WRay Anderson is a jazz trombonist. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as someone who pushes the limits of the instrument. He is a colleague of trombonist George Lewis. Anderson also plays sousaphone and sings. He was frequently chosen in DownBeat magazine's Critics Poll as best trombonist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.
WPeter Apfelbaum is an American avant-garde jazz pianist, tenor saxophonist, drummer, and composer born in Berkeley, California.
WThe Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974 and led by the British violinist Irvine Arditti. The quartet is a globally recognized promoter of contemporary classical music and has a reputation for having a very wide repertoire. They first became known taking into their repertoire technically challenging pieces. Over the years, there have been personnel changes but Irvine Arditti is still at the helm, leading the group. The repertoire of the group is mostly music from the last 50 years with a strong emphasis on living composers. Their aim from the beginning has been to collaborate with composers during the rehearsal process. However, unlike some other groups, it is loyal to music of a classical vein and avoids cross-genre music. The Quartet has performed in major concert halls and cultural festivals all over the world and has the longest discography of any group of its type. In 1999, it won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement, being the first and only group to date to receive this award.
WJohn Wallace Carter was an American jazz clarinet, saxophone, and flute player.
WPhilip Catherine is a Belgian jazz guitarist.
WAlfred "Pee Wee" Ellis is an American saxophonist, composer and arranger. With a background in jazz, he was an important member of James Brown's band in the 1960s, appearing on many of Brown's most notable recordings and co-writing hits like "Cold Sweat" and "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud". He also worked closely with Van Morrison.
WWilliam Richard Frisell is an American guitarist, composer and arranger. One of the leading guitarists in jazz since the late 1980s, Frisell came to prominence as a stalwart for ECM Records. He went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a member of the New York City Downtown Scene where he formed a long partnership with John Zorn. He was also a longtime member of Paul Motian's groups from the early 1980s until Motian's death in 2011. Since 2000, Frisell's eclectic output as a bandleader has emphasized folk, country music, and Americana.
WCharly García is an Argentine singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. With a vast and renowned career, he formed and headlined two of the most popular bands in Argentina's rock history: Sui Generis in the 1970s and Serú Girán in the 1980s, plus cult status groups like progressive-rock act La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros and folk rock supergroup PorSuiGieco, both also in the 1970s. Since the 1980s García has worked mostly as a solo musician. His main instrument is the piano, followed by guitar and keyboards.
WSteven Halpern is an American new-age musician. He is a Grammy-award nominee and considered to be one of the founding fathers of new-age music.
WBilly Hart is an American jazz drummer and educator.
WKitarō (喜多郎), born Masanori Takahashi , is a Japanese recording artist, composer, record producer, and arranger noted for his electronic-instrumental music, and is often associated with and regarded as one of the most prominent musical acts of new-age music. He is the winner of a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album and a Golden Globe Award for the Heaven & Earth (1993) original score.
WArthur Morgan "Arto" Lindsay is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer.
WDidier Lockwood was a French jazz violinist. He played in the progressive rock/jazz fusion band Magma in the 1970s and was known for his use of electric amplification and experimentation on different sounds on the electric violin.
WTaj Mahal is an American blues musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and film composer. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many others, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.
WMedeski Martin & Wood is an American avant-jazz-funk band formed in 1991, consisting of John Medeski on keyboards, Billy Martin on drums, and Chris Wood on bass. The band is influenced by musical traditions including funk and hip hop and is known for an unconventional style sometimes described as "avant-groove".
WAnthony John Medeski is an American jazz keyboard player and composer. Medeski is a veteran of New York's 1990s avant-garde jazz scene and is known popularly as a member of Medeski Martin & Wood. He plays the acoustic piano and an eclectic array of keyboards, including the Hammond B3 organ, melodica, mellotron, clavinet, ARP String Ensemble, Wurlitzer electric piano, Moog Voyager Synthesizer, Wurlitzer 7300 Combo Organ, Vox Continental Baroque organ, and Yamaha CS-1 Synthesizer, among others. When playing acoustic piano, Medeski usually plays the Steinway piano and is listed as a Steinway Artist.
WMyra Melford is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can make the piano stand up and do things it doesn't seem to have been designed for."
WRon Miles is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, and composer. He has recorded for the labels Prolific (1986), Capri (1990), and Gramavision.
WBobby Previte is a drummer, composer, and bandleader. He earned a degree in economics from the University at Buffalo, where he also studied percussion. He moved to New York City in 1979 and began professional relationships with John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, and Elliott Sharp.
WJohn Scofield, sometimes referred to as "Sco", is an American jazz-rock guitarist and composer whose music includes bebop, jazz fusion, funk, blues, soul, and rock. He has worked with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey DeFrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Eddie Palmieri, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham, Medeski Martin & Wood, George Duke, Jaco Pastorius, John Mayer, Robert Glasper, and Gov't Mule.
WJamaaladeen Tacuma is an American free jazz bassist born in Hempstead, New York. He was a bandleader on the Gramavision label and worked with Ornette Coleman during the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in Coleman's Prime Time band.
WRobert "Bob" Eria Telson is an American composer, songwriter, and pianist best known for his work in musical theater and film, for which he has received Tony, Pulitzer, and Academy Award nominations.
WKazumi Watanabe is a Japanese guitarist. He was born on October 14, 1953 in Tokyo, Japan.
WGeorge Bernard Worrell, Jr. was an American keyboardist and record producer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. Worrell was described by Jon Pareles of The New York Times as "the kind of sideman who is as influential as some bandleaders."
WRobert Wyatt is an English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming paraplegic following an accidental fall from a window in 1973, which led him to abandon band work, explore other instruments, and begin a forty-year solo career.