One of the most versatile musicians on the planet, Andre Previn has amassed considerable credentials as a jazz pianist, despite carving out separate lives first as a Hollywood arranger and composer, and then a world-class classical conductor, pianist and composer. Always fluid, melodic and swinging, with elements of Bud Powell, Oscar Peterson... [+] Read More

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Claude Bolling has found his greatest fame in the U.S. for his jazzy classical collaborations with Jean-Pierre Rampal, Maurice Andre, Elena Duran, and Yo Yo Ma, while in Europe he is best known as the leader of various swing big bands. Bolling formed his first group when he was 14 in 1944. In 1948, he recorded with Rex Stewart and accompanied... [+] Read More

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Creed Taylor is best known for his CTI label of the 1970s, but he has been important in the jazz recording industry for quite some time. He played trumpet early on before becoming the head of A&R at Bethlehem Records in 1954. Taylor was at Bethlehem during its two most significant years, recording such artists as Chris Connor, Oscar Pettiford,... [+] Read More

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Dave Grusin has been a highly successful performer, producer, composer, record label executive, arranger, and bandleader. His piano playing ranges from mildly challenging to competent to routine, but he's primarily an accomplished film and television soundtrack composer. Grusin played with Terry Gibbs and Johnny Smith while studying at the... [+] Read More

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Best remembered for his Oscar-winning scores to A Man and a Woman and Love Story, composer Francis Lai was born April 26, 1932, in Nice, France. After studying piano as a child, he later discovered jazz and during the 1950s followed friend and singer Claude Goaty to Paris, eventually settling in Montmartre. At the local Taverne d'Attilio, Lai... [+] Read More

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Gunther Schuller is probably the greatest friend jazz has ever had from the classical world. A jazz devotee from the beginning, he has been the most outspoken advocate of a fusion between elements of European classical music and jazz, inventing the term "Third Stream" at a 1957 Brandeis University lecture to describe it. Although Third Stream... [+] Read More

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If the recognition of one's peers is the true measure of success, then few men are as successful as composer, arranger, and conductor Henry Mancini. In a career that spanned 40 years, writing for film and television, Mancini won four Oscars and twenty Grammys, the all-time record for a pop artist. For 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's alone, Mancini... [+] Read More

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The musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet for its entire history, John Lewis found the perfect outlet for his interest in bop, blues and Bach. Possessor of a "cool" piano style that (like Count Basie's) makes every note count, Lewis with the MJQ has long helpled make jazz look respectable to the classical music community without watering... [+] Read More

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The most popular film composer of the modern era, John Williams created music for some of the most successful motion pictures in Hollywood history -- Star Wars, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park are just three of the credits in his extensive oeuvre. Born February 8, 1932, in Long Island, NY, he was himself the son of a movie studio... [+] Read More

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