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!
Cast your vote - the ranking shifts live based on the votes.
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.
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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.
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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.