V.A. - The Jazz Collection (12CD, 2011)

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V.A. - The Jazz Collection (12CD, 2011)

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V.A. - The Jazz Collection (12CD, 2011)

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David Warren "Dave" Brubeck (born December 6, 1920) is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills. His music is known for employing unusual time signatures, and superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities. His long-time musical partner, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, wrote the Dave Brubeck Quartet's best remembered piece, "Take Five", which is in 5/4 time and has endured as a jazz classic on the top-selling jazz album, Time Out. Brubeck experimented with time signatures throughout his career, recording "Pick Up Sticks" in 6/4, "Unsquare Dance" in 7/4, and "Blue Rondo à la Turk" in 9/8. He is also a respected composer of orchestral and sacred music, and wrote soundtracks for television such as Mr. Broadway and the animated mini-series This Is America, Charlie Brown.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. On October 7, 2008, his 1959 album Kind of Blue received its fourth platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of at least four million copies in the United States. Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Davis was noted as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz". On November 5, 2009, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the US House of Representatives to recognize and commemorate the album Kind of Blue on its 50th anniversary. The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and "encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music." It passed, unanimously, with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.

William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie's theme songs were "One O'Clock Jump" and "April In Paris".

Talmage Holt Farlow (June 7, 1921 – July 25, 1998) was an American jazz guitarist. Nicknamed the "Octopus", Farlow's extremely large hands spread over the fretboard as if they were tentacles. He is considered one of the all-time great jazz guitarists. Michael G. Nastos writes, "In 1956 he was named by Down Beat magazine critics as the very best jazz guitarist in the world, and for all the right reasons. Where other similar players of his day combined rhythmic chords with linear melodies, Farlow preferred placing single notes together in clusters, varying between harmonically richened tones based on a startling new technique. His spider-like fingers handled the guitar in a way no other player could match, and this physical approach set Farlow apart from all others." A supreme technician, renowned for his articulation, and smooth relaxed phrasing even at the most daunting tempos. Guitarist Dan Axelrod remarked, "He was without peers. His inventiveness, drive, and technique were so heads and tails above his contemporaries that only comparisons to the likes of Art Tatum and Charlie Parker could do him justice."

Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni (July 6, 1924 – February 14, 2009), better known by the stage name Louie Bellson (his own preferred spelling, although he is often seen in sources as Louis Bellson), was an Italian-American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums. Bellson was an internationally acclaimed artist who performed in most of the major capitals around the world. Bellson and his first wife, the actress and singer Pearl Bailey (married 1952—1990), had the second highest number of appearances at the White House (only Bob Hope had more). He was a vice president at Remo, a drum company. Louie was also very great friends with the cymbal manufacturer, Armand Zildjian.

Curtis DuBois Fuller (born December 15, 1934, Detroit) is an American jazz trombonist, known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and contributor to many classic jazz recordings. Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records first heard him playing with Miles Davis in the late 1950s, and featured him as a sideman on record dates led by Sonny Clark and John Coltrane; Fuller's work on the latter's Blue Train album is probably his best known recorded performance. Fuller led four dates for Blue Note, though one of these, an album with Slide Hampton, was not issued for many years. Other sideman appearances over the next decade included work on albums under the leadership of Bud Powell, Jimmy Smith, Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan and Joe Henderson (a former room mate at Wayne State University in 1956). Fuller was also the first trombonist to be a member of the Art Farmer-Benny Golson Jazztet, later becoming the sixth man in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in 1961, staying with Blakey until 1965. In the early 1960s, he recorded two albums as a leader for Impulse Records, having also recorded for Savoy Records and Epic after his obligations to Blue Note had ended. In the late 1960s, he was part of Dizzy Gillespie's band, that also featured Foster Elliott. He went on to tour with Count Basie and also reunited with Blakey and Golson. Fuller continues to perform and record, and is currently a faculty member of the New York State Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA) School of Jazz Studies (SJS)

Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956), aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Valery Ponomarev, Wynton Marsalis, and many others. He won the Down Beat critics' poll for the 'New Star of the Year' in 1954; he was inducted into the Down Beat 'Jazz Hall of Fame' in 1972 in the critics' poll.

Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990), known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the often exceptionally fine music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard. Blakey was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1982), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Eddie Costa, (August 14, 1930 – July 28, 1962), was an American jazz pianist and vibraphonist born in Atlas, Pennsylvania near Mount Carmel, PA in Northumberland County. In 1957's Costa led a quintet that included Phil Woods, Art Farmer, Teddy Kotick, and Paul Motian; their repertoire featured interpretations of "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and Dave Brubeck's still fairly new "In Your Own Sweet Way," the latter of which focused on Costa's vibes and Farmer's muted trumpet, with Woods switching to the piano. His next recording was 1958's "Guys and Dolls Like Vibes" with Bill Evans, originally credited to the Eddie Costa Quartet and now reissued on CD as "Bill Evans and Eddie Costa, Complete Quartet." Eddie Costa died in a car accident on New York's Westside Highway on July 28, 1962.

Erroll Louis Garner (June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard. Allmusic.com calls him "one of the most distinctive of all pianists" and a "brilliant virtuoso".

Sal Salvador (1925–1999) was a bebop jazz guitarist and a prominent music educator. He was born in Monson, Massachusetts and began his professional career in New York City. He eventually moved to Stamford, Connecticut. He taught guitar at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut as well as at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut. He authored several instruction books for beginning to advanced guitarists. In addition to recordings with Stan Kenton and with his own groups, Salvador can be heard in the film Blackboard Jungle during a scene in a bar where a recording on which he is featured is played on the jukebox. Sal is also featured playing with Sonny Stitt in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day at the Newport Jazz Festival.

Bernard "Buddy" Rich (September 30, 1917 – April 2, 1987) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed. Rich first played jazz with a major group in 1937 with Joe Marsala and guitarist Jack Lemaire. He then played with Bunny Berigan (1938) and Artie Shaw (1939), and even instructed a 14-year-old Mel Brooks in drumming for a short period when playing for Shaw. At 21, Rich participated in his first major recording with the Vic Schoen Orchestra (the band that backed the Andrews Sisters). In 1938, he was also hired to play in Tommy Dorsey's orchestra where he met and performed with Frank Sinatra. In 1942, Rich left the Dorsey band to join the United States Marine Corps. He rejoined the Dorsey group after leaving the Marines two years later. In 1946, Rich formed his own band with financial support from Sinatra, and continued to lead different groups on and off until the early fifties. In addition to Tommy Dorsey (1939–1942, 1945, 1954–1955), Rich also played with Benny Carter (1942), Harry James (1953-1956–1962, 1964, 1965), Les Brown, Charlie Ventura, and Jazz at the Philharmonic, as well as leading his own band and performing with all-star groups. In the early fifties Rich played with Dorsey and also began to perform with trumpeter Harry James, an association which lasted until 1966. In 1966, Rich left James in order to develop a new big band. For most of the period from 1966 until his death, he led successful big bands in an era when the popularity of big bands had waned from their 1930s and 40s peak. In this later period, Rich continued to play clubs but he had stated in multiple interviews that the great majority of his big band's performances were at high schools, colleges and universities, with club performances done to a much lesser degree. Rich also served as the session drummer for many recordings, where his playing was often much more understated than in his own big-band performances. Especially notable were Rich's sessions for the late-career comeback recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, on which he worked with pianist Oscar Peterson and his famous trio featuring bassist Ray Brown and guitarist Herb Ellis.