Bach achieved a religious, mathematical, and musical ideal: he combined extreme complexity with impeccable stability, at once defining and surpassing Baroque ideals. From painting to music to architecture, the arts of the Baroque era took embellishment to its limit without surrendering harmony or uni

Baroque music, Ebullient, Layered, Mathematical, Organic, Religious, Repetitive, Serial

Bright, Ebullient, Epic, Lush, Manic, Romantic music

A flagrant marijuana smoker and bridegroom to 27 women in one day, the gloriously rebellious African musician Fela Kuti led a life as tumultuous as the history of his native Nigeria. Jailed several times, Kuti became a voice of dissent against the successive military dictatorships that ruled the land

Ebullient, Hypnotic, Improvised, Juju/highlife, Open-ended, Rhythmic

He earned his name from the frenzied, high-pitched solos that make so many heads spin. By climbing into the trumpet's two highest registers and belting out syncopated feats of harmonic daring, Dizzy Gillespie developed an indubitably revolutionary sound. Bebop, that high-speed, rhythmically and tonal

Bebop, Ebullient, Ecstatic, Improvised, Intense, Pioneering, Swing/big band