Arts High School from which he graduated in 1952. He loved music, being encouraged by his father to take up the saxophone as a teenager (his brother Alan became a trumpeter). After graduating from New York University in 1956, Shorter spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he played briefly with Horace Silver. After his discharge from the army, he played with Maynard Ferguson. It was in his youth that Shorter was given the nickname '"Mr. Gone", which would later become an album title for Weather Report.
  
  wn.com/Wayne_Shorter
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
• Willie Bobo
  Willie Bobo was the stage name of William Correa (February 28, 1934 – September 15, 1983), an American jazz percussionist.
  William Correa grew up in Spanish Harlem, New York City. He made his name in Latin Jazz, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz, in the 1960s and '70s, with the timbales becoming his favoured instrument. He met Mongo Santamaría shortly after his arrival in New York and studied with him while acting as his translator, and later at the age of 19 joined Tito Puente for four years.
  The nickname Bobo is said to have been bestowed by the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams in the early 1950s.
  His first major exposure was when he joined George Shearing's band on the album The Shearing Spell. After leaving Shearing, Cal Tjader asked Bobo and Santamaria to become part of the Cal Tjader Modern Mambo Quintet, who released several albums as the mambo craze reached fever pitch in the late '50s. Reuniting with his mentor Santamaria in 1960, the pair released the album Sabroso! for the Fantasy label. Bobo later formed his own group, releasing Do That Thing/Guajira with Tico and Bobo's Beat and Let's Go Bobo for Roulette, without achieving huge penetration.
  
  wn.com/Willie_Bobo
• 
  Wyclef Jean
  Wyclef Jeanelle Jean (/ˈwaɪklɪf ˈʒɑːn/; Haitian Creole pronunciation: [wajklɛf ʒã]; born October 17, 1969) is a Haitian American musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country. He first received fame as a member of the acclaimed New Jersey hip hop group the Fugees.
  On August 5, 2010, Jean filed for candidacy in the 2010 Haitian presidential election, although the Electoral Commission subsequently ruled him ineligible to stand as he had not met the requirement to have been resident in Haiti for five years.
  Although his birth date was widely given as October 17, 1972, papers filed for his run as a candidate for the presidency of Haiti, disclosed that he was, in fact, born in 1969. Born in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, the son of a Nazarene pastor, Wyclef moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York, when he was nine before moving again to northern New Jersey. Jean has cited reggae artist Bigga Haitian as one of his early influences, as well as neighborhood heroes MC Tiger Paw Raw and producer Lobster v. Crab. Jean graduated from Vailsburg High School in Newark, briefly attended Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts, and finished one semester at Five Towns College in New York. Jean has been a resident of Saddle River, South Orange, and North Caldwell, New Jersey. In 2009, Jean enrolled in the Berklee College of Music.
  
  wn.com/Wyclef_Jean
• 
  Wynton Marsalis
  Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, United States. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences. Marsalis has been awarded nine Grammys in both genres, and a jazz recording of his was the first of its kind to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
  Marsalis is the son of jazz musician Ellis Marsalis, Jr. (pianist), grandson of Ellis Marsalis, Sr., and brother of Branford (saxophonist), Delfeayo (trombonist), Mboya, and Jason (drummer).
  Wynton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, the second of six sons of Dolores (née Ferdinand) and Ellis Louis Marsalis, Jr., a pianist and music professor. At an early age, he exhibited an aptitude for music. At age eight, Wynton performed traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band led by banjoist Danny Barker, and at 14, he performed with the New Orleans Philharmonic. During high school, Wynton performed with the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, New Orleans Community Concert Band, New Orleans Youth Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony, various jazz bands and with a local funk band, the Creators.
  
  wn.com/Wynton_Marsalis

• Watermelon Man
• A Tribute to Someone
• And What If I Don't
• A Jump Ahead
• Cantaloupe Island
• Oliloqui Valley
• Maiden Voyage
• The Eye of the Hurricane
• Dolphin Dance
• The Sorcerer
• Interview Herbie Hancock by Hans Mantel for NPS Radio
• Sly
• Watermelon Man
• Steppin' in It
• Butterfly
• Doin' It
• 4 A.M.
• Everybody's Broke
• Rock It

• Imagine
• Don't Give Up
• Tempo de Amor
• Space Captain
• The Times, They Are A-Changin'
• La Tierra
• Tamatant Tilay / Exodus
• Tomorrow Never Knows
• A Change Is Gonna Come
• The Song Goes On

• Maiden Voyage
• Cantaloupe Island
• Wiggle Waggle
• Chameleon (edit)
• St. Louis Blues
• Chan's Song (Never Said)
• River
• Don't Explain
• All Apologies
• Watermelon Man
• Rockit (live)
• River (live)

• Rain Dance
• Hidden Shadows
• Hornets

• I Have a Dream
• The Prisoner
• Firewater
• He Who Lives in Fear
• Promise of the Sun
• The Prisoner (alternate take)
• Firewater (alternate take)

• Court and Spark (feat. Norah Jones)
• Edith and the Kingpin (feat. Tina Turner)
• Both Sides Now
• River (feat. Corinne Bailey Rae)
• Sweet Bird
• Tea Leaf Prophecy (feat. Joni Mitchell)
• Solitude
• Amelia (feat. Luciana Souza)
• Nefertiti
• The Jungle Line (feat. Leonard Cohen)

• Empty Pockets
• Jack Rabbit
• Yams
• The Eye of the Hurricane
• Cantaloupe Island
• The Sorcerer
• I Have a Dream

• Watermelon Man
• Blind Man, Blind Man
• First Trip
• Cantaloupe Island
• Maiden Voyage
• Firewater

• One Finger Snap
• Oliloqui Valley
• Cantaloupe Island
• The Egg
• One Finger Snap (alternate take)
• Oliloqui Valley (alternate take)

• Empty Pockets
• Jack Rabbit
• Yams
• The Eye of the Hurricane
• Cantaloupe Island
• The Sorcerer
• I Have a Dream

• Maulana
• Baraka
• Kamli
• Kawanda
• Dunia

• Watermelon Man
• 'Round Midnight
• Cantaloupe Island
• Maiden Voyage
• Circle
• The Sorcerer
• Tell Me a Bedtime Story
• Hidden Shadows
• Chameleon
• Joanna's Theme

• Succotash
• Triangle
• Jack Rabbit
• Mimosa
• A Jump Ahead
• Mimosa (alternate take)

• Stitched Up
• Safiatou
• A Song for You
• I Do It for Your Love
• Hush, Hush, Hush
• Sister Moon
• When Love Comes to Town
• Don't Explain
• I Just Called to Say I Love You
• Gelo Na Montanha - 1st Movement

• Opening
• Eye of the Hurricane
• Tear Drop
• Domo
• Para Oriente
• Pee Wee
• One of Another Kind
• Fragile

• My Funny Valentine
• On Green Dolphin Street
• Someday My Prince Will Come
• Harvest Time
• Sonrisa
• Manhattan Island
• Blue Otani
• My Funny Valentine (take 3)
• On Green Dolphin Street (take 2)
• Someday My Prince Will Come (take 3)
• Harvest Time (take 3)

• On Green Dolphin Street
• 'Round Midnight
• Minuit aux Champs-Élysées
• Look
• Circle
• Harvest Time
• Pee Wee
• Someday My Prince Will Come
• Little One
• Chan's Song (Never Said)
• My Funny Valentine

• Rock Your Soul
• Maulana
• Hot Piano
• Live & Awake
• Nightwalker
• Scoochie
• Jammin With Herbie

• Ostinato (Suite for Angela)
• You'll Know When You Get There
• Wandering Spirit Song

• Night Walker
• Live and Awake
• Scoochie
• Witch Fire
• Afro Boogie
• Far Out
• Hot and Heavy
• Herbie's Blues
• T.C.B. With Herbie
• Soul Power

• Herbie's Blues
• Rock Your Soul
• Jammin' With Herbie
• Hot & Heavy
• Night Walker
• Hot Piano
• Live & Awake
• Scoochie
• Witch Fire
• Afro Boogie
• Far Out

• Jammin' with Herbie
• Herbie's Blues
• Rock Your Soul
• Out Of This World
• Soul Power
• Cat Call

• Blind Man, Blind Man
• A Tribute to Someone
• King Cobra
• The Pleasure Is Mine
• And What If I Don't
• Blind Man, Blind Man (alternate take)

• Hardrock
• Metal Beat
• Karabali
• Junku
• People Are Changing
• Sound System
• Metal Beat (extended version)

• Perfect Machine
• Obsession
• Vibe Alive
• Beat Wise
• Maiden Voyage / B-Bop
• Chemical Residue
• Vibe Alive (extended dance mix)
• Beat Wise (12" edit)

• Magic Number
• Tonight's the Night
• Everybody's Broke
• Help Yourself
• Satisfied With Love
• The Twilight Clone

• Third Plane
• Quiet Times
• Lawra
• Stella by Starlight
• United Blues
• Dolphin Dance

• Rockit (U.S. 12" short version)
• Magic Number (U.S. single version)
• Lite Me Up! (U.S. single version)
• I Thought It Was You (U.S. single version)
• It All Comes Round (U.S. single version)
• Go for It (U.S. single version)
• Tell Everybody (U.S. single version)
• Everybody's Broke (U.S. single version)
• Vibe Alive (U.S. single version)
• Hard Rock (U.S. 12" short version)
• The Bomb (U.K. 12" version)
• Mix (U.S. 12" version)
• Mix (U.K. 12" Only version)

• Introduction/Maiden Voyage
• Actual Proof
• Spank-A-Lee
• Watermelon Man
• Butterfly
• Chameleon
• Hang Up Your Hang Ups

• Jammin' with Herbie
• Herbie's Blues
• Rock Your Soul
• T.C.B with Herbie
• Soul Power
• Cat Call

• Moon/Light
• Ndan Ndan Nyaria
• Early Warning
• Kanatente

• So What (live)
• RJ
• Little One
• Pinocchio
• Elegy
• Eighty One
• All Blues (live)

• Homecoming
• Ostinato
• The Hook
• Bouquet
• Maiden Voyage
• La Fiesta

• You Bet Your Love
• Trust Me
• Ready or Not
• Tell Everybody
• Honey From the Jar
• Knee Deep

• 'Round Midnight
• Body and Soul
• Bérangère's Nightmare
• Fair Weather
• Una Noche con Francis
• The Peacocks
• How Long Has This Been Going on?
• Rhythm-A-Ning
• Still Time
• Minuit aux Champs-Élysées
• Chan's Song (Never Said)

• Lite Me Up!
• The Bomb
• Gettin' to the Good Part
• Paradise
• Can't Hide Your Love
• The Fun Tracks
• Motor Mouth
• Give It All Your Heart

• Chameleon
• Hang up your Hangups
• Gentle Thoughts
• It Remains to be Seen
• Solo Medley
• Maiden Voyage

• Maulana
• Bakara
• Kamila
• Dunia
• Kawaida

• Revolution
• The Spook Who Sat By The Door (Reprise)
• Revenge
• At The Lounge
• Training Day
• The Stick Up
• Main Theme
• Underground
• The Spook Who Sat By The Door
• The Big Rip Off
• Recruiting
• The Pick Up
• It Begins
• The Plan
• CIA Spook
• Best Of The Best
• Step Outside
• Junkie
• Man & Machine
• Bad Move
• I'm Black
• Network

• Watermelon Man
• Future Shock
• Go for It
• Can't Hide Your Love
• Vibe Alive
• Textures
• Doin' It
• Chameleon
• Early Warning
• Paradise
• People Are Changing
• Tell Everybody
• Hard Rock
• Mega-Mix: Rockit, Autodrive, Future Shock, TFS, Rough, Chameleon 84

• Byrd House
• Mr. Lucky
• Daydreams
• I'm an Old Cowhand
• Curro's
• It's a Beautiful Evening
• Out of This World

• Cantaloupe Island
• Hang Up Your Hang Ups
• Maiden Voyage
• Jaco Bass Solo
• People Music
• Chameleon

• Chameleon
• Stars in Your Eyes
• Rockit
• Calypso
• Satisfied With Love
• Karabali
• Spider
• Nobu
• Maiden Voyage / P. Bop

• Day Dreams
• Kamli
• Curro's
• Herbie's Blues
• It's a Beautiful Evening
• Rock Your Soul
• One & Awake
• Hot Piano
• Jammin' With Herbie
• Witchfire
• Nightwalkers

• One of a Kind
• Third Plane
• Jessica
• Lawra
• Darts
• Dolores
• Little Waltz
• Byrdlike

• Intro
• Watermelon Man
• [band introductions]
• Safiatou
• [band introductions]
• Frankenstein
• Butterfly
• Stitched Up
• [untitled]
• Spider
• [untitled]
• Lionel Solo
• Actual Proof
• [untitled]
• Chameleon
• Encore
• Hang Up Your Hangups

• Jammin' With Herbie
• Night Walker
• Rock Your Soul
• Live and Awake
• Hot & Heavy
• Herbie's Blues
• Witch Fire
• Far Out
• Afro Boogie
• Hot Piano

• The Essence
• Butterfly
• Tony Williams
• Rockit
• Chameleon

• Liza
• I Fall in Love Too Easily
• Nefertiti
• Someday My Prince Will Come
• 'Round Midnight
• Well You Needn't
• Parade
• The Eye of the Hurricane
• Maiden Voyage

• Watermelon Man
• Take Five
• Cast Your Fate to the Wind
• Bossa Nova
• Grave Waltz
• Exodus
• Back at the Chicken Shack
• Walk on the Wild Side
• Manulana
• Rock Your Soul
• Kamili
• Bunia
• Hot Piano
• One & Awake
• Jammin' With Herbie