With her pre-bop piano style, cool but sensual singing, and fortuitously photogenic looks, Diana Krall took the jazz world by storm in the late-'90s. By the turn of the century she was firmly established as one of the biggest sellers in jazz. Her 199…

Nina Simone was a great pianist, a riveting vocalist, and an uncompromising personality. Her sociopolitical consciousness and eclecticism set her apart from the pack. Her interpretations of soul, jazz, blues, and standards are both striking and uniqu…

The quintessential jazz singer, Billie Holiday seemed to stamp her heart onto everything she sang. With a thin, reedy voice and almost laconic style, she could give even a throwaway pop song a gut-wrenching twist. Her most memorable music is loaded w…

When young singer/pianist Norah Jones arrived in New York City from Texas, few expected that within a couple of years she'd be a chart-topping, MTV-friendly, press-besieged sensation. Yet she charmed listeners by the truckload with her 2002 Blue Not…

A singer whose music is as exotic and elegant as her image, Sade utilized sultry, jazz-tinged vocals and smooth pop arrangements to become, deservedly, one of the most successful international stars of the 1980s. Her voice is a subtle thing, breathy …

Few musicians have managed to change the course of music--trumpeter Miles Davis did it several times. An early disciple of Charlie Parker, Davis created an austere, understated approach that became the model for cool. His superb albums in the 1950s m…

b. 23 October 1956, Detroit, Michigan, USA. A vocalist with an international reputation and following, Dianne Reeves made her name in the late 80s, when she was discovered by Blue Note Records during a worldwide revival of interest in jazz. A gifted …

Through unparalleled ability and judicious choice of repertoire, Ella Fitzgerald became the foremost female interpreter of the 20th-century Great American Popular Song Book. With producer Norman Granz she worked on the "songbook" series, placing on r…

In the late 1990s, U.K. songstress Beth Orton broke new ground by combining electronica-derived backing with acoustic folk-rock tendencies that recalled the early-'70s glory days of Sandy Denny and Nick Drake. The fact that she was aided in these eff…

b. 22 January 1980, Hahira, Georgia, USA. Heavily promoted as the new hot voice of jazz, Wright's sudden appearance in 2002 brought a stronger, tougher feel to the pop jazz crossover music that had seen sky high album sales for several other young si…

Sarah Vaughan's name was synonymous with jazz singing for two generations. She probably ranks as a close second only to Ella Fitzgerald in terms of influence, vocal range, and sheer, consistent brilliance. Her knowledge of bebop, gained during her '4…

Madeleine Peyroux is helping to keep classic jazz vocals alive in the new millennium, and while her voice and delivery owe a supreme debt to the legendary Billie Holiday, Peyroux puts her own hip spin on Lady Day's musical tradition. As much an Ameri…

Through both the force of his music and his personal character, saxophonist John Coltrane remains among the most influential jazz artists of all time. After a stint with the classic Miles Davis band of the late 1950s, the tenor titan embarked on a de…

Duke Ellington's gift for combining blues simplicity, gospel emotion, and sophisticated musical themes reflected a unique style that drew fans from around the world. From the 1920s to the 1970s, he created a huge body of work that ranks among the gre…

Joni Mitchell emerged as a darling of the late 1960s folk scene as a lyrically gifted songwriter and honey-voiced golden girl. In the '70s, she went on to incorporate jazz and confessional pop-rock into her musical vision, ultimately creating a poeti…

With movie-star looks, a sensual, pitch-perfect voice, and a strong sense of jazz history, vocalist Jane Monheit made a big splash on the jazz scene around the turn of the century. She was still in her early twenties when she began turning heads with…

Tom Waits started out in the early 1970s as a piano-based barroom balladeer with a penchant for beat poetry and West Coast jazz. By the late '80s he had mutated into a brilliantly adventurous artist whose style suggested an amalgam of Howlin' Wolf, K…

b. 20 February 1937, Chillicothe, Ohio, USA. Wilson began singing in clubs in and around Columbus, Ohio. She attracted attention among jazz musicians, made her first records in 1956, and in the late 50s toured with a band led by Rusty Bryant. At the …

Though Californian belter Etta James is widely known as one of the greatest blues singers, famed for her '60s Chess recordings and '70s Muscle Shoals work, her story is bigger than that. She started out with the Johnny Otis band in the '50s as a hard…

When she first emerged in the '80s, Canadian singer k.d. Lang was heavily inspired by the swooping, crystalline vocal style of country queen Patsy Cline. She quickly showed herself to be a writer of considerable depth, simultaneously forward-looking …