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Jazz Family Tree Project

By Michael Ricci
June 24, 2021
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Jazz Family Tree Project: Jazz Family Tree Project

We're on a quest to identify jazz's most influential musicians and we began gathering the data two years ago when we quietly released a feature where musicians could select influencers (from their musician page). We figured it would be a fun way to use All About Jazz's technology to identify jazz's rich legacy from the early years to the present day. What's exciting about this project is we can reimagine the data in a variety of interesting ways to further promote discovery within the music.

The results to date aren't surprising, and our goal is to spread the word to all working jazz musicians (worldwide) as well as assemble a team of researchers to identify the influencers of legacy musicians. For instance, who, besides

Lester Young

saxophone
1909 - 1959

" data-original-title="" title="">Lester Young and

Buster Smith

saxophone, alto
1904 - 1991

" data-original-title="" title="">Buster Smith influenced

Charlie Parker

saxophone, alto
1920 - 1955

" data-original-title="" title="">Charlie Parker? From there, who influenced Lester Young and Buster Smith? You get the picture.

Of course, the more musicians and more researchers who participate, the more accurate the results become.

So, if you're a musician, please update your musician page with your influencers. If you're a reader and want to help with the legacy musicians in our database, please contact us. You can learn more about our project here.

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