Here are a couple sentences from Gunther Schuller's Early Jazz that sum up JPJ pretty well: "Johnson's musical antecedents, of course, were ragtime, and like Morton, James P. transformed that earlier, composed-written style into jazz by the infusion of blues, by the introduction of a more swinging rhythmic conception, and, lastly, through th concept of improvisation. These achievements are considerable enough, but they were projected in terms of a sure-fire pianistic technique that surpassed that of all of his predecessors."

Joplin was a ragtime artist, and ragtime is not usually considered a part of jazz. Blake started in ragtime, and played jazz later, but his influence as a jazz artist is less that that of JPJ.


Influence is about half of the criteria. Most of Miles' influence is on jazz. He was the most important figure in the development of modal jazz and fusion, and one of the most important figures in developing cool jazz.

Coltrane is very high because of his very high reputation for excellence, with a large amount of classic recordings. Bud Powell should probably be ahead of Hancock, Fletcher Henderson probably should be too, and possibly ahead of Getz, but Getz was first influential on cool jazz, and later merged bossa nova with jazz, while releasing classic material over 20 years, and continued at a solid level for some time after that. Powell was only really on top of his game for about 5 years.


You mean why isn't he higher or why isn't he lower?


Cole is definitely a bigger name and a more important popular music artist, but his period as a jazz artist was brief, and he is best known for his pop records that probably shouldn't be considered jazz.


The list doesn't include any composers unless it's a composer that's totally identified with jazz, like Billy Strayhorn. Gershwin, like Irving Berlin, Cole Porter & others, is a writer of standards that were often used as material by jazz artists.


The reason Miller isn't higher is that he's barely jazz, pop jazz you might say. It might be that he really fits in better in honorable mention.


Thank you!

I agree with that. Nick LaRocca has given the entire group a very bad name, but the fact is the ODJB was pivotal in the development of jazz

Johnny Hodges way way way way down there at #85? Surely you jest!

Allan Holdsworth should be moved on the list. Especially considering he is ranked 7th on the "Greatest Jazz Guitarists" list.

The Guitarists list is a musicians list, while this is an artists list, and the criteria for judging the two are a good deal different from one another. So there would be big discrepancies between the two lists even if they had the same editor, which they don't. Also, the guitar is a fairly minor instrument in jazz history, at least when compared to the sax, trumpet, piano, bass & drums, and maybe also clarinet and vocals.

Somewhat understandable. Yet, I think Holdsworth could be like 95-100.

wait, how is Sinatra not jazz? is swing not jazz? is big band not jazz? was he not singing jazz standards?

i dont fully understand why "vocal" or "vocal pop" is its own genre.

Generally speaking, swing is jazz, but there are some artists that are generally labelled as "swing" that compromised the jazz elements to such a degree that it's questionable that they should be considered jazz. It may be best to consider them jazz-influenced pop. For this list, I judged Glenn Miller to be just barely on the jazz side of the jazz/pop divide, and Frank Sinatra borderline at best, but both cases are debatable.

"Big band" often refers to a way of playing swing (swing can also be played by small groups), so what I said above about swing also applies to big band. (It doesn't matter in this case, but there's also some big band jazz that isn't swing.)

Sinatra sang standards, but they really were pop standards, though pop standards were often played by jazz artists too.

What is your statement about "vocal pop" in reference to? Because I'm not sure I'd call "vocal pop" its own genre either.

"It’s always night or we wouldn’t need light." (Monk)

Monk was a genius. I'm glad he is as high as he is on this list.

I always thought traditional pop and jazz were like almost the same thing? Frank Sinatra is labeled as doing both traditional pop and jazz, right? I thought traditional pop was like a sub-genre of jazz. Sorry, but I've always been a bit confused when it comes to traditional pop and jazz.

Traditional pop includes artists like Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, and Andy Williams, and they generally aren't considered jazz.

Hmmm, that's wierd because in my jazz book for a jazz class I took there is a chapter discussing jazz singers. Frank Sinatra and many other singers were discussed in how they were "great jazz singers" or whatnot. Also, many websites list Sinatra as doing pop and jazz:
http://jazz.about.com/od/classicjazzart ... inatra.htm
http://www.jazzsingers.com/FrankSinatra/
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=2134

i think a lot of things have to be considered... repertoire, phrasing, improvisation/scat singing... i feel like sinatra's early stuff is borderline jazz because of the "swingin'" arrangements, but they were so tight and lacking in solos and improvisation (on either the singer's or the instrumentalists' part) that i think it's more like jazz-influenced traditional pop.

i'll get an argument together later and post it, but i'll just throw this out here for now to see if anyone else feels this way... is Jelly Roll like 10 spots too low on this list?