From swing and bebop to cool jazz and fusion: jazz musicians turned improvisation and virtuosity into a true art form. Which jazz pioneer do you think left the biggest mark on music? Vote for your favorite!
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Miles Davis
The visionary trumpeter who stood at the cradle of almost every major jazz innovation and made the best-selling jazz album ever with Kind of Blue.
John Coltrane
Took the tenor saxophone to spiritual and technical heights with masterpieces like A Love Supreme and Giant Steps.
Unpopular opinion: John Coltrane's discography aged terribly compared to their peers.
Louis Armstrong
'Satchmo' was the greatest founder of the jazz solo and brought jazz to the whole world with his trumpet and sandpaper voice.
Musical perfection.
Charlie Parker
'Bird' revolutionized jazz with his dizzyingly fast bebop harmonies and unmatched melodic inventiveness on the alto saxophone.
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Ella Fitzgerald
The 'First Lady of Song' was known for her crystal-clear intonation, impeccable timing and virtuoso scat singing.
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Duke Ellington
One of America's greatest composers, who wrote more than a thousand compositions with his big band and brought jazz to concert halls.
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Thelonious Monk
Famous for his idiosyncratic rhythms, unexpected silences and angular chords that sparked a revolution on the piano.
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Billie Holiday
'Lady Day' touched generations of listeners with her deeply personal, melancholic vocal inflections and the confronting Strange Fruit.
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Chet Baker
The embodiment of relaxed 'cool jazz', loved for his whispering vocals and wistful trumpet touch in My Funny Valentine.
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Herbie Hancock
Renewed jazz for decades by seamlessly combining acoustic piano virtuosity with funk and synthesizers in tracks like Cantaloupe Island.
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The visionary trumpeter who stood at the cradle of almost every major jazz innovation and made the best-selling jazz album ever with Kind of Blue Set the gold standard for the whole genre.
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