Bob Thiele was a major voice in the music industry for nearly six decades. Something of a child prodigy, Thiele started hosting a jazz radio show when he was 14. As a teenager, he learned clarinet and led a big band locally in the New York area. From 1939-41, he was editor of Jazz Magazine, and at the age of 17 in 1939, he founded the Signature... [+] Read More

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Irascible, demanding, bullying, and probably a genius, Charles Mingus cut himself a uniquely iconoclastic path through jazz in the middle of the 20th century, creating a legacy that became universally lauded only after he was no longer around to bug people. As a bassist, he knew few peers, blessed with a powerful tone and pulsating sense of... [+] Read More

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While George Russell has been very active as a free-thinking composer, arranger and bandleader, his biggest effect upon jazz has been that of the quieter role of theorist. His great contribution, apparently the first by a jazz musician to general music theory, was a book with the intimidating title The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal... [+] Read More

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One of the most significant arrangers in jazz history, Gil Evans' three album-length collaborations with Miles Davis (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain) are all considered classics. Evans had a lengthy and wide-ranging career that sometimes ran parallel to the trumpeter. Like Davis, Gil became involved in utilizing electronics in... [+] 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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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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Leonard Feather was best-known as easily the most famous jazz critic in the world, writing at least ten jazz books (including the famed Encyclopedia of Jazz series) and thousands of liner notes, along with articles and reviews for all of the jazz magazines and most of the daily newspapers. Feather, who was very modest about his piano playing,... [+] Read More

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One of the most respected of all jazz producers, Orrin Keepnews has had a long and productive career. He graduated from Columbia University in 1943 and was originally primarily interested in dixieland. Keepnews wrote for the Record Changer starting in 1948 which was started by his friend Bill Grauer. Four hears later he helped reissue 1920s... [+] Read More

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