Iconic Jazz Musicians: A Guide to Influential Jazz Artists

The history of jazz spans the twentieth century.

• Early 1900s: Music historians trace jazz music to early twentieth-century New Orleans, where musicians like Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and Louis Armstrong borrowed heavily from ragtime, blues, and second-line horn sections from parades. Even New Orleans funeral music inspired early jazz musicians. Southern jazz originating from New Orleans during this time eventually became known as Dixieland jazz.
• 1920s and ’30s: Other early jazz capitals included Chicago and Kansas City—where Count Basie based his orchestra for a period of time—but it was New York City that established jazz as a touchstone of American culture. Big bands and bandleaders like Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson performed for nightclub audiences. Ellington was famous for his original compositions, which drew from classical music and highlighted soloists within the Ellington Big Band, like bassist Jimmy Blanton. Billie Holiday lent her voice to many big bands, including Count Basie's Orchestra and Artie Shaw’s band, while saxophonists like Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins helped establish the signature sound of jazz.
• 1940s and ’50s: In the 1940s, New York musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, and Art Blakey developed a jazz subgenre called bebop. This style of music involved lightning-fast playing, prolific soloing over chord changes, and improvisation. Musicians like Ornette Coleman and jazz bands like the Modern Jazz Quartet challenged the harmonic rules of traditional jazz, while drummer Max Roach helped pioneer the rhythm and beat of bebop. Coleman is also credited with creating a genre called free jazz that largely disposed of the song form guiding most jazz standards. This time period also gave rise to the queen of jazz, vocalist Ella Fitzgerald.
• 1960s: Post-bebop (or post-bop) slowed down the tempo and added harmonic sophistication. Musicians like Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, and Freddie Hubbard cut their teeth in bebop but became better known for their post-bop compositions. Davis developed a genre called cool jazz, which emphasized slower tempos, more minimal textures, and modal playing. Saxophonists John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins were equally skilled in bebop, cool jazz, and post-tonal improvisations. Musicians like Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul merged jazz with funk and rock to create a new genre known as jazz fusion. Guitarists such as Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell found inspiration in folk music, and added that genre to their jazz performances.
• 1970s to today: Jazz has continued to maintain widespread appeal thanks to modern jazz musicians and instrumentalists like Keith Jarrett, George Benson, and John Scofield.

Many jazz musicians contributed to the genre, but a few in particular helped define it.

1. 1. Miles Davis (1926–1991): Davis was a jazz trumpeter and innovator, helping to define post-bop, jazz fusion, and modal jazz. Most notably, Davis used his trumpet as a way to emulate the sound of the human voice by cutting out vibrato, turning his jazz into a smoother and more emotional form of music.
2. 2. Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993): Gillespie was an American trumpeter and bandleader. He had a huge influence on many other jazz greats, including Miles Davis, Arturo Sandoval, and Jon Faddis. Gillespie contributed to the development of bebop jazz and was one of the earlier musicians to infuse it with an Afro-Latin style.
3. 3. Charlie Parker (1920–1955): Parker was a gifted saxophonist known for playing the alto saxophone and creating a market for modern jazz music. A virtuoso saxophonist, he was known for playing fast and introducing new melodic techniques into his music. He pushed the boundaries of jazz music, playing often with his intuition rather than following what was written.
4. 4. Duke Ellington (1899–1974): Ellington was a prodigious piano player who composed hundreds of now-standard songs including “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” and “Caravan.” Born in 1899 and inspired by ragtime pianists, Duke Ellington became one of the most influential bandleaders of the twentieth century and led his jazz orchestra for over 50 years.
5. 5. Herbie Hancock (1940–present): Hancock is a multi-talented pianist, composer, and jazz bandleader who helped shape the post-bop sound. As a member of the second Miles Davis Quintet, he reinvented the role of the jazz rhythm section. He and saxophonist Wayne Shorter co-wrote most compositions on the quintessential post-bop album, Nefertiti (1968).
6. 6. Thelonious Monk (1917–1982): Monk was an American composer and jazz pianist who contributed to the cool jazz, hard bop, and bebop styles of music. Monk is considered one of the most significant pioneers of modern jazz because of his unique playing style (characterized as improvisational, playful, and percussive), skillful technique, and legendary collaborations. Monk influenced the trajectory of jazz with his long, masterfully improvised solos.
7. 7. Benny Goodman (1909–1986): Goodman’s jazz orchestra put on a concert in Los Angeles in 1935 that inspired an excited crowd to break out into dance. After that show, Benny Goodman’s reputation spread across the country, earning him the title of “The King of Swing.” A dedicated clarinet player and infamous perfectionist, Benny Goodman hired talented musicians who would one day go on to start their own orchestras, including Harry James and Woody Herman.
8. 8. Nat King Cole (1919–1965): Nat King Cole's prodigious piano skills and inimitable voice helped launch his jazz career at the young age of fifteen. His recording career largely consisted of pop material accompanied by a string orchestra. Nat King Cole also had a storied career in Hollywood. In 1956, he'd become the first Black American to host their own TV show. His legacy would ultimately be his extensive discography of sentimental songs and his unforgettable voice.
9. 9. Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981): An accomplished jazz pianist and composer, Williams wrote and arranged pieces for the likes of Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Williams was an influential musician in her own right whose innovations would shape the sound of the big band era. She was a mentor to budding jazz artists such as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.
10. 10. Wynton Marsalis (1961–present): Marsalis is one of the most decorated jazz musicians. He's won nine Grammy awards and is the only jazz musician to win a Grammy for both jazz and classical compositions in the same year. His composition, Blood on the Fields, was the first jazz piece to earn a Pulitzer Prize for Music.

To understand jazz music, familiarize yourself with these iconic compositions.

1. 1. “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” by Duke Ellington (1931): A jazz standard, Irving Mills wrote this song for Ellington in 1931, which featured solos by trombonist Joe Nanton alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008.
2. 2. "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday (1939): The poet Abel Meeropol wrote this song for Holiday to protest the lynchings of Black Americans. In 1999, Time magazine named it the best song of the century.
3. 3. "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (1959): Appearing on the album Time Out in 1959, "Take Five" took the world by storm. To this day, the song remains the best-selling jazz single of all time.
4. 4. "Blue in Green" by Miles Davis (1959): Featuring John Coltrane on tenor saxophone and Bill Evans on piano, "Blue in Green" is one of three ballads on Davis's definitive 1959 album, Kind of Blue.
5. 5. “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong (1967): Bob Thiele and George David Weiss wrote this song for Armstrong, who recorded and released it to critical acclaim in 1967. Although it didn’t reach widespread popularity in the US for another two decades, it hit the top of the UK charts after its initial release. In 1999, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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