GALLERY
The title screen from The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit. (Magic Circle Productions)
Harpist Alice Coltrane is part of a distinguished line of women harpists from Detroit in jazz and popular music. (Magic Circle Productions)
Pianist Barry Harris, a guru of bebop, became a legendary teacher and influential mentor, who taught many of the most important jazz musicians to come out of Detroit in the 1950s, including Paul Chambers, Donald Byrd, Yusef Lateef, Joe Henderson, and Charles McPherson. (Magic Circle Productions)
Singer Sheila Jordan and pianist Barry Harris, pictured here in the early ‘50s, were lifelong friends who are both interviewed in The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit. (Courtesy Sheila Jordan)
Auto industry jobs put Detroit on the leading edge of creating a Black working and middle class in America in the first half of the 20th Century. (Magic Circle Productions)
Robert Hurst, a protégé of Marcus Belgrave, is widely regarded as one of the most important bassists of his generation in contemporary jazz. (Magic Circle Productions)
Alto saxophonist Charles McPherson, who studied with Barry Harris in Detroit in the 1950s and later played with Charles Mingus, remains a majestic improviser in his ‘80s. (Magic Circle Productions)
Jazz was the soundtrack to Paradise Valley, the economic and entertainment center of African American life from the 1930s until the early ‘50s. (Magic Circle Productions)
Innovative drummer Elvin Jones, the youngest of the three Jones Brothers who became jazz royalty, remains best known for his revolutionary style with the John Coltrane Quartet in the 1960s. (Courtesy Detroit Free Press)
The explosion of urban violence on Detroit’s westside in July 1967, one of the deadliest and most financially costly in American history, changed the city forever. (Photo by Thomas Diggs / Courtesy Janet Diggs)
Young bassist Endea Owens, who can be seen nightly in the studio band on The Late Night with Steven Colbert, is the latest Detroit jazz musician to make a splash on the national scene. (Magic Circle Productions)
Influential tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson leading his quartet in 1958 at the Blue Bird Inn, the epicenter of Detroit’s modern jazz scene. Also pictured: Kirk Lightsey, piano; Herman Wright, bass; Roy Brooks, drums. (Jim Gallert Collection)
Guitarist Pat Metheny appears in The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit as an insightful commentator on the sound, style, and influence of Detroit jazz musicians. (Magic Circle Productions)
Bassist Rodney Whitaker is today’s mentor-in-chief on the Detroit scene, inheriting the crown from his predecessors Marcus Belgrave and Barry Harris. (Magic Circle Productions)
The peerless bassist Ron Carter, a graduate of Cass Tech in Detroit and a member of the pathbreaking Miles Davis Quintet in the 1960s, is the most recorded bassist in jazz history, appearing on roughly 2,300 recordings. (Courtesy Detroit Free Press)
Bassist Robert Hurst, who was mentored by Detroit trumpeter Marcus Belgrave, center, first came to national attention working with Wynton Marsalis, left. (Pam Grady)
The most influential vibraphonist in jazz, the Detroit-born Milt Jackson Detroit-born vibraphonist Milt Jackson was the first to translate to the new bebop style to his instrument in the mid ‘40s. (Magic Circle Productions)
Drummer Karriem Riggins leads a double life as an A-list jazz drummer and an A-list hip hop producer and drummer with rappers like Common. (Magic Circle Productions)
