Andrew Hill has been a great and even groundbreaking composer and pianist, yet the relatively circumscribed scale of his innovations might have originally caused him to get lost in the shuffle of the '60s free jazz revolution. While many of his contemporaries were totally jettisoning the rhythmic and harmonic techniques of bop and hard bop, Hill... [+] Read More

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A gifted player, excellent on ballads and able to combine African rhythms and a jazz sensibility in a totally original manner. He began playing piano at seven, and was part of a superb group the Jazz Epistles with Hugh Masekela. This band made the first genuine South African jazz record in 1960. Brand, now known as Abdullah Ibrahim, left South... [+] Read More

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One of the most distinctive of all pianists, Erroll Garner proved that it was possible to be a sophisticated player without knowing how to read music, that a creative jazz musician can be very popular without watering down his music, and that it is possible to remain an enthusiastic player without changing one's style once it is formed. A... [+] Read More

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One of jazz's most tragically overlooked geniuses, Herbie Nichols was a highly original piano stylist and a composer of tremendous imagination and eclecticism. He wasn't known widely enough to exert much influence in either department, but his music eventually attracted a rabid cult following, though not quite the wide exposure it deserved. [+] Read More

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One of many talented Detroit pianists of the 1950s (although one of the lesser-known players), the Bud Powell-inspired Hugh Lawson first gained recognition for his work with Yusef Lateef during the late '50s. He recorded with Harry "Sweets" Edison (1962), Roy Brooks, and Lateef on several occasions in the 1960s. In 1972, he was with the Piano... [+] Read More

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Red Garland mixed together the usual influences of his generation (Nat Cole, Bud Powell, and Ahmad Jamal) into his own distinctive approach; Garland's block chords themselves became influential on the players of the 1960s. He started out playing clarinet and alto, switching to piano when he was 18. During 1946-1955, he worked steadily in New... [+] Read More

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Like Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker before him, Sonny Clark's life was short but it burned with musical intensity. Influenced deeply by Bud Powell, Clark nonetheless developed an intricate and hard-swinging harmonic sensibility that was full of nuance and detail. Regarded as the quintessential hard bop pianist, Clark never got his due before he... [+] Read More

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When a man names his son after himself and affixes a "junior" at the end, the act is often done for a noble purpose, mainly to help discographers who are buried under mounds of information. Arbitrarily removing the "junior" from, say, the name of bebop pianist Walter Bishop Jr., and one is obviously left with just plain old "Walter Bishop," and... [+] Read More

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Walter Bishop, Jr. was a valuable utility pianist on many a modern jazz session during the bebop era, remaining an active performer until his death at the age of 70 in early 1998. The son of composer Walter Bishop Sr., he grew up in Harlem's Sugar Hill area, and as a teen counted among his friends Sonny Rollins, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor;... [+] Read More

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A superb accompanist loved by Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley, Wynton Kelly was also a distinctive soloist who decades later would be a strong influence on Benny Green. He grew up in Brooklyn and early on played in R&B bands led by Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Hal Singer, and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Kelly, who recorded 14 titles for Blue Note in... [+] Read More

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