John Lewis

Starting in 1946, The Modern Jazz Quartet has existed as a great, but perhaps obscure group compared to luminaries such as Duke Ellington (with whom they once worked with), Cab Calloway, Oscar Peterson, and Miles Davis, They would perform their own original works, along with "covers" of other existing works. The Quartet as captured in this 1987 35th Anniversary concert consists of the following: John Lewis on piano, Milt Jackson on vibraphone, Percy Heath on bass, and Connie Kay on drums. Taped as a live performance at the Zelt-Musik-Festival in Freiburg, Germany, it's a great capture of seasoned musiciains.

The Monterey Jazz Festival was established in 1958 by impressario Jimmy Lyons who has hosted an enormous amount of music at this idyllic location. Against this beautiful seaside setting in Northern California, one spends a pleasent weekend listening to some of the giants of music.

All-Star concert recorded at Lincoln Center in 1982 -- Featuring Max Roach, Jon Faddis, John Lewis and Milt Jackson.

Berlin's 1965 Jazz Piano Workshop reunited some of the instrument's finest exponents from the full stylistic spectrum of jazz piano. The great Teddy Wilson was on hand to represent the swing piano style; the father of jazz piano improvisation Earl Hines was also present; Lennie Tristano served as an exponent of modern exploratory piano playing; two of the idiom's most lyrical modern pianists, Bill Evans and John Lewis were in attendance, and a nexus between the traditional and the modern, Jaki Byard -who alternated free and stride passages on the same tune- filled out this historical lineup. A notable absence was pianist Bud Powell, who was then living a troublesome period which would end with his death the following year. The two other main influences missing from the performance were Thelonious Monk, who was touring Europe with his own band, and Art Tatum, who had died in 1956.