Jazz Music Composers You Need to Know

Looking for some new and interesting jazz music to check out? Here are four great composers you need to know!

Herbie Hancock

If you’re a fan of jazz music, then you need to know about Herbie Hancock. Hancock is one of the most influential jazz composers of all time. He has composed some of the most iconic pieces of jazz music, and his work has been covered by a wide variety of artists. Let’s take a closer look at the life and work of Herbie Hancock.

Early life and career

Herbert Jeffrey “Herbie” Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer and actor. Hancock started his musical career with Donald Byrd. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In 1963, Hancock made his solo debut with Takin’ Off for Blue Note Records, which sold over a million copies and received a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

Hancock’s next three albums blended jazz with classical influences and established him as one of the leading jazz pianists of his generation. Hancock experimented with electric instruments and funk rhythms on Head Hunters (1973), which has been ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time; followed by Perfect Machine (1988) and Mr. Hands (1980), which combined elements of rock, pop and funk. Throughout his career, Hancock has won 11 Grammy Awards and been nominated for an Academy Award. He is considered an innovator in jazz music and was elected in 2001 to be a member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Contributions to jazz

As a composer, Hancock is best known for his work in the post-bop, modal jazz, and jazz-funk genres. He has penned many memorable works, including “Maiden Voyage”, “Cantaloupe Island”, and “Watermelon Man”. His 1968 composition “The Seed (Hey Nineteen)” was recorded by numerous artists, including the The Headhunters, who turned it into a hit in 1973. Hancock’s greatest commercial success as a solo artist came with his 1983 album Future Shock, which spawned the global hit single “Rockit”.

Miles Davis

Miles Davis was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical styles throughout his career. As a trumpet player, he was known for his “muted” tone, which he achieved by using a plunger mute.

Early life and career

Miles Davis was born on May 26, 1926, in Alton, Illinois. He was the first of three children born to Miles Dewey Davis, Sr., and Cleota Mae Henry. His father was a dentist who had attended Harvard School of Dental Medicine. His mother was a music teacher and professional pianist. Miles Davis began playing the trumpet at age 13. He attended Lincoln High School in East St. Louis, where he joined the band and learned to read music.

In 1944, Davis moved to New York City to study at the Juilliard School. He dropped out after only a few months, however, and returned home to St. Louis. He worked for a short time with legendary bandleader Jay McShann before moving back to New York in 1947. There he quickly became one of the most sought-after musicians in the city’s thriving jazz scene.

In 1949, Davis recorded his first sessions as a leader for the Prestige label. These recordings featured such notable sidemen as tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, pianist Al Haig, guitarist Charlie Christian, and bassist Curly Russell. The following year he made his debut as a leader for Blue Note Records with the album Birth of the Cool. Featuring an innovative style that meshed cool jazz with elements of bebop and Third Stream music, the album helped establish Davis as one of the most important figures in jazz history.

Contributions to jazz

Davis’s recordings hve been cited as key contributions to the development of bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. He was ranked number five in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”, which stated: “Miles Davis changed the course of jazz … several times”, and placed him second in its “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list.

Davis won nine Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2006, Davis was posthumously inducted into the R&B Music Hall of Fame. In 2015, the Library of Congress declared Kind of Blue to be one of America’s “National Recording Registry” recordings that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”. Two years later, on October 7, 2016, he was inducted into the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer who was one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was at the forefront of the free jazz movement and is considered one of the greatest saxophonists of all time. Let’s learn more about his life and music.

Early life and career

John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes and was at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions during his career, and appeared as a sideman on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual quality. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane, who would also eventually become a formidable figure in cosmic and devotional jazz.

Born in Hamlet, North Carolina, Coltrane grew up in a Musical Family. His father was a musician and his uncle, Alan Hood, played banjo and guitar. At the age of thirteen he started playing the clarinet; shortly thereafter he began studies on alto saxophone with Sterling “Prof” Hopkins of the National Youth Administration band program; after one year he switched to tenor saxophone. Throughout his teenage years he played in dance bands and at one point even contemplated becoming a boxer like his father. But by age seventeen he had dropped out of high school to pursue a career as a professional musician.

Contributions to jazz

John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer who was one of the most influential and innovative musicians of his era. He gained popularity in the 1950s with his band, The John Coltrane Quartet, and went on to create groundbreaking works such as A Love Supreme. His innovations in jazz led him to be known as one of the genre’s greatest saxophonists, and he continues to be revered by musicians today.

Bill Evans

Evans was born in New York City on August 16, 1929, to Harry and Mary Evans (née Soroka). He had Welsh ancestry. Evans came from a musical family: his grandfather, Harris Berg, was a pianist who emigrated from Odessa, Ukraine, to America in the early 20th century, and his father was a bandleader in Brooklyn. Evans father was of Russian Jewish descent and mostly non-observant; though he did not discourage his son from playing Jewish melodies and went to a synagogue on occasion.

Early life and career

William John Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, to Harry and Mary Evans (née Soroka). He had Polish ancestry. Evans came from a musical family. His father played piano and his mother was a municipal clerk who later played piano as well.

Evans attended David Brearley High School, where he befriended fellow students Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian, both of whom would later become celebrated jazz musicians themselves. He knew Tony Scott, a bebop clarinetist, at the New Jersey Conservatory of Music in Newark; they played together in neighborhood groups. Recognizing a natural talent and affinity for the instrument, his parents bought Evans his first piano at age 15. He spent hours at home listening to and imitating such pianists as Art Tatum and Hank Jones. Eventually he began playing saxophone in local bands

Contributions to jazz

Evans’ approach to jazz was influenced by classical music, which he studied extensively during his teens. His piano style was urbane and multifaceted, with overlapping hands often playing independent lines that wove in and out of each other. He originated the use of “block chords,” in which he would comp behind a soloist by playing chords with his left hand and single-note runs with his right. This approach would become commonplace in jazz piano.

Evans also favored “open” voicings—chords that allow more than one note to ring out simultaneously—which lent a spacious, ethereal quality to his work and helped define the sound of modern jazz piano. He was also one of the first pianists to fully exploit the possibilities of the newly developed Fender Rhodes electric piano.

Evans’ work as a leader began in 1956 with two trio recordings for Riverside: New Jazz Conceptions and Explorations. These albums formed the foundation of his distinctive approach, which can be heard on a string of classic trio recordings made between 1959 and 1961 with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. These include Portrait in Jazz (1959), Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961), and Waltz for Debby (1961).

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk was a jazz pianist and composer who was born in 1917 in North Carolina. He is best known for his unique and unconventional style of playing the piano, which was influenced by the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. Monk is also one of the most important composers in jazz history, with tunes like “Round Midnight” and “Blue Monk” becoming standards.

Early life and career

Thelonious Sphere Monk was born on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. His mother, Barbara Batts Monk, was a government employee, and his father, Thelonious Monk Sr., worked for the town as a mechanic and presser in a local laundry. By the time he was four years old, his family had moved to Newark, New Jersey. It was there that Monk began to study piano with his sister Marion’s piano teacher Frances Clarke. He later recalled with pleasure Clarke’s insistence that all her students master Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and Boysie Lowery’s Stomp Off, Let’s Go before progressing to other material.

Contributions to jazz

As one of the most innovative composers and performers of the 20th century, Thelonious Monk’s contributions to jazz are impossible to overstate. Though he is perhaps best known for his inventive piano playing and for his composition “Round Midnight,” Monk’s influence can be heard in the work of virtually every major jazz artist since his heyday in the 1940s and ’50s.

Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in 1917, Monk began playing piano at the age of six. He soon developed a interest in stride and boogie-woogie piano styles, and by his teens he was playing professionally in nightclubs in New York City. In the early 1940s, Monk began gigging with some of the most important figures in jazz, including Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker. He made his recording debut as a leader in 1947, and over the next few years he released a series of highly acclaimed albums on Blue Note Records.

In 1955, Monk signed with Columbia Records and released several successful albums for the label, including Briliant Corners and Misterioso. He also began to tour internationally during this period, exposing his unique brand of jazz to new audiences around the world. In 1962, Monk was featured on the cover of Time magazine, becoming one of the first jazz musicians to achieve widespread mainstream recognition.

The following year, Monk returned to Blue Note Records and continued to release a series of critically acclaimed albums throughout the 1960s. He also toured extensively during this period, appearing at venues like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. In 1971, Monk was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, cementing his place as one of the most significant figures in jazz history. He continued to perform and record until his untimely death in 1982.