A jazz pianist and bandleader, Count Basie was one of the leading musicians of the Big Band “Swing” era. His Count Basie Orchestra was formed in 1936, and featured singers such as Billie Holliday, and notable musicians including Lester Young, Jo Jones, and Walter Page. … Read MoreWilliam Allen (Count) Basie (1904-1984)
A veteran actor, playwright and film director, Ossie Davis, grew up in Waycross, Georgia and attended Howard University for three years before leaving to pursue an acting career in New York City with the Rose McClendon Players (1941-1942). Within a year he was inducted into … Read MoreOssie Davis (1917-2005)
Drummer, composer, and percussionist Max Roach was noted for his innovative contrapuntal polyrhythms, and was one of the founders of the bebop movement in jazz. He is widely considered one of the greatest drummers of all time, able to keep separate simultaneous rhythms going with … Read MoreMaxwell Lemuel “Max” Roach (1924–2007)
Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker was the most influential jazz musician to follow Louis Armstrong, and one of the music’s few true revolutionaries. The style he helped to create, called bebop, or bop, established jazz as an intellectual music that was no longer viewed merely as … Read MoreCharles “Charlie” Parker, Jr. (1920-1955)
Mentor to Louis Armstrong and pioneer of what would become known as the Harmon trumpet mute, Joe “King” Oliver was a key figure in the first period of jazz history. His most significant ensemble, King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, was a live sensation and also … Read MoreJoseph “King” Oliver (1885-1938)
Charles Gordone was born Charles Edward Fleming on October 12, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio to parents William and Camille Fleming. He took his stepfather’s surname of Gordon when his mother remarried when he was five years old. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, his mother’s … Read MoreCharles Gordone (1925-1995)
One of the great innovators of jazz music, pianist Cecil Taylor has redefined modernist jazz improvisation and composition. With uncompromising vision and sheer force of expression, his demanding music has both alienated and thrilled audiences, and has largely found a more receptive audience across the … Read MoreCecil Taylor (1929- )
Jazz arose in 19th century America from music brought from West Africa by slaves. It is therefore not surprising that the many of the most successful jazz musicians come from the African American communities in the South. While there is a common belief that Jazz … Read MoreAlphonse Trent Orchestra
Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie had a long and distinguished musical career as a trumpeter, composer, and bandleader. Unlike many jazz musicians whose lives were cut tragically short, Gillespie’s career spanned the 1930s to the 1980s, from the big band swing era of the 1930s, through … Read MoreDizzy Gillespie (John Birks Gillespie) (1917-1993)
William Lineas Maples, a physician and musician, was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, on March 31, 1869. The son of Edward Maples and Martha Jane Runions, William graduated in the first class of the segregated high school in Knoxville in 1888. Showing a talent for science, … Read MoreWilliam Lineas Maples (1869-1943)
