George Benson (born March 22, 1943 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American musician, whose recording career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist. He is also known as a pop, R&B, and scat singer.

Benson uses a rest-stroke picking technique very similar to that of gypsy jazz players such as Django Reinhardt.

Wikipedia – George Benson

Official website – George Benson

Brad Mehldau (born August 23, 1970) is an American jazz pianist. Besides leading his own group, the Brad Mehldau Trio, he has performed with multitudes of renowned artists, including Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride, Michael Brecker, Chris Potter, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jimmy Cobb, and classical vocalists Renee Fleming and Anne Sofie von Otter.

Wikipedia – Brad Mehldau

The Official website – Brad Mehldau

Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist, composer, and jazz icon.

His career started with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in both classical music and jazz, as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisation technique combines not only jazz, but also other forms of music, especially Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.

In 2003, he received the Polar Music Prize, being the first (and to this day only) recipient not sharing the prize with anyone else, and in 2004 the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.

In 2008, he was inducted into the prestigious Downbeat Hall of Fame by the Downbeat Magazine 73rd Annual Jazz Readers’ Poll.

Wikipedia – Keith Jarret

KeithJarrett.org – An unofficial Web site about jazz pianist Keith …

Kenny Garrett is an American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist.

Wikipedia – Kenny Garret

The Official site – Kenny Garrett

The pianist Steve Kuhn can play John Coltrane’s music meaningfully without sounding as if he lives by it. That shows self-possession, for a couple of reasons. Coltrane was the most influential jazz musician in the late 1950s and 1960s, when Mr. Kuhn got started. And Mr. Kuhn, now 71, also has something many of his peers don’t: a small but significant association with Coltrane on the bandstand.

The Marcus Roberts Trio, from left, Jason Marsalis, Mr. Roberts and Rodney Jordan, performing at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, at Jazz at Lincoln Center, on Tuesday.
(2009/07/23)

 

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From left, Bill Charlap on piano, with Gary Smulyan, Harry Allen, Jerry Dodgion, Jeremy Pelt, Peter Washington and Kenny Washington in “The Gerry Mulligan Songbook.”

Bill Charlap waited until almost the last possible moment in “The Gerry Mulligan Songbook,” a tribute at the 92nd Street Y on Monday night, before divulging a sentimental piece of trivia. It was in that room, he said, where he played his first concert with Mulligan’s quartet, in 1988. The evidence suggests that it was a fine debut: a review in The New York Times singled out Mr. Charlap as “a particularly enlivening element in the group,” adding that “broad gestures, even incipient levitation, helped him milk emotions from the piano.”

THE alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson burst on the jazz scene around 1950 with a bebop style that many listeners likened to Charlie Parker’s. A few years later, he adopted a more basic blues approach that evolved into a popular, and profitable, jazz corollary to the work of soul singers like James Brown.

John Pizzarelli, Jr. (born April 6, 1960) is an American jazz guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and bandleader. He has had a lengthy career as a recording artist, performing for a variety of labels that include Telarc Records, RCA Records and Chesky Records, among others. He has recorded twenty-three albums of his own, as well as other joint recordings with his father. Additionally, he has appeared on more than forty albums of other recording artists, including those of James Taylor, Rosemary Clooney and his wife, Jessica Molaskey.

Wikipedia – John Pizzarelli

Official site – John Pizzarelli

Alwyn Lopez “Al” Jarreau (born March 12, 1940) is an American singer. A seven-time Grammy Award winner, he is the only vocalist in history to win in three separate categories: jazz, pop, and R&B. He won the aforementioned Grammys within a span of four consecutive decades — the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s.

Wikipedia – Al Jarreau

The Official site of Al Jarreau