Best Jazz Pianist

Considering the staggering volume of his recorded output over the past 40 years, it is no overstatement to call Chick Corea one of the most prolific composers of the second half of the 20th century. From avant-garde to bebop, from children's songs to straight ahead, from hard-hitting fusion to heady forays into classical, Chick has touched an astonishing number of musical bases in his illustrious career while maintaining a standard of excellence that is simply uncanny. A restlessly creative spirit, he continues to explore and generate new material for a number of different vehicles, including his dynamic Elektric Band and his flamenco flavored Touchstone band. Other recent projects include The Ultimate Adventure, the second in a series of evocative recordings based on the writings of his favorite author and longtime inspiration, L. Ron Hubbard, and a new piano concerto which he will premiere in Austria on July 1, 2006 (shortly after his 65th birthday) as part of the gala Mozart Year Vienna festivities being held in the birthplace of the immortal composer.

Corea's composition "Spain" first appeared on the 1972 Return to Forever album Light as a Feather. This is probably his most popular piece, and it has been recorded by a variety of artists (notably Al Jarreau). There are also a variety of subsequent recordings by Corea himself in various contexts, including an arrangement for piano and symphony orchestra that appeared in 1999. Corea usually performs "Spain" with a prelude based on Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (1940), which earlier received a jazz orchestration on Miles Davis' and Gil Evans' Sketches of Spain. In 1976 he issued My Spanish Heart which showed particular debt to Latin American music and featured vocalist Moran, and electronic violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. It is noteworthy for its lyricism and arrangements.

Joseph Leslie "Joe" Sample (born February 1, 1939 in Houston, Texas) is an American pianist, keyboard player and composer. He was one of the founding members of the Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply The Crusaders in 1971, and remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991.

Sample played the piano since he was five years old. Since the late 1980s, he has enjoyed a successful solo career and has guested on many recordings by other performers and groups, including Miles Davis, George Benson, Jimmy Witherspoon, B.B. King and Steely Dan. Although it received less radio airplay than several of his other releases, many consider Invitation to be his finest solo recording to date.

Bob James (born December 25, 1939) is a two-time Grammy Award-winning smooth jazz keyboardist, arranger and producer.

During the 1970s, Bob James played a major role in turning fusion jazz more mainstream. "Angela", the instrumental theme from the sitcom Taxi, is probably Bob James' most well-known work to date. For their first joint album release, One on One, Earl Klugh and Bob James received a Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance of 1981. James is the founding member of smooth jazz supergroup Fourplay and is a Yamaha Artist.

Very influenced by pop and movie music, James has often featured soloists, who add a jazz touch to his sound (most notably Grover Washington, Jr.). While best known for his fusion sound, James began In 1962, recording a bop-ish trio set for Mercury, and three years later his album for ESP was quite avant-garde, with electronic tapes used for effects. After a period with Sarah Vaughan (1965-1968), he became a studio musician, and by 1973 was arranging and working as a producer for CTI. In 1974, James recorded his first purely commercial effort as a leader; he later made big-selling albums for his own Tappan Zee label, Columbia, and Warner Bros., including collborations with Earl Klugh and David Sanborn.

Two of James' songs - "Nautilus" from 1974's One and "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" from 1975's Two - are among the most sampled in Hip-Hop history. "Nautilus" has been most famously sampled in Slick Rick's "Children's Story", Eric B. & Rakim's "Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em", and Run-D.M.C.'s "Beats to the Rhyme". "Nautilus" was also featured in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The first four measures of "Take Me to the Mardi Gras" (a Paul Simon original) includes a bell and drum groove that (next to James Brown's "Funky Drummer") is perhaps Hip-Hop's most fundamental break-beat. Run DMC's "Peter Piper", L.L. Cool J's "Rock the Bells", Beastie Boys' "Hold it Now, Hit it", and most recently Missy Elliot's "Work It" are indebted to Arthur Jenkins's percussion work and the drumming of Steve Gadd.

Bob's latest solo project, Urban Flamingo, was released in the U..S. and Canada, in February, 2006 again on Koch Records. This features the Detroit based band of Al Turner on bass, Ron Otis on drums, Perry Hughes and Wayne Gerard on guitars and, of course, David McMurray on sax. These guys have had plenty of time to rehearse the music - they've toured the U.S. over the past year playing the east coast, west coast and a coup

Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945 in Allentown, Pennsylvania) is an American pianist and composer. He is ethnically Hungarian although his grandmother was Puerto Rican.

His career started with Art Blakey, Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in both classical music and jazz, as a group leader and a solo performer. His improvisation technique combines not only jazz, but also other forms of music, especially classical, gospel, blues, and various ethnic-folk musics.

In the late 1990s, Jarrett was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and was confined to his home for long periods of time. It was during this period that he recorded The Melody at Night, With You, a solo piano record consisting of jazz standards presented with very little of the reinterpretation in which he usually engages. The album had originally been a Valentine's Day gift to his wife.

By 2000, he had returned to touring, both solo and with the Standards Trio. Two 2002 solo concerts in Japan, Jarrett's first solo piano concerts following his illness, were released on the 2005 CD Radiance (a complete concert in Osaka, and excerpts from one in Tokyo), and the 2006 DVD Tokyo Solo (the entire Tokyo performance). In contrast with previous concerts (which were generally a pair of 30-40 minute continuous improvisations), the 2002 concerts consist of a linked series of shorter improvisations (some as short as a minute and a half, a few of fifteen or twenty minutes).

In September 2005 at Carnegie Hall Jarrett performed his first solo concert in North America in more than ten years, released a year later as a double CD set (The Carnegie Hall Concert).

Known for his unique improvisational style and his numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire (including his classic works "'Round Midnight" and "Blue Monk"), Thelonious Monk is often regarded as a founder of bebop, although his playing style evolved away from the form. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are impossible to separate from Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.

Earl Hines has been called the first modern jazz pianist. His style differed from other pianists of the Twenties in his use of what were then considered unusual rhythms and accents. Jelly Roll Morton had set the direction of Jazz piano in the early part of the decade, but after 1926 Hines was at the forefront of the Hot Jazz style. Hines started playing professionally around 1921 in Pittsburgh. In 1923 Hines moved to Chicago where he worked with Deppe's Seranaders, Erskine Tate's Vendome Orchestra and with Carroll Dickerson. He met Louis Armstrong in 1926, at the local musician's union hall and the two became friends. Hines worked briefly in Louis Armstrong's Stompers and along with Zutty Singleton and Armstrong tried unsuccessfully to manage their own club together in Chicago. 1928 was a productive year for Hines. He recorded his first ten piano solos including versions of "A Monday Date," "Blues in Thirds" and "57 Varieties." Hines worked much of the year with Jimmie Noone's Apex Club Orchestra. Hines joined Louis Armstrong on the Hot Five and Hot Seven recording sessions, playing on the classic "West End Blues," "Fireworks," "Basin Street Blues" and composing " A Monday Date." On his birthday that year, Hines debuted with his first big band. Earl would continue to lead his own big bands until 1948. In 1940 Billy Eckstine became the band's popular singer and in 1943 both Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were added. In 1948 Hines joined the Louis Armstrong's All-Stars and played with them for three years. In 1951, Hines moved to California and formed a Hot Jazz band to cash in on the Dixieland revival that was going on at the time. He continued the Dixieland band throughout the Fifties, but by the early Sixties, Hines was pretty much out of the Jazz mainstream and forgotten. In 1964 he staged a major comeback that lasted through the rest of his career.

Chucho Valdés (b. October 9, 1941), born Jesús Dionisio Valdés, is a pianist and arranger. He was born in Quivicán, Cuba. He founded the group Irakere in 1972. Irakere is a word which means "forest" or "woods", and some of the best African percussionists came from a region called Irakere about 200 years ago. Irakere is one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands, and Chucho Valdés, together with pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, is revered as Cuba's greatest jazz pianist.

His father Bebo Valdés, also a pianist, is the former director of Havana's famous "Tropicana" night club. Bebo Valdés, now in his 80's, is still performing, and won a Latin Grammy award in 2003 together with Israel "Cachao" López and Patato Valdés, and in 2005 together with flamenco singer Diego El Cigala.

Chucho has won three Grammy awards - one in 1978 for the album Live at Newport by Irakere, a second in 1998 for his contribution to the CD Havana by his band Crisol (formed in 1997), with two songs Mr. Bruce and Mambo para Roy written by Chucho, and the third in 2003 for his album Live at the Village Vanguard.

Arthur Tatum Jr. (October 13, 1909 - November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist.

Art Tatum was known for his virtuosic piano playing and creative improvisation. Tatum was widely recognized among his colleagues as the most gifted jazz pianist alive. To many, he was one of the greatest pianists of any musical genre, and arguably one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Critic Scott Yanow declares that "Tatum's recordings still have the ability to scare modern pianists."

William John Evans (better known as Bill Evans) (August 16, 1929 - September 15, 1980) was one of the most famous jazz pianists of the 20th century; he remains one of the major influences on post-1950s jazz piano. His use of impressionist harmony, his inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire and his syncopated and polyrhythmic melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists, including Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett, and his work continues to inspire younger pianists such as Fred Hersch, Esbjörn Svensson, Bill Charlap, Lyle Mays and Brad Mehldau as well as other musicians such as guitarist Pat Metheny.

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC, CQ, O.Ont. (b. August 15, 1925, Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian jazz pianist and composer.

Oscar Peterson is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest piano players of all time.[1] His virtuosity and command of the piano have routinely stunned audiences worldwide for more than fifty years.