AHMAD JAMAL

http://www.ahmadjamal.net/
Wikipedia


Image from www.ronniescotts.co.uk

Ahmad Jamal has been around for a while and I'm a little ashamed to admit I'm just learning about him. American jazz pianist, he was one of Miles Davis' favorite pianists. That's all I'm going to write. Check out the links and check out the videos below.

Ahmad Jamal 2005 - Where Are You
Uploaded by Delta_Mike

STANLEY CLARKE

www.stanleyclarke.com
Wikipedia


Image from www.jazzreview.com

Though Stanley Clarke is not one of my favorites (you know, its all about a personal preference in style), I would be remiss not to mention Stanley Clarke who is another big name, famous for his guitar and bass playing. The man is great! He is the first bassist to headline tours and sellout concerts worldwide. He is also known for his television and movie scores for Pee-Wee's Playhouse, A Man Called Hawk, Boyz In The Hood, What's Love Got To Do With it, Poetic Justic and a several more hits.

TERENCE BLANCHARD

http://www.terenceblanchard.com/
Wikipedia


Image from http://www.j-notes.com/archives/music_newsinfo/

Terence Blanchard is a jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score writer. He with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra in 1980 and later with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He and his trumpet are in approximately fifty film scores including and not limited to Malcolm X, Love and Basketball, Inside Man, and Trial by Jury.

Terence Blanchard - Montreal
Uploaded by madafonka2

SEVEN SONGS - Tag!

I was tagged by Iriegal over at Mental Stimulation to do 7 songs. Here are the rules.

The rules:-
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

So here goes my 7 songs.

Smokie Norful - God is Able

Boney James - Boneyizm

Teena Marie - Oooh Wee

Kim Waters - Mr. Smooth

The Temptations - Beauty is Only Skin Deep

Okay, so I'm only doing five (smile). Now, who do I tag? Oh, I don't know. Let's do this. If you feel like playing consider yourself tagged! Just copy the instructions, create your own post and

WYNTON MARSALIS

www.wyntonmarsalis.org
Wikipedia.org


Image from http://current.com

I've been a little neglect in not mentioning on of the bigger names in jazz, Winton Marsalis. The man can blow a horn! His contributions to music are both jazz and classical and he has received nine Grammy awards between the two genres of music. He also received the first Pulitzer Prize for music awarded for a jazz recording,
Blood on the Fields, a three hour oratorio about slavery.

Wynton comes from a family of other jazz musicians that I'll post on later - his father Ellis (pianist), and brothers Branford (saxophonist), Delfeayo (trombonist) and Jason (drummer).



This is a duet with Joshua Redman I thought you might also enjoy:

NICHOLAS PAYTON

Wikipedia
Verve Music



Image from http://www.nytimes.com

Oooh, baby! You've got to listen to this man blow his horn!

Nicholas is the son of bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton. I find it pretty impressive that by the age of nine he was playing in a band with his father and in grade school played semi-professionally and played thoughout the U.S. with the All Star Jazz Bank at the age of 12.

I hope you find him as enjoyable as I do.

BRIAN SIMPSON

http://www.bsimpsonmusic.com/


Image from http://www.smoothvibes.com/

Brian Simpson, pianist, has played for greats like Janet Jackson and Dave Koz. His solo career was launced with the CD All Is Good released in 2006. There is an excellent review on Brian Simpson at http://www.jazzmonthly.com.

Check him out playing It's All Good that was number 1 in the U.S. for a month.

GONTITI

http://www.gontiti.jp
Wikipedia


I came across this duo while wandering through YouTube and I was instantly impressed. If you like guitar you'll soon see why.

Gontiti is a duo formed by Masahiko "Gonzalez" Mikami and Masahide "Titi" Matsumura, both from Osaka, Japan. Though their music falls more in line with bossa nova, flamenco and classical music I thought it crossed over with jazz so I'm including it and sharing this duo with you.

JANE BUNNETT

http://www.janebunnett.com
Wikipedia

Image from Star Pulse.

I don't often get to post about too many women in jazz. There aren't many, or at least not many that I know of. While browsing some of my favorite links I've mentioned on my blog I came across the name Jane Bunnett and thought I'd check her out. I'm glad I did! Since she plays both sax and flute I wasn't sure if I should put my post on this blog or my Sax Appeal blog. I decided on this one since I couldn't find a clip of her playing the sax.

Take a look/listen and I hope you enjoy her as much as I did.

RETURN TO FOREVER

Image from My Music Base

http://www.return2forever.com
www.chicorea.com

I just read on The Blues Blogger that Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clark and Lenny White have reunited as Return To Forever and will embarked on a U.S. and European tour this year. I won't repost all of the information here put encourage you to check out this blog and post regarding this tour with links to all the pertinent information.

If haven't heard of them before don't feel bad, I haven't either. I'm very familiar with Chick Corea and Stanley Clark but though I always listen to jazz I didn't always know or pay attention to who was playing what.

Here's a little sample of Return To Forever and don't forget to check out The Blues Blogger for more information.