Body Talk

Before Breezin' (1976), George Benson was known strictly as a working jazz guitarist, the kind who turns up on sideman dates like Straight Life (1970). Breezin' then became one of the best-selling jazz albums ever, and its single 'This Masquerade' won the Grammy for Record of the Year — overnight, the sideman guitarist became a pop-charting vocalist.

Frank Foster joined Count Basie's saxophone section in 1953, and he also wrote for the band; his 1955 chart "Shiny Stockings" stayed in the book for decades. The tenor player sitting in the section on April In Paris (1957) and Count Basie At Newport (1957) ended up leading the orchestra himself in 1986, two years after Basie died.