Don Ellis
Donald Johnson Ellis was born on July 25, 1934, and passed away on December 17, 1978. He was an American musician who played the trumpet and drums, wrote music, and led bands. He is most famous for trying many new ways to play music, especially with different ways to count beats.
Flora Purim
Flora Purim (born March 6, 1942) is a Brazilian jazz singer best known for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became well-known for her role in the group Return to Forever with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. She has recorded and performed with many artists, including Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Opa, Stan Getz, George Duke, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, Santana, Jaco Pastorius, and her husband Airto Moreira.
Airto Moreira
Airto Guimorvan Moreira was born on August 5, 1941. He is a Brazilian musician who plays drums, composes music, and performs on percussion instruments. He is married to Flora Purim, a jazz singer, and they have a daughter named Diana Moreira, who is also a singer.
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul ( / ˈ z ɒ v ɪ n əl / ZOV -in-əl ; 7 July 1932 – 11 September 2007) was an Austrian musician who played the keyboard and wrote music. He first gained recognition while working with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. Later, he played with jazz musician Miles Davis and helped create jazz fusion, a music style that mixes jazz with rock.
John McLaughlin (musician)
John McLaughlin (born January 4, 1942), also known as Mahavishnu, is an English musician who plays the guitar, leads bands, and writes music. He helped create a new type of music called jazz fusion, which mixes jazz with rock, world music, classical music, flamenco, and blues. In the early 1960s, he played with several important British music groups.
Al Di Meola
Albert Laurence Di Meola (born July 22, 1954) is an American guitarist. He is known for his work in jazz fusion and world music. He had a major success after joining Chick Corea’s Return to Forever group in 1974.
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell (born Lorenz Albert Van DeLinder III; April 2, 1943 – February 19, 2017) was an American jazz guitarist known as the “godfather of fusion.” He worked with Gábor Szabó to combine jazz, country, and rock music. Coryell also taught music and wrote, including a monthly column for Guitar Player magazine from 1977 to 1989. He performed with many well-known musicians, such as John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Miroslav Vitouš, Billy Cobham, Lenny White, Emily Remler, Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucía, Steve Morse, and others.
Ralph Towner
Ralph Towner (March 1, 1940 – January 18, 2026) was an American musician who played many different musical instruments, composed music, arranged music for others, and led musical groups. He played the twelve-string guitar, classical guitar, electric FRAME guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion, trumpet, and French horn.
John Abercrombie (guitarist)
John Laird Abercrombie was born on December 16, 1944, and passed away on August 22, 2017. He was an American jazz guitarist who played music in styles such as jazz fusion, free jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Abercrombie attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Bill Frisell
William Richard Frisell, born on March 18, 1951, is an American jazz guitarist. He became well-known in the 1980s through ECM Records, where he worked as both a musician who played on recordings and a leader of his own projects. He later performed in many different musical settings, including the Downtown Scene in New York City, where he collaborated regularly with composer and saxophonist John Zorn.