These musicians/composers are some of my influences for especially my piano work. The recent uprising in Tunisia reminded me of a Dizzy tune my guitar buddy Paul & I used to play: "Night in Tunisia". (playing) Thought I'd share some of my roots & kinds of groups I've been in, among others, as a jazz drummer, pianist, synth keyboardist, electric guitarist, bassist, and vocalist.
Dedicated to all who understand how life is a lot like jazz: it's best improvised.

MIDI music files: all song titles are linked to a MIDI file, which, upon selecting, will automatically bring up a player on your computer or might first bring up a window (select "open" to play). The General instruments on your computer will play the song, the quality of your speakers will influence the sound quality. All MIDIs I have selected are of reasonably good quality even on generic computer GI & speakers. These MIDI files, essentially, reproduce the scores. These are meant to offer examples of each musicians composition & playing style and often a reproduction of an improvisation they are known for.  MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an industry-standard protocol that enables electronic musical instruments (synthesizers, drum machines), computers and other electronic equipment (MIDI controllers, sound cards, samplers) to communicate and synchronize with each other. Unlike analog devices, MIDI does not transmit an audio signal — it sends event messages about pitch and intensity, control signals for parameters such as volume, vibrato and panning, cues, and clock signals to set the tempo. As an electronic protocol, it is notable for its widespread adoption throughout the music industry. MIDI protocol was defined in 1982.

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise". Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Jon Faddis and Chuck Mangione.
One of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time (some would say the best); Gillespie was such a complex player, arguably remembered, by both critics and fans alike, as one of the greatest jazz trumpeters of all time.

This MIDI sequence of "Night In Tunisia" playing is based on a Miles Davis version. Dizzy infamously first charted this on a garbage can lid & the tune was formerly referred to as "Interlude", but Dizzy called it "Night in Tunisia".  According to Dizzy Gillespie’s To Be or Not to Bop: Memoirs of Dizzy Gillespie, he was sitting at the piano playing the chord progressions when he noticed the notes of the chords formed a melody with a Latin/oriental feel. Adding a bebop-style rhythm to the melody, Gillespie came up with “Night in Tunisia.” When played, this “mixture introduced a special kind of syncopation in the bass line,” a jazz pioneering step away from the traditional regular 4-beat bass. During the videotaped concert performance, “A Night in Tunisia,” Gillespie discusses how he composed this “anthem to bebop,” introducing Afro-Cuban rhythms to mainstream American jazz. He does concede, however, that “Manteca” was the “definitive breakaway from the old beat.” Manteca was co-written by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo in 1947. It was one of the first examples of world music and Afro-Cuban influences being incorporated into mainstream jazz.

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Davis was noted as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz".

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion.

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

John William Coltrane (sometimes abbreviated "Trane"; September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He was prolific, organizing at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Coltrane rejoined Davis in January 1958. In October of that year, jazz critic Ira Gitler coined the term "sheets of sound" to describe the style Coltrane developed during his stint with Monk and was perfecting in Davis' group, now a sextet. His playing was compressed, with rapid runs cascading in hundreds of notes per minute.

He participated in the Davis sessions Milestones and Kind of Blue, and the live recordings Miles & Monk at Newport and Jazz at the Plaza. He stayed with Davis until April 1960.  At the end of this period Coltrane recorded his first album for Atlantic Records, Giant Steps, comprised exclusively of his own compositions. The album's title track is generally considered to have the most complex and difficult chord progression of any widely-played jazz composition. Giant Steps utilizes Coltrane changes. His development of these altered chord progression cycles led to further experimentation with improvised melody and harmony that he would continue throughout his career

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer, commonly regarded as one of the most important American jazz musicians of his generation. He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer.

Miles' "second great quintet" (to distinguish it from the quintet with Coltrane) that included Hancock and Shorter has frequently been cited by musicians and critics as one of the most influential groups in the history of jazz, and Shorter's compositions are a primary reason for the group's unique sound. Shorter composed extensively for Miles Davis (e.g. "Prince of Darkness", "E.S.P.", "Footprints", "Sanctuary", "Nefertiti", and many others); typically hard-bop workouts with spaced-out long melody lines above the beat.
 

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

Horace Silver (born September 2, 1928), born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer.

Silver is known for his distinctive humorous and funky playing style and for his pioneering compositional contributions to hard bop. He was influenced by a wide range of musical styles, notably gospel music, African music, and Latin American music and sometimes ventured into the soul jazz genre

While Silver's compositions at this time featured surprising tempo shifts and a range of melodic ideas, they caught the attention of a wide audience. Silver's own piano playing easily shifted from aggressively percussive to lushly romantic within just a few bars. At the same time, his sharp use of repetition was funky even before that word could be used in polite company

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet", Hancock helped redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section, and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace synthesizers and funk.

Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (born June 12, 1941) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist and composer.

Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever. From 1968 to 1971 Chick Corea had associations with avant garde players and his solo style revealed a dissonant, avant garde orientation. His avant garde playing can be heard on his solo works of the period, his solos in live recordings under the leadership of Miles Davis.  In September 1968 Corea replaced Herbie Hancock in the piano chair in Davis' band and appeared on landmark albums such as Filles de Kilimanjaro, In a Silent Way, and Bitches Brew. In concert, Davis' rhythm section of Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette combined elements of free jazz improvisation and rock music. Corea experimented using electric instruments with the Davis band, mainly the Fender Rhodes electric piano.
 

MIDI Gillespie Davis Coltrane Shorter Silver Hancock Corea Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. Thelonious Monk was an idiosyncratic jazz pianist who left a relatively small but very significant body of work. He grew up in New York City and as a young child could play anything he heard. 1944 Coleman Hawkins hired him for his band which included Dizzy Gillespie, who was at the forefront of the bebop movement. Monk helped develop bebop as a more intellectual approach to music. If the guys wanted to throw somebody off, they called Monk’s “Epistrophy” which hardly anyone could play because of its difficult harmonic structure. Monk’s music was incomprehensible to most at the outset, and even today many musicians are wary of tackling his eccentric pieces, full of dissonance and rhythmic displacement.