Influential Jazz Legends

We owe a debt of gratitude to the jazz legends who helped shape the music of the past century. People like Dizzie Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis created some of the most beautiful and complex music of our time. Let's take a look at their contributions to the art form of jazz.

What Is Jazz?
Jazz formed in the early 20th century. In the United States, the 1920s is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age. Jazz sprang up in the South during the 1920s, combining influences of popular European and American music with traditional African music. The word "jazz" first appears in Chicago around 1915.

Essential to jazz is the idea of improvization. Jazz bands start with a recognizable melody and then begin to explore it, changing the tempo, structure and notes while keeping the basic tune and mood intact. In jazz, this exploration is known as "taking it out."

Duke Ellington
One pioneers of the 1920s was Duke Ellington. He was a jazz pianist as well as a composer and music arranger. One of his most popular songs, "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," greatly influenced American popular music, leading the 1930s to be known as the Swing Era. Loud, busy horn sections characterized Ellington's swing jazz, and the sound remained popular with big bands until the 1960s. Ellington's contributions to jazz and popular music lasted until his death in 1974.

Dizzie Gillespie
Dizzie Gillespie was known for his unorthodox style of playing the trumpet. Years of playing left him with swollen cheeks that puffed out while he played, making him look a bit like a bullfrog. He, along with Charlie Parker, was one of the pioneers of bebop, a much faster form of jazz that was meant for listening, not dancing. Parker also served as a mentor for young musicians. His best known work, "Salt Peanuts," paved the way for more abstract and artistic forms of jazz.

Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker was known to many by his nickname, Bird. He was saxophonist and, like Gillespie, helped shape bebop jazz. The two often collaborated together, and their live recording at Massey Hall, featuring other jazz greats like Charles Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach, is a landmark album and a great introduction to the bebop style.

Miles Davis
Miles Davis was another trumpeter and jazz band leader whose albums not only shaped jazz, but rock and roll music as well. His album Birth of the Cool helped form cool jazz and hard bop. In the 1960s and 70s he experimented with rock and acid jazz, and his work had a major influence on rock artists of the day, including Jimi Hendrix. For this reason, in addition to being enshrined in the Jazz Hall of Fame, Davis was also posthumously enshrined into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.