Woody Shaw extended the post-bop trumpet vocabulary through the 1970s on Blue Note, absorbing free elements while remaining grounded in the tradition. Around 1980 he brought a young Mulgrew Miller into his band. Shaw died in 1989 at 44.
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Freddie Hubbard
Mulgrew Miller
Woody Shaw
From 1983, the Keith Jarrett Standards Trio played as if standards were already inside them. The skeletal familiarity freed them to focus entirely on what was happening in the moment.
Gary Peacock
Jack DeJohnette
Keith JarrettNPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert from 2020. This solo piano set cuts straight to the core of Hamasyan's music — around 20 minutes including 'Road Song' and several other pieces. A different quality from his studio recordings: just one person in dialogue with the space.
— NPR Music Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, 2020
Tigran HamasyanJune 24, 1982, Village Vanguard. Freddie Hubbard Quartet featuring Ron Carter on bass. Freddie Hubbard's trumpet carries the tension and lyricism of hard bop at its peak.
— Village Vanguard, 1982
Ron Carter
Miles Davis gathered over twenty musicians in August 1969 and, paired with Teo Macero's tape editing, transformed jazz from "recorded performance" to "constructed recording." Bitches Brew launched jazz-rock fusion.
— So What: The Life of Miles Davis, John Szwed, 2002
Miles Davis
Wayne Shorter
Chick Corea
Dave HollandPat Metheny Group (1978) marked the start of Pat Metheny's long collaboration with keyboardist Lyle Mays. Built on the ECM sound but fusing Brazilian grooves with long-form melodies, it established the band's distinctive idiom.
Pat MethenyThe early-70s Mwandishi band was commercially unsuccessful but laid the groundwork for the Headhunters pivot.
Herbie Hancock
Kind of Blue (1959) was recorded almost entirely at sight. Miles showed musicians only the skeletal structures beforehand — no one knew what they were playing until the day. Bill Evans's liner notes defined how to hear the record.
— Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn, 2000
John Coltrane
Cannonball Adderley
Bill Evans
Paul Chambers
Cannonball Adderley joined Miles Davis's band in October 1957, forming a twin front line with Coltrane. The 1958 album Milestones was the first studio statement from this sextet and signaled the imminent move toward modal jazz.
— So What: The Life of Miles Davis, John Szwed, 2002
87-year-old Abdullah Ibrahim's 13-minute solo piano Tiny Desk (Home) Concert from Chiemgau, Germany — pieces from 'Solotude.'
— Abdullah Ibrahim: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, 2022
Abdullah Ibrahim