Here is an eclectic selection of jazz musicians born in August, prepared by Louise Levy and Phillip Cant.
Josh Nelson
1 August, 1978
Josh Nelson is an American jazz pianist and composer. Nelson produced his independent debut album First Stories at age 19. His second album, Anticipation, was released in 2004 with all his compositions. In 2007, Nelson signed with the jazz label Native Language Music. Nelson has been described by jazz critic Chuck Berg as a “brilliant young player whose virtuosity suggest the urbane yet bluesy tradition of Oscar Peterson and Gene Harris”, and by journalist and critic Josef Woodard as possessing “his own clean-burning modern mode of jazz”.
David Binney
2 August, 1961
David Binney is an American alto saxophonist and composer. From his parents, who loved music, he heard albums by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, and Jimi Hendrix. He took saxophone lessons in Los Angeles. When he was nineteen, he moved to New York City and studied with saxophonists George Coleman, Dave Liebman, and Phil Woods. A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts helped him record his first album, Point Game (Owl, 1991). In the 1990s, he started his own label, Mythology Records.
Tony Bennett
3 August, 1926
“I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job, I have a contract that says I’m a singer. So I sing.”
Tony Bennett is an American singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz. He is also a painter, having created works under the name Anthony Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York.
Louis Armstrong
4 August, 1901 – July 6, 1971
“All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”
Nicknamed “Satchmo”, “Satch”, and “Pops”, Louis Armstrong was an American trumpeter, composer, vocalist, and actor who was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, and different eras in the history of jazz.In 2017, he was inducted into the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
Airto Moreira
5 August, 1941
“Inspiration is not inside of us. Inspiration comes from outside. It comes from our spiritual guides and from different energies that are in the universe. If we keep in touch with god and our spiritual guides, just knowing that they exist and they are there for us, gives us the strength to say well this is a bad phase but it’s going to end and when it ends I’m going to do something good.”
Airto Moreira is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. He is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. Coming to prominence in the late 1960s as a member of the Brazilian ensemble Quarteto Novo, he moved to the United States and worked in jazz fusion with Miles Davis and Return to Forever.
Abbey Lincoln
6 August, 1930 – 14 August, 2010
“My father owned a music store when I was growing up in Rock Falls, Illinois. He could play all the instruments, which you had to do when you owned a music store back then. One day, when I was three years old, he took me to a parade. When the drums passed by, I got so excited I told him wanted to learn to play them.“
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
7 August, 1935 – 5 December, 1977
“Y’know, music is a beautiful thing. When I’m reincarnated, I’m gonna come back as a musical note! That way can’t nobody capture me.”
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (born Ronald Theodore Kirk), known earlier in his career simply as Roland Kirk, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously.
Kirk’s multi-instrumentality was credited as having a substantial musical conception. His playing was generally rooted in soul jazz or hard bop, but Kirk’s knowledge of jazz history allowed him to draw from many elements of the music’s past, from ragtime to swing and free jazz. Kirk also absorbed classical influences, and his artistry reflected elements of pop music by composers such as Smokey Robinson and Burt Bacharach, as well as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and other jazz musicians.
Benny Carter
8 August, 1907 – 12 July, 2003
“At my age, I realize that my most precious possession is time, and I’ve got too much unfinished work to do to spend even a minute talking about myself.”
Benny Carter was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. With Johnny Hodges, he was a pioneer on the alto saxophone. From the beginning of his career in the 1920s, he was a popular arranger, having written charts for Fletcher Henderson’s big band that shaped the swing style. He had an unusually long career that lasted into the 1990s. During the 1980s and ’90s, he was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, which included receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Kat Gang
9 August, 1980
“Let’s face it; most of the jazz musicians I know are not in this business for fame and fortune! If you are involved in any project for the ultimate reward, then you are missing the bigger picture. How we spend our days, which we spent them with – these are the real compelling measures of reward. As I said before, it is all about the journey and not the destination.”
Kat has a soul steeped in jazz. Born in Boston, she began her music theory training as a teenager at Berklee and then fell in love with the energy of New York City and went on to gain her BFA from NYU. She escaped the Bush administration by seeking asylum in the UK and studying music at the Royal Academy in London. Kat lived and worked singing jazz all over England for seven years. She has performed twice at the GRAMMY Awards with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, traded fours with Bobby McFerrin at the Blue Note Jazz Festival, and currently is back in New York with a residency at the Plaza Hotel with her quartet. Kat continues to explore the depth of jazz fusion and improvisation with her versatile, extraordinary ear and voice.
Donny McCaslin
11 August, 1966
“It’s a fresh wind that blows against the empire.”
Donny McCaslin is an American jazz saxophonist. He has recorded over a dozen albums as a bandleader in addition to many sideman appearances, including on David Bowie’s final studio album, Blackstar (2016). McCaslin began playing at age 12, and as a teenager, performed in his vibraphonist father’s band in Santa Cruz. By high school, he had appeared multiple times at the Monterey Jazz Festival. After attending Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship, McCaslin became a sought-after player in New York City. David Bowie saw McCaslin perform as soloist for the Maria Schneider Orchestra and brought in McCaslin’s progressive jazz quartet that came to define Blackstar’s visionary stylistic fusion. As David Hadju wrote in The Nation, “Donny McCaslin was David Bowie’s David Bowie.”
Karen Briggs
12 August, 1963
“Mr. or Mrs. Right is someone whose faults you can tolerate.”
Karen Briggs is also known as the “Lady in Red”, is an American violinist. Born in Manhattan to a family of musicians, Briggs took up the violin at age 12 and committed to playing professionally at age 15. Briggs joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra while still in college, but grew discontented with performing classical music and left the orchestra after four years. Since then, she has performed predominantly in the jazz and contemporary instrumental genres.
Pat Metheny
12 August, 1954
“Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.”
Pat Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer. He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works, and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, Latin jazz, and jazz fusion. Metheny has three gold albums and 20 Grammy Awards and is the only person to win Grammys in 10 categories.
Mulgrew Miller
13 August, 1955 – 29 May, 2013
“Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society and express yourself freely and creatively.”
Mulgrew Miller was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by Ramsey Lewis and then Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in his playing, but he added the greater harmonic freedom of McCoy Tyner and others in developing as a hard bop player and then in creating his own style, which influenced others from the 1980s on.
Tony Monaco
14 August, 1959
Tony Monaco is an American jazz organist. Monaco played accordion from childhood and was heavily influenced by Jimmy Smith in his youth. In 1971, he switched to organ after hearing Smith play the instrument, and later received personal mentoring from Smith. In the early 2000s, he recorded his debut album in collaboration with Joey DeFrancesco, A New Generation: Paesanos on the New B3 which reached #18 on Jazzweek’s Top 100 for the year 2003, and began releasing material on Summit Records. Monaco’s career continued in the 2000s with frequent touring and performances with guitarist Pat Martino.
Oscar Peterson
15 August, 1925 – 23 December, 2007
“The music field was the first to break down racial barriers, because in order to play together, you have to love the people you are playing with, and if you have any racial inhibitions, you wouldn’t be able to do that.”
Oscar Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist, virtuoso and composer. He was called the “Maharaja of the keyboard” by Duke Ellington, but simply “O.P.” by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, and received numerous other awards and honours. He is considered one of the greatest jazz pianists and played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years.
Bill Evans
16 August, 1929 – 15 September, 1980
“Keep searching for that sound you hear in your head until it becomes a reality.”
Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist and composer who mostly played in trios. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block chords, and trademark rhythmically independent, “singing” melodic lines continue to influence jazz pianists today. During his lifetime, Evans was honored with 31 Grammy nominations and seven awards.In 1994, he was posthumously honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Evans influenced the character Seb in the film La La Land musically and in fashion.
Ike Quebec
17 August, 1918 – 16 January, 1963
Ike Quebec was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.He began his career in the big band era of the 1940s, then fell from prominence for a time until launching a comeback in the years before his death. Critic Alex Henderson wrote, “Though he was never an innovator, Quebec had a big, breathy sound that was distinctive and easily recognizable, and he was quite consistent when it came to down-home blues, sexy ballads, and up-tempo aggression.”
John Escreet
18 August, 1984
John Escreet is an English jazz pianist and composer currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. Escreet moved to New York in 2006. In 2008 he graduated from the Master’s Program at Manhattan School of Music, where he studied piano with Kenny Barron and Jason Moran. In September 2008 he released his debut album Consequences featuring David Binney (alto saxophone), Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Matt Brewer (double bass) and Tyshawn Sorey (drums). He also collaborated with artists including Wayne Krantz,Ari Hoenig, Adam Rogers, Chris Potter and Seamus Blake. He has also worked as a sideman with saxophonist David Binney and drummer Antonio Sanchez.
Tim Hagans
19 August, 1954
“Part of what excites me about composing and arranging for the great NDR Bigband is to meet the challenge of creating a sophisticated score while at the same time preserving the spontaneity of a trio or a quintet,”
Tim Hagans is a jazz trumpeter, arranger, and composer. He has been nominated for three Grammy Awards: Best Instrumental Composition for “Box of Cannoli” on The Avatar Sessions (Fuzzy Music, 2010); Best Contemporary Jazz Album for Animation*Imagination (Blue Note, 1999); and Best Contemporary Jazz Album for Re-Animation (Blue Note, 2000)….His early inspirations included Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and Thad Jones, to whom he dedicated For the Music Suite, a 40-minute piece for jazz orchestra composed on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Enrico Rava
20 August, 1939
“I’d been listening to Miles’ records like ‘Blue Haze,’ and he was already my favorite,” Rava said. “But I didn’t imagine it could be so incredibly strong in person. The sound was filling the room. I kept the adrenalin; I couldn’t sleep for a couple of days. Then I bought an old trumpet and started learning by myself, playing with the records by Miles and the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker. I wasn’t planning to be a musician. But after a few months, they started calling me at jam sessions with amateurs, and eventually I found myself playing with very good people.”
Enrico Rava is an Italian jazz trumpeter. He started on trombone, then changed to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis….His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri’s Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s he was a member of Steve Lacy’s group. In 1967 Rava moved to New York City and one month later became a member of the group Gas Mask. In June 2005, Rava was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music.
Count Basie
21 August, 1904 – April 26, 1984
“I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.”
Count Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two “split” tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.
Dave Wilson
22 August, 1955
“What sounds good, is what is true to our artistic vision, and can communicate with the audience on a deep level… it’s jazz.”
Dave Wilson is a leading jazz saxophonist, recording artist, band leader, composer, and educator in the Central PA/ Delaware Valley area, with a very active venue and festival schedule as both a leader of his own groups and as a sideman. Born and raised in Bronxville, N.Y., Dave Wilson began his music studies in the fourth grade. Wilson has evolved into a striking saxophonist with chops and maturity of tone that invokes passions and enthusiasm when listening to his vocabulary in jazz. He has studied with saxophonists Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Bill Barron, Ralph Lalama, Tim Price, Glenn Guidone, Tom Strohman, as well as with guitarist Steve Giordano and pianist Kirk Reese. His main area of focus with the saxophone are the Tenor and Soprano, but also focuses on the Alto, and is adept at both Clarinet (his first instrument back in grade school) and Flute and Piccolo.
Brad Mehldau
23 August, 1970
“The emotional connection is always first and foremost with the song.”
Brad Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, who studied music at The New School, and toured and recorded while still a student. He was a member of saxophonist Joshua Redman’s Quartet with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade in the mid-1990s, and has led his own trio since the early 1990s. His first long-term trio featured bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy; in 2005 Jeff Ballard replaced Rossy. These bands have released a dozen albums under the pianist’s name.
Mehldau won Down Beat‘s Readers Poll piano award in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2011, and 2012. He was the 2006 winner of the Miles Davis Prize, awarded by the Montreal International Jazz Festival for “jazz artists who have made significant artistic and innovative contributions to the genre”. In 2015 Mehldau received the Wigmore Medal, which “recognises significant figures in the international music world who have a strong association with the [Wigmore] Hall”.
Mimi Fox
24 August, 1956
“There is only one reason to do music. Music is a deep language to share with people.”
Mimi Fox is an American jazz guitarist and educator, known internationally for her work….She taught herself to play by listening to the Beatles album Rubber Soul. In her teens, she played drums at school. Her professional career began at the age of seventeen when she performed in the lounge of a Chinese restaurant.
In the late 1970s, she moved to California and took lessons from guitarist Bruce Forman, which she has called the turning point in her career. Joe Pass became her friend and mentor. Fox has taught at Yale University, Berklee College of Music, New York University, and has led the guitar department at California Jazz Conservatory. She has worked with guitarists Charlie Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, and Martin Taylor.
Wayne Shorter
25 August, 1933 – March 2, 2023
“Beyond the sky we fly, perchance to see some greatness there:
eternal wonder! that which is born of courage here.”
Wayne Shorter was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He played a central role in three of the most significant jazz groups of the 20th century: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis’s quintet, and Weather Report. He also collaborated with musicians such as Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, and Steely Dan. He was a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Grammy award and won eleven Grammys in total. Shorter was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1933, and was captivated by bebop music as a teenager. Shorter’s love for fusion led to the formation of Weather Report. He remained active in music until his late 80s and even composed an opera, Iphigenia, with a libretto by Esperanza Spalding. Wayne Shorter’s impact on jazz cannot be overstated. The New York Times music critic Ben Ratcliff described Shorter in 2008 as “probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser”.
Branford Marsalis
26 August, 1960
“Humans are imperfect. That’s one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We’re on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.”
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet… In mid-1980, while still a Berklee College of Music student, Marsalis toured Europe playing alto and baritone saxophone in a large ensemble led by drummer Art Blakey. Other big band experiences with Lionel Hampton and Clark Terry followed over the next year, and by the end of 1981 Marsalis, on alto saxophone, had joined his brother Wynton in Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Other performances with his brother, including a 1981 Japanese tour with Herbie Hancock, led to the formation of his brother Wynton’s first quintet, where Marsalis shifted his emphasis to soprano and tenor saxophones. He continued to work with Wynton until 1985, a period that also saw the release of his own first recording, Scenes in the City, as well as guest appearances with other artists including Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie.
Lester Young
27 August, 1909 – March 15, 1959
“The trouble with most musicians today is that they are copycats. Of course you have to start out playing like someone else. You have a model, or a teacher, and you learn all that he can show you. But then you start playing for yourself. Show them that you’re an individual. And I can count those who are doing that today on the fingers of one hand.”
Lester Young, nicknamed “Pres” or “Prez”, was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie’s orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called “a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike”. Known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with the music.
Larry Goldings
28 August, 1968
“In terms of musical training, well, the great jazz pianist Erroll Garner couldn’t read music, but he heard everything and had an uncanny gift for communicating and emoting through the piano.”
Larry Goldings is an American pianist, organist, and composer….Goldings studied classical piano until the age of twelve. While in high school at Concord Academy, he attended a program at the Eastman School of Music. During this period Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave McKenna, Red Garland, and Bill Evans were influences. As a young teenager, Goldings studied privately with Ran Blake and Keith Jarrett….Goldings moved to New York in 1986 to attend a newly formed jazz program under the leadership of Arnie Lawrence at The New School…In 1988, Goldings began his development as an organist during a regular gig at a pianoless bar called Augie’s Jazz Bar (now Smoke) on New York’s Upper West Side…. Best Jazz Album of the Year, The New Yorker, Big Stuff (1996), Awareness (1997), Grammy Award Nomination, Best Jazz Album of the Year, 2007 and Best Jazz Song, “High Dreams,” John Lennon Songwriting Competition, 2019.
Charlie Parker
28 August, 1920 – 12 March, 1955
“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you that music has boundaries. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.”
Charlie Parker, also referred to by his nicknames Yardbird or simply Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop,[2] a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. Parker was a blazingly fast virtuoso and introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Bird’s tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber….In 1984 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2002, the Library of Congress honored his recording “Ko-Ko” (1945) by adding it to the National Recording Registry.
Dinah Washington
29 August, 1924 – 14 December, 1963
“There is only one heaven, one earth and one queen (me). Queen Elizabeth is an impostor.”
Dinah Washington was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as “the most popular black female recording artist of the ’50s”. Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performed and recorded in a wide variety of styles including blues, R&B, and traditional pop music, and gave herself the title of “Queen of the Blues”. She was a 1986 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993…. After winning a talent contest at the age of 15, she began performing in clubs. By 1941–42 she was performing in such Chicago clubs as Dave’s Café and the Downbeat Room of the Sherman Hotel (with Fats Waller).
Kenny Dorham
30 August, 1924 – 5 December, 1972
“However it goes, I’ll just keep playing. That’s where the basic satisfaction is at.”
Kenny Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer. Dorham’s talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention or public recognition from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did. For this reason, writer Gary Giddins said that Dorham’s name has become “virtually synonymous with underrated.” Dorham composed the jazz standard “Blue Bossa”, which first appeared on Joe Henderson’s album Page One….Dorham was one of the most active bebop trumpeters. He played in the big bands of Lionel Hampton, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Mercer Ellington and the quintet of Charlie Parker. He joined Parker’s band in December 1948. He was a charter member of the original cooperative Jazz Messengers. He also recorded as a sideman with Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins.
Tineke Postma
31 August, 1978
“In this period I’m practising a lot of standards. This will always be the backbone of my playing. I’m working on finding answers to how I can relate on a deeper level to the tradition and also be personal? I’ve been listening a lot to Charlie Parker and tried to learn more from his rhythmic approach, feel and phrasing.”
Tineke Postma is a Dutch saxophonist and composer. At the age of eleven Postma began playing the saxophone. She studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory between 1996 and 2003 and obtained a Master’s degree (cum laude) in Music. She did a Masters at the Manhattan School of Music in New York in 2002, Rising Star for soprano saxophone in the American Downbeat Polls 2019, tours internationally as a leader and featured guest. She released seven albums as a leader, which have been received with great critical international acclaim. Tineke appears on numerous albums as a guest soloist.”