The 1930s belonged to popular swing big bands, in which some
virtuoso jazz musicians became as famous as the band leaders. Key figures in
developing the "big" jazz band included bandleaders and arrangers
Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw,
Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller.In the mid-1940s bebop performers
helped to shift jazz from danceable popular music towards a more challenging
"musician's music." Differing greatly from swing, early bebop
divorced itself from dance music, establishing itself more as an art form but
lessening its potential popular and commercial value. Influential bebop jazz
musicians included saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianists Bud Powell, trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, bassist Ray Brown.
Cool jazz emerged in the late 1940s in New York City, as a result of the mixture of the styles of predominantly white jazz musicians and black bebop musicians. Cool jazz recordings by Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Stan Getz and the Modern Jazz Quartet usually have a "lighter" sound which avoided the aggressive tempos and harmonic abstraction of bebop.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the hybrid form of jazz-rock fusion was developed. Although jazz purists protested the blend of jazz and rock, some of jazz's significant innovators crossed over from the contemporary hardbop scene into fusion. Jazz fusion music often uses mixed meters, odd time signatures, syncopation, and complex chords and harmonies, and fusion includes a number of electric instruments, such as the electric guitar, electric bass, electric piano, and synthesizer keyboards. Notable performers of jazz fusion included Miles Davis, keyboardists Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, drummer Tony Williams, guitarists Larry Coryell and John McLaughlin, Frank Zappa, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, bassist-composer Jaco Pastorius and other jazz musicians.
In the early 1980s, a lighter commercial form of jazz fusion called pop fusion or "smooth jazz " became successful and garnered significant radio airplay. Smooth jazz saxophonists include Grover Washington, Jr., Kenny G and Najee. Smooth jazz received frequent airplay helping to establish or bolster the careers of vocalists including Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan, Sade and some other vocal jazz music artists.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several subgenres fused jazz with popular music, such as Acid jazz, nu jazz, and jazz rap. Acid jazz and nu jazz combined elements of jazz and modern forms of electronic dance music. While nu jazz is influenced by jazz harmony and melodies, there are usually no improvisational aspects.
Jazz Music Artists:
Victor McClain : A melting pot of Latin, Smooth Jazz, RnB and Jazz.
Evan Garr : upcoming violinist in the Jazz and Fusion arena. Although prominently being locally known in the Detroit area and throughout Michigan, his vision of the jazz violin, like his predecessors, has taken him abroad.
Inverse : A tasty blend of love, sex and hope with a twist of smooth jazz and a dash of latin spice
Deborah Lyles : in the vocal stylings of Diana Krall, Eva Cassidy, and other contemporary jazz and adult contemporary singers, she offers smooth and ultimate vocal experiences for all listeners.
Diane Hubka : Jazz vocalist / guitarist Diane Hubka's innovative approach breathes new life into straight-ahead jazz, blues and bossa nova music
