Harlem+Renaissance+composers+and+artists


 * Jazz is a type of music that was rooted in the musical tradition of American blacks.
 * early jazz was played in small marching band or by solo pianists

Jazz styles be-bop big band swing traditional dixieland new orleans hardbop post-bop cool jazz

Jazz styles be-bop big band swing traditional dixieland new orleans hardbop post-bop cool jazz

Jazz and Blues Artists Red Allen Buster Bailey Count Basie Emmett Berry Art Blakey Scoville Browne Lawrence Brown Buck Clayton Bill Crump Vic Dickenson Roy Eldridge Art Farmer Bud Freeman Dizzy Gillespie Tyree Glenn Benny Golson Sonny Greer Johnny Griffin Gigi Gryce Coleman Hawkins J.C. Heard Jay C. Higginbotham Milt Hinton Chubby Jackson Hilton Jefferson Osie Johnson Hank Jones Jimmy Jones Jo Jones Taft Jordan Max Kaminsky Gene Krupa Eddie Locke Marian Mcpartland Charles Mingus Miff Mole Thelonious Monk Gerry Mulligan Oscar Pettiford Rudy Powell Luckey Roberts Sonny Rollins Jimmy Rushing Pee Wee Russel Sahib Shihab Horace Silver Zutty Singleton Stuff Smith Rex Stewart Maxine Sullivan Joe Thomas Wilbur Ware Dicky Wells George Wettling Ernie Wilkins Mary Lou Williams Lester Young


 * Great Jazz and Blues Artists**

Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971) a.k.a. Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpetist and vocalist. Armstrong was a charismatic, innovative performer whose musical skills and bright personality transformed jazz from a rough regional dance music into a popular art form. Probably the most famous jazz musician of the 20th century, he first achieved fame as a trumpeter, but towards the end of his career he was best known as a vocalist and was one of the most influential jazz singers.

Cab Calloway (December 25, 1907–November 18, 1994) was a famous American jazz singer and bandleader. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular African American big bands from the start of the 1930s through the late 1940s. Calloway's Orchestra featured performers that included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry and bassist Milt Hinton. Calloway continued to perform right up until his death in 1994 at the age of 86.

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as Lady Ella, was an American singer, considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century, alongside Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. Gifted with a three-octave vocal range, she was noted for her purity of tone, near faultless phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. She is widely considered (alongside Frank Sinatra) to have been one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook. She was the winner of thirteen Grammy Awards, and was awarded the National Medal of Art by President Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H.W. Bush.

Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), also called Lady Day, was an American singer, generally considered one of the greatest jazz voices of all time, alongside Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899–May 24, 1974), also known simply as Duke, was an American jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader. Many regard Duke Ellington as the most important figure to emerge from the U.S. jazz scene in the twentieth century, although Ellington himself might have quibbled with the description, as he was reluctant to describe his work as anything more specific than "music". The word "jazz" was too narrow for Ellington, a man whose greatest compliment was to describe others who had impressed him as "beyond category". Ellington has proved to be enigmatic, slipping through the easy classifications of biographers. Musicians run into much the same kind of problem when dealing with Ellington's compositions. Musically, he wore many hats, and he could never settle on just one. Some of the biggest names in jazz at one time or another were in Duke Ellington's Orchestra. They included Johnny Hodges, Cootie Williams, Bubber Miley, Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Barney Bigard, Ben Webster, Harry Carney, Sonny Greer, Otto Hardwick, Clark Terry, Jimmy Blanton, Ray Nance, Paul Gonsalves, and Wellman Braud.

Many of these musicians played in Ellington's orchestra for decades, and while most were noteworthy in their own right, it was Ellington's musical genius that melded them into one of the most well-known orchestral units in the history of jazz. Music critics agree that Ellington's ability to write and arrange for personalities rather than instruments made every section of his arrangements breathe with character. Ellington and his band (in its various incarnations) were prolific.

Ellington was one of the twentieth century's best-known African-American celebrities. He recorded for many American record companies, and appeared in several films. Ellington and his orchestra toured the whole of the United States and Europe regularly before World War II. After the war, they continued to travel widely internationally.