Throughout his long career, Art Hodes was a fighter for traditional jazz, whether through his distinctive piano playing, his writings (which included many articles and liner notes), or his work on radio and educational television. Renowned for the feeling he put into blues, Hodes was particularly effective on up-tempo tunes, where his... [+] Read More

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Bobby Hackett's mellow tone and melodic style offered a contrast to the brasher Dixieland-oriented trumpeters. Emphasizing his middle-register and lyricism, Hackett was a flexible soloist who actually sounded little like his main inspiration, Louis Armstrong.

When Hackett first came up he was briefly known as "the new Bix" because of... [+] Read More

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One of the top pre-bop pianists to be active during the past 30 years, Butch Thompson's piano playing stretches from Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson to swing; he is also an excellent (if occasional) New Orleans-style clarinetist. In 1962, he joined the Hall Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band in Minneapolis, an association that lasted over 20... [+] Read More

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A very versatile virtuoso, Dick Hyman once recorded an album on which he played "A Child Is Born" in the styles of 11 different pianists, from Scott Joplin to Cecil Taylor. Hyman can clearly play anything he wants to, and since the '70s, he has mostly concentrated on pre-bop swing and stride styles. Hyman worked with Red Norvo (1949-1950) and... [+] Read More

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One of the two great stride pianists (along with Ralph Sutton) to emerge during the 1940s when members of their generation were generally playing bebop, Wellstood kept an open mind toward later styles (he loved Monk) while sounding at his best playing classic jazz. A little more subtle than Sutton, Wellstood was also a powerful pianist who was a... [+] Read More

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A major propagandist for freewheeling Chicago jazz, an underrated rhythm guitarist, and a talented wisecracker, Eddie Condon's main importance to jazz was not so much through his own playing as in his ability to gather together large groups of all-stars and produce exciting, spontaneous, and very coherent music.

Condon started out... [+] Read More

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Not only was Fats Waller one of the greatest pianists jazz has ever known, he was also one of its most exuberantly funny entertainers -- and as so often happens, one facet tends to obscure the other. His extraordinarily light and flexible touch belied his ample physical girth; he could swing as hard as any pianist alive or dead in his classic... [+] Read More

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One of the very first giants of jazz, Jelly Roll Morton did himself a lot of harm posthumously by exaggerating his worth, claiming to have invented jazz in 1902. Morton's accomplishments as an early innovator are so vast that he did not really need to stretch the truth.

Morton was jazz's first great composer, writing such songs as... [+] Read More

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Judy Carmichael is a real rarity, a pianist who came up after 1950 who specialized in the pre-World War II piano style called stride. Carmichael, who was not even born in 1950, started on piano when her grandfather offered 50 dollars to the first grandchild who could play "Maple Leaf Rag." She played music for the first time professionally when... [+] Read More

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Several years before Wynton Marsalis gained headlines for helping to revive hard bop, Warren Vache (along with Scott Hamilton) was among the few young jazz musicians who were reviving small-group swing. Vache, who always had a beautiful tone and a chance-taking style, is the son of a fine bassist (Warren Vache, Sr.) and the brother of... [+] Read More

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