From All Music. com Biography by Richard Skelly Like many great blues and classic jazz vocalists, the Savannah, GA raised Irene Reid began singing in the church. She was born on September 23, 1930 in Savannah, and attended the Alfred E. Beach/Cuyler High School. There, she learned vocal music from teacher Peter Smalls. In her [...]

One of the most sought after hard bop piano players, Parlan has overcome physical disability and thrived as a pianist despite it. His right hand was partially crippled by polio in his childhood, but Parlan’s made frenetic, highly rhythmic right hand phrases part of his characteristic style, contrasting them with striking left-hand chords. He’s also [...]

Terell Stafford has been hailed as “one of the great players of our time, a fabulous trumpet player” by piano legend McCoy Tyner. Known for being a gifted and versatile player with a voice all his own, Stafford combines lyricism and a deep love of melody with a spirited, adventurous edge. This uniquely expressive, well-defined [...]

Elvin Jones Elvin “The Emperor” Jones was best known for his association with the classic John Coltrane Quartet (1960-1965) but he also had a notable career as a bandleader and continued to be a major influence in music. One of the all-time great drummers (bridging the gap between advanced hard bop and the avant-garde), Jones [...]

Miguel Zenón was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, he studied classical saxophone at the famed Escuela Libre de Musica. Although Zenón was exposed to jazz while in high school, it wasn’t until he began his studies at the Berklee School of Music that his formal jazz training began. After graduating from [...]

Bobby Broom was born in Harlem on January 18, 1961, and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. His birth name is Robert Broom, Jr. He is an American jazz guitarist, composer and educator. Broom was playing onstage at the Billie Holiday Theatre with a group of teenage musicians in Young, Gifted, and Broke, a musical [...]

Williams was born Joseph Goreed in Cordele, Georgia on December 12, 1918. He moved to Chicago at the age of three with his mother, Anne Gilbert, and his grandmother, Mittie Gilbert. Living in Chicago in the 1920s was hugely influential to Joe Williams. There were many African-American musicians thriving on the music scene, and years [...]

Horace Silver, jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, was born on Sept. 2, 1928, in Norwalk, Conn.  Silver performed with Stan Getz from 1950 – 51 before leading his own trio in 1952. Partnering with Art Blakey, he led the Jazz Messengers from 1954, then formed his own quintet in 1956, where he performed his own [...]

Dexter Keith Gordon was born on February 27, 1923 in Los Angeles, C.A. His father, Dr. Frank Gordon, was one of the first African-American doctors in Los Angeles who arrived in 1918 after graduating from Howard Medical School in Washington, D.C. Among his patients were Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. Gordon”s mother, Gwendolyn Baker, was [...]

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. was born April 22, 1935, in Pittsburgh, P.A. and died January 4, 1969, in New York, N.Y. He was the son of Paul Laurence Chambers and Ann Dunbar and had two children named Renee and Eric. Upon winning Down Beat magazine’s 1956 “New Star Award,” jazz bassist Paul Chambers entered [...]