Bandleader

🇬🇧David Bowie

Music

1947–2016

"I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir."

🇺🇸Miles Davis

Music

1926–1991

"I can't tell... All those white tenor players sound alike to me."

🇺🇸Louis Armstrong

Music

1901–1971

"The way they're treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell."

🇺🇸Wynton Marsalis

Art

b. 1961

"They take your drawers off for you, they show your ass, they sell bullshit, they call themselves 'niggaz' and the women 'bitches' and 'hos' and it's fine with everybody. That's what the essence of decadence is."

🇬🇧John Dankworth

Music

1927–2010

"It is not governed by the senseless world of current style that pervades and pollutes popular music, nor is it part of an established hierarchy, so that it is cloistered and protected."

🇺🇸Hoagy Carmichael

Music

1899–1981

"You sittin' here chained to your rockin' chair."

🇬🇧Phil Collins

Music

b. 1951

"Stewart Copeland is an amazing drummer. I just wish he didn't think he was amazing. Sting is a lovely bloke. We've become friends. I felt honored to be on stage with him at Live Aid."

🇺🇸Artie Shaw

Music

1910–2004

"It became such a hit that it superseded anything that any band had ever had. It was the first time that a so-called swing band played something melodic and still gave it a beat."

🇺🇸Sun Ra

Music

1914–1993

"Proper evaluations of words and letters in their phonetic and associated sense can bring the people of earth to the clear light of pure cosmic wisdom."

🇺🇸Bill Monroe

Music

1911–1996

"It ain't only the colored folks has the blues; there's many a white man that's had 'em."

🇺🇸Duke Ellington

Music

Harlem Renaissance

1899–1974

"By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with."

🇺🇸Gene Vincent

Music

1935–1971

"Official fan club Gene Vincent Lonely Street"

🇺🇸Art Blakey

Music

1919–1990

"...so go on and play, and if you make a mistake, make it loud so you won't make it next time."

🇺🇸Larry Bird

Sports

1956–2025

"It's unbelievable. But I've never been to a pro football game. I've never been to a pro hockey game, either. I guess I'm not much of a sports fan."

🇺🇸Charles Mingus

Music

1922–1979

"What Is a Jazz Composer" - Liner notes from Let My Children Hear Music"

🇺🇸Jaco Pastorius

Music

1951–1987

"I took the frets out of my bass after I was getting into jazz a lot and I wanted to have that upright sound."

🇺🇸Harry Connick

Literature

b. 1967

"New Orleans is a city of paradox. Sin, salvation, sex, sanctification, so intertwined yet so separate."