Early Period (New Orleans Jazz, Dixieland)
Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)
Sidney Bechet (1897-1959)
Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931)
Buddy Bolden (1877-1930)
Nick LaRocca (1889-1961) und Mitglieder der
Original Dixieland Jass Band
Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941)
King Oliver (1885-1938)
Red Nichols (1905-1965)
Middle Period (mainly Swing)
Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
Lionel Hampton (1908-2002)
Glenn Miller (1904-1944)
Artie Shaw (1910-2004)
Tommy Dorsey (1905-1956)
Jimmy Dorsey (1904-1957)
Cab Calloway (1907-1994)
Fats Waller (1904-1943)
Charlie Christian (1918-1942)
Count Basie (1904-1984)
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
Benny Carter (1907-2003)
Modern Period (Bebop, Hard Bop, Cool Jazz, Free Jazz)
Chet Baker (1929-1988)
Dave Brubeck (* 1920)
Ornette Coleman (* 1930)
John Coltrane (1926-1967)
Chick Corea (* 1941)
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
Gil Evans (1912-1988)
Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993)
Gerry Mulligan (1927-1996)
Charles Mingus (1922-1979)
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982)
Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
Max Roach (1924-2007)
Wayne Shorter (* 1933)
Cecil Taylor (* 1929)
Postmodern Period
Avishai Cohen
Esbjörn Svensson Trio
Contemporary Noise Quintet
The Bad Plus
Leszek Możdżer
Robert Glasper
Third World Love
Omer Avital
Dhafer Youssef
3 Cohens
Kammerflimmer Kollektief
The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble
The Necks
Bohren & der Club of Gore
Jazz Milestones
Noteworthy Dates in the History of Jazz Music
1897: The 12-year-old
Jelly Roll Morton "invents" Jazz, or so he later claims. A habitue of Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans, Morton combines ragtime, French quadrilles and the hot Blues played by
Buddy Bolden, the notoriously hard-living cornetist.
1917: "The
Original Dixieland Jazz Band", a white group, makes the first Jazz recording, "Livery Stable Blues." It sells a million copies, launching Jazz as popular music.
Freddie Keppard, a black band leader, had rejected the chance to make the first Jazz record - he was afraid other musicians would copy his style.
c.1920: An older Morton (among others) introduces 'chord symbols' as alternative notation for professional musicians thus futhering the evolution of Jazz music.
1924:
George Gershwin would compose the work which defined his career and elevate him to a level of greatness, all in less than 3 weeks. 'Rhapsody in Blue' performed at Aeolian Hall by
Paul Whiteman's orchestra, arranged by
Ferde Grofé, was originally scored for piano and Jazz band.
1925-1928: Take it away, Satchmo: With his Hot Fives and Hot Sevens recordings,
Louis Armstrong revolutionizes the Jazz form, encouraging solo improvisation over ensemble playing.
1929-1945: The swing era rises and falls.
Duke Ellington,
Jimmie Lunceford and
Count Basie lead influential groups. Most of the big hits, though, are recorded by white band leaders like
Glenn Miller,
Benny Goodman and
Tommy Dorsey.
c.1935-1955: The jam session as art form: West 52d Street in Manhattan, packed with clubs, becomes the playground for
Charlie Parker,
Dizzy Gillespie,
Miles Davis,
Thelonious Monk and all their friends.
1936: Well before the rest of the country, Jazz becomes integrated. At the Congress Hotel in Chicago,
Lionel Hampton and
Teddy Wilson sit in with
Benny Goodman's ensemble. Two years later,
Billie Holiday joins
Artie Shaw's big band.
1938: January 16th at Carnegie Hall in NYC. Originally a publicity stunt by Wynn Nathanson,
Benny Goodman's monumental concert included "Twenty Years of Jazz", a thumbnail history of hot music which featured trumpeter
Harry James and drummer
Gene Krupa, playing arrangements by
Fletcher Henderson. Later in the evening, a "jam session" gave the audience a feel for the impromtu character of Jazz, joined by pianist
Count Basie, saxophonists
Johnny Hodges,
Lester Young, and
Harry Carney, along with trumpeter
Buck Clayton.
1939: While playing "Cherokee" during a Harlem jam session,
Charlie Parker happens upon a harmonic discovery that leads to Bebop, a far more intricate style of Jazz, both harmonically and rhythmically.
1943: Jazz ascends to the concert hall: The first of
Duke Ellington's annual Carnegie Hall programs and the premiere of "Black, Brown and Beige," his influential long-form work about the history of American blacks.
1951: On the heels of
Miles Davis' "Birth of the Cool," musicians like
Chet Baker and
Gerry Mulligan form the so-called Cool School, turning down the volume and intensity. It happens, of course, in California.
...
Sidney Bechet relocates to Paris, the first of many American Jazz expatriates including
Kenny Clarke,
Arthur Taylor and
Bud Powell. Racial tension was less pronounced and European audiences were far more appreciative.
1954:
Clifford Brown wins the Downbeat critic's award for best new star on trumpet and forms the
Clifford Brown-
Max Roach Quintet. Later that year he records live with
Art Blakey on "A Night at Birdland."
...Jazz goes outdoors:
George Wein, a pianist and singer, rewrites his Jazz resume by inviting musicians to Newport, R.I., for the first of many Newport Jazz Festivals (now promoted by JVC.)
1956:
Jimmy Lyons envisions "a sylvan setting with the best Jazz people in the whole world" and creates the Monterey Jazz Festival as an alternative to East Coast festivals.
...A crossover dream:
Ella Fitzgerald makes the first of several "Songbook" recordings for Verve, the impresario
Norman Granz's new label. The Songbooks make Fitzgerald an international star.
1958: On an August morning in Harlem, 57 greats of Jazz gather for a photo for Esquire magazine which came to be known as A Great Day in Harlem
1959: A pivotal year, with several records that expand the very possibilities of improvisation:
Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue,"
John Coltrane's "Giant Steps,"
Ornette Coleman's "Shape of Jazz to Come."
1961:
Orrin Keepnews set up the microphones to record pianist
Bill Evans and his trio (
Scott LaFaro bass,
Paul Motian drums) "Sunday at the Village Vanguard (Live)" on June 25, creating one of the most dynamic impacts in Jazz music.
1964: The avant-garde gains mainstream recognition as
Thelonious Monk makes the cover of Time magazine, which christens him the high priest of Bebop.
1969:
Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew," a primordial "Jazz-Rock" fusion record, sells 500,000 copies, turning many rock fans on to Jazz but leaving some hard-core Miles followers groaning.
1972-1977: New York's "Loft Jazz" scene blooms, with experimental, post-bop players performing in lofts like Ali's Alley. Rising among the players of the scene are
Joe Lovano and
David Murray.
1979: On Jan. 5, the famously cosmic
Charles Mingus dies in Cuernavaca, Mexico, at the age of 56. That same day, 56 whales beach themselves on the Mexican coast.
1984: The new generation gets a leader who looks backward:
Wynton Marsalis, at 22, wins a Grammy for his "neo-bop" record "Think of One." The same night, he takes a classical Grammy for his recording of trumpet concertos.
1989: Frontmen and backlash: Trying to duplicate Marsalis' commercial success, record labels snap up straight-ahead players like
Roy Hargrove and
Antonio Hart. Much grumbling ensues from those who consider these so-called Young Lions too imitative or too green.
1991: Jazz as institution: Marsalis is appointed artistic director of the new Jazz at Lincoln Center program. Big audiences but big detractors too; who claim that Marsalis is anti-modernist and anti-white.
1992: A new fusion trip: The British "Acid Jazz" group
Us3, which blends hip-hop and electronic samples of Jazz cuts, gets permission to raid the Blue Note archives. Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, the hip-hop group
Digable Planets records "Rebirth of Slick (Cool like Dat)," built around the sampled horn lines of
James Williams' "Stretchin." Suddenly, a new degree of Jazz cool.
1993: Jazzmen can be pop stars too:
Joshua Redman, the Harvard summa cum laude saxophonist, chooses Jazz over Yale Law and releases two records. Critics love the records and fans love Redman: in concert, young women shriek and young men pump their fists in the air.
June 1995: The Impulse record label, one of the most important in Jazz history, is revived after a 21-year dormancy. It is the seventh major Jazz label to be launched or relaunched in the past 10 years.
May 2000: Inspired by
Mary Lou Williams, Dr.
Billy Taylor founds the Women in Jazz Festival, held annually at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.
January 2001: Documentary film maker Ken Burns creates his 10 episode, 19 hour PBS television miniseries "Jazz" greatly appealing to the general public but enraging Jazz aficionados who protest that many important players were overlooked.
April 2002: The Smithsonian National Museum of American History announces the launch of Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) annually paying tribute to Jazz both as an historic and a living American art form.
August 18, 2003: President George W. Bush signed Public Law 108-72, which includes language strongly endorsing Jazz and urging that "musicians, schools, colleges, libraries, concert halls, museums, radio and television stations, and other organizations should develop programs to explore, perpetuate, and honor Jazz as a national and world treasure."
October 18, 2004: Celebrates the grand opening of the 100,000 square-foot performance, education & broadcast facility dedicated entirely to America's true art form, Jazz. Located at Columbus Circle in Manhattan overlooking beautiful Central Park, "the Frederick P. Rose Hall, " said Jazz at Lincoln Center artistic director
Wynton Marsalis, "signifies that our culture has matured to the point of accepting Jazz as an art form deserving of an International home."
January 8, 2005: The National Endowment for the Arts announces the launch of NEA Jazz in the Schools, an educational resource for high school teachers of social studies, U.S. history, and music. The five-unit, web-based curriculum and DVD toolkit explores Jazz as an indigenous American art form as a means to understand American history. The curriculum is produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center supported by a $100,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation.
August 23 - 31, 2005: Hurricane Katrina destroys the "cradle of Jazz," New Orleans, LA, USA causing damages of $200 billion (costliest Atlantic hurricane of all time.)
April, 2006: Legends of Jazz is scheduled as the first weekly series featuring live Jazz performance and conversation to air on network television in over 40 years. The 13 half-hour PBS episodes produced in multi-camera HDTV and Dolby Surround 5.1 audio coincides with National Jazz Appreciation Month.
March, 2007: Soundies: A Musical History, presented by Michael Feinstein and aired on PBS television, captures never before seen footage of the greats that started it all (
Duke Ellington,
Count Basie,
Nat King Cole, etc). The program also contains exclusive interviews with some of America's most famous musical and cultural icons including Hugh Hefner,
Les Paul,
Wynton Marsalis,
George Duke and film historian Leonard Maltin.
February 10, 2008:
Herbie Hancock wins Grammy for Album of the Year with "River: The Joni Letters" becoming the first Jazz recording to win the honor in 44 years, since
Stan Getz and
Joao Gilberto's "Getz/Gilberto" in 1964.
April 18th, 2008: Ending 40 years of service, the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) ceases daily operations and files for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 of the United States Federal Bankruptcy Law.
References
Wikipedia
Milestones
Billy Taylor