Giants of Jazz

Bassist and SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director Christian McBride performing at a Family Matinee. Joining McBride are Ron Blake (tenor sax), Ed Simon (piano), and Quincy Phillips (drums).

Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. (October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist. Tatum is widely acknowledged as the greatest jazz pianist of all time, and was a major influence on later generations of jazz pianists. He was hailed for the technical proficiency of his performances, which set a new standard for jazz piano virtuosity.

Marcus Anthony Shelby is a bandleader, composer, arranger, bassist, educator, and activist who currently lives in San Francisco, California. His work has focused on sharing the history, present, and future of African American lives, on social movements in the United States of America, and on early childhood music education. An important part of the SFJAZZ family, Shelby has curated and performed in numerous concerts and education programs, including our tribute to Fats Waller in honor of his 112th birthday (in 2016).

Born Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899—May 24, 1974), Duke was an American composer, pianist, and bandleader of a jazz orchestra, which he led from 1923 until his death in a career spanning over fifty years. Ellington gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem, and in the 1930s, his orchestra toured in Europe. Though widely considered to have been a pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase "beyond category" as a liberating principle, and referred to his music as part of the more general category of American Music.

Some of the musicians who were members of Duke Ellington's orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered to be among the best players in jazz. Ellington melded them into the best-known orchestral unit in the history of jazz, with some members appearing with the orchestra for several decades. Ellington often composed specifically to feature the style and skills of his individual musicians.

William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best known for his successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington, lasting nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take the 'A' Train," "Chelsea Bridge," "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing," “Upper Manhattan Medical Group (UMMG),” and "Lush Life."

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City, where he was a regular performer. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the United States' most popular big bands from the start of the 1930s to the late 1940s. Calloway continued to perform until his death in 1994 at the age of 86.

Mary Lou Williams was not only the most prolific jazz woman of any era, she served as mentor and inspiration to many of the celebrated artists in bebop. This William Gottlieb photograph of Mary Lou (with Dizzy Gillespie, Tadd Dameron, and Jack Teagarden), is one of several in a collection taken at Williams’s NYC apartment in 1947, where she hosted salons and jam sessions. Among her most notable proteges was Thelonious Monk.

Born Eleanora Fagan, Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915—July 17, 1959) was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz music and pop singing. She was known for her vocal delivery and improvisational skills, which made up for her limited range and lack of formal music education. Billie Holiday was a true artist of her day and rose as a social phenomenon in the 1950s. Her soulful, unique singing voice, and her ability to boldly turn any material that she confronted into her own music, made her a superstar of her time. Holiday’s poignant voice is still considered to be one of the greatest jazz voices of all time.

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer often referred to as the First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz, and Lady Ella. She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. Her musical collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and The Ink Spots were some of her most notable acts outside of her solo career. These partnerships produced recognizable songs like "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Cheek to Cheek," "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall," and "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." In 1993, Fitzgerald capped off her sixty-year career with her last public performance.

Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer, described as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century." Nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One,” Sarah Vaughan was a four-time Grammy Award winner, including a "Lifetime Achievement Award.” The National Endowment for the Arts bestowed upon her the NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989.

Born Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917—February 17, 1982), Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, and is the second most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.

Portrait of Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge, and Teddy Hill, Minton's Playhouse, New York, N.Y., ca. Sept. 1947.

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993), along with Charlie Parker, ushered in the era of bebop in the American Jazz tradition. Most noted for his trademark "swollen cheeks,” Gillespie admitted to copying the style of trumpeter Roy Eldridge early in his career. He began experimenting and creating his own style, which would eventually come to the attention of Mario Bauzá, the Godfather of Afro-Cuban jazz, who was then a member of the Cab Calloway Orchestra. Gillespie endured as one of the founding fathers of the Afro-Cuban or Latin jazz tradition.

Charles “Charlie” Parker Jr (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), also known as “Yardbird” and “Bird,” was an American jazz saxophonist and composer, and one of the chief architects of the bebop movement along with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. One of the most influential Jazz soloists of all time, Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso who introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas. Several of his compositions were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

SFJAZZ Education’s flagship jazz appreciation series - Discover Jazz - celebrated the music of Miles Davis by highlighting four of his most enduring albums: Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue, Miles Smiles, and Bitches Brew. Each week in this four-part series, special guest artists performed and discussed the inner-workings of these classic Davis recordings, and shared their insights on the musical genius and his many contributions to jazz. In this photograph, SFJAZZ Collective member and trumpeter Sean Jones performed selected compositions from Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool recording alongside several SFJAZZ High School All-Stars.

Members of the SFJAZZ Collective performing the music of Miles Davis and original compositions as part of the SFJAZZ 5th season. Picture here are David Sánchez (tenor sax), Obed Calvaire (drums), and Miguel Zenón (alto sax).

The most accomplished vibraphonist and composer to emerge in the latter half of the 20th Century, Bobby Hutcherson (January 27, 1941 – August 15, 2016) redefined the role of the instrument in modern jazz, bringing new levels of technical mastery and harmonic sophistication. He enjoyed an unprecedented 24-year association with the Blue Note Records label, making indelible contributions to over 250 albums during his Blue Note tenure and leading 23 recordings that introduced the world to the standards “Little B’s Poem,” “Bouquet,” “Components,” “Montara,” and others.

A great friend and artist with a long history performing on SFJAZZ stages, beginning with a performance at the very first Jazz in the City Festival in 1983, Bobby was a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective – composing, arranging, and performing with the band from its inception in 2004 through 2007. Bobby passed from complications related to emphysema on August 15, 2016 at age 75.

Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, son of the legendary John Coltrane, performed a series of remarkable tribute concerts to one of his late father’s most enduring jazz recordings, A Love Supreme. Ravi is seen here performing with the award-winning SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Big Band, under the direction of Mr. Paul Contos. This high-level training program cultivates the next generation of jazz ambassadors, and provides students with opportunities to perform and record with living legends of the music.

Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane performs with the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of "A Love Supreme."

Herbie Hancock is one of the great innovators and icons of modern music. A 14-time Grammy Winner, UNESCO Good Will Ambassador and a recipient of the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors, Hancock has blazed a trail for contemporary culture at every turn in his career. From his tenure with Miles Davis, to creating standards like “Canteloupe Island,” innovative albums like Head Hunters, and the chart-topping “Rockit” – the first Billboard hit to use turntable scratching – Hancock is a true musical legend. SFJAZZ presented Hancock with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

Herbie Hancock has always been on the forefront of music technology throughout his career. Here he straps on a "keytar" for a blazing solo duel with guitarist Lionel Loueke as part of his 4-night run at the SFJAZZ Center in May of 2014.

Herbie Hanock with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Marcus Miller, defining the essence of the term "power trio" during his performance in the SFJAZZ Center's Miner Auditorium.

Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s, a term he invented with the name of a 1961 album. Perhaps no artist better exemplified the "wild card" than the great avant-garde jazz pioneer, photographed here during one of SFJAZZ's most memorable and historic performances, Coleman's 1994 premiere of “Tone Dialing” at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco. The multimedia work combined the debut of his acoustic quartet featuring Geri Allen, with spoken word, video effects, and a live, onstage demonstration of body piercing by Fakir Musafar. Coleman was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994. His album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music.

Ornette Coleman - "The Master Maverick" at Masonic Center in 2007 as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festival.