Lionel Loueke

River: The Joni Letters

Herbie Hancock · 2007

Karibu

Lionel Loueke · 2008

Gaïa

Lionel Loueke · 2015

Fairgrounds

Jeff Ballard · 2016

Lionel Loueke, a guitarist from Benin who was still relatively unknown, played on Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters (2007). The album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2008, a rare triumph for a jazz record over mainstream pop and rock competition.

Chamber Music Society

Esperanza Spalding · 2010

Radio Music Society

Esperanza Spalding · 2012

The 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist was the first time a jazz musician had won the category. Esperanza SpaldingEsperanza Spaldingエスペランサ・スポルディング, beating Justin Bieber and Drake. Chamber Music SocietyChamber Music SocietyEsperanza Spalding · 2010 (2010) moved across classical, jazz, and Brazilian music without genre anxiety — that fearlessness was her statement.

— Grammy Awards 2011, 2011

New York Second Line

Art Blakey · 1983

Magnetic

Terence Blanchard · 2013

Flow

Terence Blanchard · 2005

Wandering Moon

Terence Blanchard · 2000

Terence Blanchard has picked up multiple Oscar nominations for film scoring, but his career started as a 20-year-old trumpeter. He was tapped to replace Wynton Marsalis in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, appearing on the band's 1983 record New York Second Line.