Wynton Marsalis
Born October 18, 1961, in New Orleans, LA
“Jazz is an art form,” trumpeter Wynton Marsalis has said, “that gives us a painless way of understanding ourselves.” Few contemporary jazz musicians have stated the case for jazz more articulately than Marsalis, and few have made their art more welcoming to audiences young and old...
Charles Mingus
Born April 22, 1922, in Nogales, AZ
Died January 5, 1979, in Cuernavaca, Mexico
“Music is a language of the emotions,” the bassist and composer Charles Mingus said. No one in jazz expressed a wider range of emotions with more musical power than he did, and no one but Duke Ellington drew upon more musical sources of inspiration...
Thelonious Monk
Born October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, NC
Died February 17, 1982, in Weehawken, NJ
“A genius is one who is most like himself,” said Thelonious Monk. By this standard, Monk’s brilliance was unmatched. Fingers splayed, elbows poised to collide with the keyboard, he neither played nor sounded like anyone else...
Jelly Roll Morton
Born October 20, 1890, in New Orleans, LA
Died July 10, 1941, in Los Angeles, CA
“It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of jazz,” Jelly Roll Morton once said, “and I, myself, happened to be [its] creator in the year 1902.”...
King Oliver
Born May 11, 1885, in or near New Orleans, LA
Died April 8 or 10, 1938, in Savannah, GA
Cornetist Joe “King” Oliver was a showman in the swaggering street-wise tradition of his mythic Crescent City predecessor, Buddy Bolden. But it was his craft that helped earn him his regal title...
Charlie Parker
Born August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, KS
Died March 12, 1955, in New York City
“The first time I heard Bird play,” John Coltrane remembered, “it hit me right between the eyes.” Coltrane was not alone. Charlie Parker was the most influential improviser in jazz after Louis Armstrong...
