Candid Records

Ask any number of jazz fans and you'll get as many lists of indispensable jazz heroes. But certain names would well show up on all of them. Coleman Hawkins, who pushed the tenor saxophone into the spotlight in the 1920s. Clark Terry, the two-fisted trumpeter who starred in the jazz orchestras of both Basie and Ellington. Charles Mingus, universally hailed among the greatest jazz composers. MacArthur "genius grant" fellows Max Roach, who helped invent bebop, Cecil Taylor, who helped propel the next stage of jazz's trajectory and Abbey Lincoln, the searingly emotive vocalist and adored composer idolized by successive generations of singers. You'll find them all on Candid Records. You'll also find artists who stood on the shoulders of those giants to carry jazz forward, and who themselves have inspired future generations. They include the saxophonists Gary Bartz and Dave Liebman (both alumni of Miles Davis' electric bands); the oft-overlooked Walt Dickerson, who glided the vibraphone into the avant-garde; the powerhouse tenor man Ricky Ford; and vocalist Stacey Kent, whose early 21st-century albums established her among the finest modern interpreters of the Great American Songbook.