Just before his death in 1991, Miles Davis teamed up with rapper Easy Mo Bee to make a jazz/hip-hop album called "Doo Bop." This wasn't the first time Davis had done something utterly new -- his entire career was devoted to jazz-faring exploration. Playing with such supernovae as Charles Mingus

Bebop, Classical, Composed, Cool, Cool jazz, Electronic, Elegant, Expansive, Fusion, Fuzzy, Hard bop/post-bop, Improvised, Intimate, Loose, Lush, Mathematical, Minimal, Open-ended, Quiet, Sexy, Sincere, Spare, Subtle, Trippy

"I've got to keep experimenting. I feel like I'm just beginning. I have part of what I'm looking for in my grasp, but not all." John Coltrane's music is an experiment in emotional expression. He consistently pursued new domains of musical and spiritual intensity, and developed a style charged with pa

Beats, Distorted, Excessive, Experimental, Free jazz, Hard bop/post-bop, Improvised, Religious

There are two mutually exclusive opinions regarding jazz musician Ornette Coleman. By some he is considered a visionary genius, representing the "third spur" of the Modernist revolution -- "a shift in approach to melody and rhythm to match Coltrane's skyscraping harmonics and Cecil Taylor's introduct

Deconstructive, Formless, Free/avant-garde, Hard bop/post-bop, Layered, Polychromatic, Sprawling

Charles Mingus was one of the most distinguished and colorful personalities in jazz. He is a virtuoso of the bass who is credited with expanding the instrument's melodic function. When New Orleans jazz moved indoors, the bass replaced the tuba and helped hold down the rhythm of a musical piece. In a

Free/avant-garde, Hard bop/post-bop, Improvised, Moody, Primal, Sublime