Cornelius "Sonny" Fortune was an American jazz saxophonist. He played soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, clarinet, and flute.
Henry "Hank" Mobley was an American tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone, that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Lester Young, and his style that was laid-back, subtle and melodic, especially in contrast with players such as Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. The critic Stacia Proefrock claimed him "one of the most underrated musicians of the bop era." Mobley's compositions include "Double Exposure", "Soul Station", and "Dig Dis".
Rashied Ali, born Robert Patterson was an American free jazz and avant-garde drummer who was best known for performing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltrane's life.
Impressions is an album of live and studio recordings by jazz musician John Coltrane, released by Impulse! Records in July 1963.
Reginald "Reggie" Workman is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey.
Dee Dee Bridgewater is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National Public Radio's syndicated radio show JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater. She is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Amos Leon Thomas Jr., known professionally as Leon Thomas, was an American jazz and blues vocalist, born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and known for his bellowing glottal-stop style of free jazz singing in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Billy Harper is an American jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument.
MIOSOTIS is an American Latin singer, dancer, songwriter, actress, choreographer, television personality, producer, and model. Her career began as a teenager, singing merengue for nearly two years with popular Dominican singer Wilfrido Vargas and five years with The New York Band. She branched off as a solo salsa singer in 1997 during the resurgence of the genre and other forms of Latin music. Although a member of the younger generation of Latin music artists, she is best known for her classic singing style.
Brandee Younger is an American harpist. Younger infuses classical, jazz, soul, and funk influences to the harp tradition pioneered by her predecessors and idols Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Younger leads her own ensemble, performs as a soloist and has worked as a sideman for such musicians as Pharoah Sanders, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Bill Lee and Reggie Workman, and other popular artists including Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Common, Ryan Leslie, Drake, Maxwell, The Roots, Moses Sumney and Salaam Remi. Younger is noted for her work with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who was featured on her 2019 release, Soul Awakening. Currently, she records and tours with drummer and producer Makaya McCraven, following the release of his 2018 recording Universal Beings.
Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro is a jazz singer and teacher from Arkansas.
Motéma Music is a jazz and world music record label in the United States. It was founded in 2003 in San Francisco Bay Area by label president and recording artist Jana Herzen. The label has received GRAMMY® recognition more than 25 times for albums in jazz, Latin jazz, reggae, and R&B. Motema's roster includes Gregory Porter, Joey Alexander, Deva Mahal, Pedrito Martinez, Randy Weston, Geri Allen, David Murray, Monty Alexander, and Charnett Moffett, Donny McCaslin, Mark Guiliana, and Terri Lyne Carrington and many other respected artists in jazz, world and soul music.
Jana Herzen, is a singer-songwriter with folk, world, rock, and jazz influences who founded Motéma Music, a record label focused on jazz and world music. Before founding the label in 2003, she worked as a musician in San Francisco, as well as an art agent for the renowned collage artist Winston Smith published by Last Gasp of San Francisco. Smith published two books, was well known for his humorous and often politicized album covers and magazine illustrations. He also designed the logo for Herzen’s Motéma label.
David Weiss is a jazz trumpeter and the founder of The New Jazz Composers Octet.
Josiah Alexander Sila, known professionally as Joey Alexander, is an Indonesian jazz pianist. He became the first Indonesian musician to chart on Billboard 200 when his album My Favorite Things debuted at number 174 and then peaked at 59.
Brianna Thomas is an American jazz singer, vocalist, composer, songwriter, band leader, and percussionist. She was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, United States. She made her singing debut at the age of six. She is the daughter of drummer and vocalist Charlie Thomas. She is known as being one of the best young straight ahead young jazz singers, says music critic and author Will Friedwald. She is known to bring together various forms of American music from bluegrass to jazz in to an original hybrid of jazz/funk/rock and soul. Her voice is said to be strong and her range huge. She incorporates rare music in her repertoire of early female blues and jazz pioneers such as Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey, Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, Mamie Smith, and Ida Cox. All About Jazz said of her 2015 debut album, You Must Believe in Love, “Brianna Thomas is the complete package. Through this music she exhibits emotional depth, to-die-for scat skills, incredible pitch control and shading, strong songwriting skills, intuitively elastic phrasing, soulful bearing, and a great range.”
Charenee Wade is an American jazz, soul and R&B singer, composer, arranger, improvisor, and educator.
Taru Alexander is an American jazz drummer, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He is a son of Roland Alexander, an American post-bop jazz tenor saxophone player from Boston, Massachusetts.
Dewey Bernard Johnson was an American free jazz trumpeter best known for his appearance on John Coltrane's historic recording Ascension.
Michael Blake is a Canadian saxophonist, composer and arranger. Blake is based in New York City where he has led a robust career leading his own bands. As a sideman Michael has performed with Charlie Hunter, The Lounge Lizards, Steven Bernstein/Henry Butler and the Hot 9, Ben Allison and Ray LaMontagne. The New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff wrote,"Mr. Blake, on tenor especially, is an endlessly engaging improviser, and an inquisitive one".
