piano

Thelonious Sphere Monk[2] (/θəˈloʊniəs/, October 10, 1917[3] – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer.

Stanley Newcomb Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra for almost four decades.

Ralph Elias Flenniken (April 7, 1914 – December 30, 1995), known professionally as Ralph Flanagan, was an American big band leader, pianist, composer, and arranger for the orchestras of Hal McIntyre, Sammy Kaye, Blue Barron, Charlie Barnet, and Alvino Rey.

Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. He recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series.

Alfred McCoy Tyner (December 11, 1938 – March 6, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.[1] He was an NEA Jazz Master and a five-time Grammy winner.

Martin Denny (April 10, 1911 – March 2, 2005) was an American pianist and composer best known as the "father of exotica."[1] In a long career that saw him performing well into the 1980s, he toured the world popularizing his brand of lounge music which included exotic percussion, imaginative rearrangements of popular songs, and origi

Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader.

Joseph Christopher Liggins, Jr. (born Theodro Elliott; July 9, 1916 – July 26, 1987)[1] was an American R&B, jazz and blues pianist and vocalist who led Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers in the 1940s and 1950s. His band appeared often on the Billboard magazine charts.

James Edwards Yancey (February 20, 1894 or 1895 or 1901 – September 17, 1951) was an American boogie-woogie pianist, composer, and lyricist. One reviewer described him as "one of the pioneers of this raucous, rapid-fire, eight-to-the-bar piano style".

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (September 20, c. 1890 – July 10, 1941), known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer.[1] Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated.