News & Updates — Celebrate Icons

The great reedsman and composer Julius Hemphill was a member of the collective Black Artists Group (B.A.G.) of St. Louis, and a founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, an all-sax ensemble that played and recontextualized many originals, standards and pop songs for wind only. Hemphill also played with Ike Turner, Anthony Braxton, Lester Bowie, Human Arts Ensemble and Bjork, as well as starting both a sax quintet and sextet. He had a harsh tone, with influence from African music to pop to avant-garde and theater. He can be heard often in the duo format. And like Braxton, his line-ups could...

Happy birthday to the legendary Romani-gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, one of the most influential musicians to come out of 20th century Europe. Django made the guitar the star before the amplified era, with melodies to delicately massage the toughest of ears. Often in partnership with French violinist Stephane Grappelli & their Quintette du Hot Club de France, the 1930's recordings stand as standard-bearers for some of the most advanced harmonic runs of the day and jazz on the whole were given legitimacy in Europe by the time Django went electric in '46. His fast fingers (even if he could...

Great jazz trombonist/composer JJ Johnson worked in the bebop scene at a time when the slide trombone was not featured much. His ease in which he added the 'bone into the bop language is recognized as pioneering. Played with Dizzy, Basie, Benny Carter, Bird, Miles, Illinois Jacquet, Sonny Rollins, Mingus, and others as well as his popular and inventive duel-trombone group with Kai Winding. He also contributed work as a composer of film scores, such as "Across 110th Street". Some consider him the greatest jazz trombonist of all time.

Puerto Rican trombonist Juan Tizol contributed two of the great songs of the classic jazz repertoire, "Caravan" and "Perdido", both of which he co-wrote. He joined the Ellington band at 29 and a second trombonist in the band for the first time allowed Duke another sound for his palette. Some credit Tizol as a pioneer in both modal jazz and latin jazz. His career was mostly spent with Ellington and Harry James. "Caravan" happens to be one of my very favorite songs.

There would be no soul music without Sam Cooke's sweet gospel-reared voice and his many impactful hits, such as "You Send Me", "Another Saturday Night", "Chain Gang", "Twistin' The Night Away", "Shake" (all composed by Cooke himself) and many others. Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi and grown up in Chicago, Sam was a member of the great gospel group The Soul Stirrers before transitioning to pop music (at first under an alias). He was a pioneer everythingman of black artists, as he founded his own record label and took care of his own business, which included production, composing, artist management, musical...