10
Jazz Musicians
Who Transformed and Trendset
the Jazz Music
World:
Roots
of Jazz Development: 1895-
1.
1895: 
Scott Joplin, who
plays the piano, writes his first two piano ragtime compositions. In 1899 Scott Joplin writes his Mapleleaf
Rag which sells
over a 100,000 copies. Scott
Joplin dies in 1917 and rag takes a back seat officially in 1922 and
Jazz is
born from ragtime.
2.
1920: 
Duke Ellington,
plays the piano, is the band leader and writes music.
He starts a band and they make their first recording in
1922. Duke sets up home in New
York with his Hot Seven Band and begins his residency at the famed
Cotton Club
in Harlem. 1932 Duke records If
It Ain't Got That Swing It Don't Mean A Thing.
3. 1928: 
Benny
Goodman,
Benny Goodman, the King of Swing, who plays clarinet. "He could
translate whatever came into his head directly into the clarinet.
He breathed and talked on the instrument to the point where the
clarinet seemed to disappear and all you heard was Benny."
The King
of Swing: That's
A Plenty. (Real Player file, MP3 here
too)
4. 1935: 
William Count Basie, plays the piano and
led his band. Billy Holiday, a very famous singer, debuts with
Basie's band. His band records, One
O'Clock Jump.
He was a leading figure of the swing era in jazz and, alongside Duke
Ellington, an outstanding representative of big band style.
5. 1926: 
Louis
Armstrong
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, as he was known all over the world, was
widely recognised as a founding father of jazz. A uniquely American art
form. His influence, as a artist and cultural icon, is universal,
unmatched and very much alive today. He recorded hit songs for five
decades and his music is still heard today on television and radio and
in films. He developed a way of playing jazz, as an instrumentalist and
a vocalist, which has had an impact on all musicians to follow.
6.
1945: 
Dizzy
Gillespie,
was one of the principal developers of bop in the early 1940s, and his
styles of improvising and trumpet playing were imitated widely in the
1940s and 1950s. Indeed, he is one of the most influential players in
the history of jazz.
In 1939, he joined Cab Calloway's big band, one of the highest-paid
black bands
in New York at the time. While in this group, he began to develop an
interest in the fusion of jazz and Afro-Cuban music, largely because of
his friendship with Mario Bauzi, who was also in Calloway's band. He is
viewed rather as an elder statesman of jazz, and his outgoing
personality and impish sense of humor endeared him to the general
public.
7.
1939 
Charlie
Parker
Charlie “ Yardbird” Parker, an alto saxophonist, was one of
the most
influential improvising soloists in jazz, and a central figure in the
development of
bop in the 1940s. A legendary figure in his own lifetime, he was
idolized by
those who worked with him, and he inspired a generation of jazz
performers and
composers.
By his own later account, he was bored with the stereotyped changes
that were
being used then. He said, "I kept thinking there's bound to be
something
else…. I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it." While
working in a jam
session with the guitarist Biddy Fleet, Parker suddenly found that by
using
the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with
appropriately related changes he could play what he had been "hearing."
Yet, it was not
until 1944-5 that his conceptions of rhythm and phrasing had evolved
sufficiently to form his mature style, significantly changing the
landscape of jazz
music as we know it. In 1944 he recorded “ Ko Ko”
8.
1959: 
John
Coltrane
a tenor, alto and soprano saxophonist, bandleader and composer, after
Charlie Parker, was the most revolutionary and widely imitated
saxophonist in jazz.
Coltrane is best known for his experimentation that had him labeled
eccentric, unorthodox, and even unmusical. Some of these
experimentations included playing the same chord three or four
different ways within a single measure and overlapping chords before
the change was intended to occur.
9.
1954: 
Miles Davis, “Prince of
Darkness”, trumpeter, composer, bandleader, and artist was an original,
lyrical soloist and a demanding group leader. Miles Davis was the most
consistently innovative musician in jazz from the late 1940s through
the 1960s. His sensational improvisations there
brought him widespread publicity and sufficient engagements. Davis was
described as a "living legend," a title he detested because it went
against his continuing inclination to be associated with new popular
music and energetic youthful activities, but one that was nonetheless
accurate.
10.1968
Thelonious
Monk, pianist and composer,
group of jazz musicians who were responsible for the birth of a new kind of jazz -
bebop. He did not work regularly until the mid 50's when he finally became
recognised for the contribution he had made to the new jazz and started
recording some remarkable albums. His piano playing and his compositions have an
oddness about them, a strange angularity that is not always easily assimilated,
but pays back dividends for those willing to listen. He grew up in New York
City, the center of jazz in the world, and this probably influenced his later
decisions in his career. He began having piano lessons when he was five and soon
became very skilled. When he was 13 he was banned from a weekly amateur
contest at the Apollo Theater because he simply won too many times. 1945 he formed
a style of bebop that was so ahead of the times that many bebop players
thought that he was a nut. His name, personality, and funny hats did not help his
defense. By 1947 he had basically formed a style of music that would not be
obsolete for 25 years. However, he was not accepted for many years and fought
just to stay alive.