News & Updates — Celebrate Icons

One of the early solo stylists of jazz, Sidney Bechet ripped it up in his native New Orleans, marching in parade bands, playing parties and as clarinetist with the Eagle Band and others before joining King Oliver's band in 1913. That band did some heavy touring, including a residency in Chicago. In 1919 he joined the Syncopated Orchestra in NYC and that band went to Europe and became a sensation, even attracting positive attention from the classical music world. In London he started playing the soprano saxophone and became the early standard on that instrument (greatly influencing John Coltrane). His...

Perhaps best known to casuals as the bassist of Cream, the Scottish virtuoso Jack Bruce in fact had a long and varied career that included rock, blues, jazz, classical, third stream, Latin, world music and fusion. He could play electric & upright bass, cello, piano, harmonica and was a singer/songwriter as well. Growing up listening to jazz, he studied classical cello and was kicked out of music school for playing jazz on the side. In the early '60s he toured Europe in a big band and joined the legendary Blues Incorporated in '62, which splintered off into the Graham Bond...

Canadian pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader, Gil Evans was the first call arranger time and time again with Miles Davis and later developed an obsession with Jimi Hendrix. Born in Toronto but moving around mining towns until the family settled in California, he saw Duke Ellington play in '27 and got the orchestration bug. He also took influence from Kurt Weill and Spanish & Brazilian music. He moved to NYC in the '40s with a gig arranging for Claude Thornhill.  In the late '40s his apartment hosted incubator sessions with Miles, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, George Russell and others to develop...

The songs sung by Mary Wells in the early '60s are much-loved and recognizable the world over. She grew up in poverty in Detroit with some major health issues. In fact, she took to singing to ease her problems. After singing in choirs she approached Motown as a wanna-be songwriter and Berry Gordy auditioned her as a singer, with her first record being Wells' self-penned hit "Bye Bye Baby" hitting the charts in 1960. Her first album came out in '61. She was an early star on the growing Motown family of labels, singing hits like "My Guy", "You Beat...

The first popular Chicano rocker was Richard Valenzuela aka Richie Valens. Coming from LA, he was influenced by Little Richard, mariachi, jump blues, flamenco and rockabilly. Airplane disaster first effected him when in his schoolyard he witnessed two planes crashing into each other, killing several schoolmates. A fear of flying had to be overcome to maintain his gig schedule. He was a natural left-hander that played guitar right-handed. He started the rock-en-Español movement with his 1958 hit "La Bamba". His other big hits were "Donna" and "Come On, Let's Go" (his tunes were cut with musicians who would later be...