Jazz piano is making a large comeback in the United States. Many young adults and high school students are learning to enjoy the art of jazz piano, and a few rising stars have made it to the top of the young jazz musician scene.
If you’re a fan of jazz piano, look for the following people to make it big in the music business:
Kris Davis
A thirty-one year old from Alberta, Canada, Kris has taken the American jazz scene by storm. [...]
Jazz might not be something you hear thrown around everywhere like rock or hip-hop, but that’s fine. It’s a different kind of music for a different sort of audience – a sophisticated kind, if you will. Unfortunately, because of this, jazz can be a little hard to find and most of what does make it into the public only scratches the surface – the superficial of the superficial.
If you’re trying to track down the jazz greats and their music, here are a few places you should consider looking:
1.) Television. No joke. Depending on the provider you have, there could be dozens of jazz music channels playing nothing but jazz. We’re not talking about so-called MTV, either. Services like Cable.TV have hundreds of music channels – perhaps as many as there are music genres.
2.) The Internet. Stuff like iTunes is perfect for tracking down the jazz greats from both past and present. These sites are also great because they can point you in the direction of other jazz masters you might not have heard about.
3.) Satellite Radio. Much like how some television providers have specialized channels for different genres, the same can be said for satellite radio services. It’s worth a look.
When talking about jazz greats the best players from 50 or 60 years ago always seem to come up in conversation. Legends of that era such as Miles Davis and Charlie Parker actually still sell more records than many of the great contemporary jazz musicians of today. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some forward thinking and virtuosic players on the jazz scene today. There seems to be at least one person on each instrument today that is taking the music to new places while still keeping the music firmly rooted in the tradition set forth in [...]
Because it is the only true American art form and is still young enough that the heyday of the style was popular fairly recently, jazz is a very well documented genre of music. Another reason that people in the United States find it interesting is that most of the legends of the genre are American. Most of the biggest musical heroes in American history that in some way progressed music as a whole are jazz musicians. The best thing is that they [...]
Jazz music has been an inspiration to fans both technically and spiritually. The genre is fairly young when compared to other traditional styles, but it has been evolving ever since it started, and without hesitation. Musicians of all kinds have been creating unique sounds and influencing future generations to broaden the genre into something more spiritual than most music.
Musicians like Sun Ra consider their music to be a healing power for the mind, body and soul. Sun Ra has [...]
The tenor saxophone is widely considered one of the most important voices in the idiom of jazz. It’s breathy, warm tone has been the instrument of choice for some of the most influential musicians in the genre of jazz. John Coltrane basically changed the way people view harmony in the early 1960s on the tenor sax. Wayne Shorter proved that you could bridge the gap between jazz and just about any style and still have your own recognizable voice while doing so. Get more information here. Michael Brecker showed listeners that anything is possible with his daring and virtuosic compositions and performances.
One of the most influential jazz tenor saxophonists on the jazz scene today is Chris Potter. Once a child prodigy from North Carolina, Potter developed into one of the in demand and creative saxophonists in New York City and throughout the world. Never stagnate, Potter is always striving to create something new with each record he puts out. He can play standards with the best of them. Potter is truly at home when playing his own music with his own band called “Undergroundâ€. This fusion super group combines rhythm, harmony, and melody in way never heard before. They do it largely behind the genius of future jazz legend Chris Potter.
All music sees changes as time goes by. This is true with orchestral works, rock n’ roll, and yes even jazz. Many jazz purists wish that jazz as a genre of music would have stopped progressing in the 1960s. They long for the hard swingin’, blues based feel of hard bop. But, you can’t stop something from growing. Anyone who listens to jazz today fully realizes the drastic changes that have taken place in the genre [...]
