Ze zijn ver in de zeventig, diep in de tachtig en in een enkel geval ruim in de negentig, maar deze tien jazzgiganten zijn volledig bij de tijd. Ze spelen nog steeds de sterren van de hemel en hun outfit is om door een ringetje te halen. GQStyle brengt de oude helden een prachtig eerbetoon met een aantal sublieme foto’s en treffende teksten over hun muziek en over hun kledingsmaak. Saxofonist Pharoah Sanders (76): ‘A freethinking astral traveler and spiritual gangster.’ Bassist Ron Carter (79) over de bas die hij al gebruikt sinds 1960: “I maintain it. It’s like having a Bentley.” Saxofonist Charles Lloyd (78): “I think style is an innate thing. Some people have it—or not.” Saxofonist Wayne Shorter (83): ‘The sax he played in his mid-1960s prime was as elegant and cutting as a samurai sword.’ Pianist Herbie Hancock (76): ‘He was a key figure in jazz’s midcentury heyday, then went platinum with the 1973 fusion record Head Hunters, then embraced hip-hop on the smash 1983 single “Rockit,” and then won the Album of the Year Grammy in 2008 for a set of Joni Mitchell covers (with his buddy Wayne on sax).’ Pianist Chick Corea (75): ‘Nominated for a staggering 64 Grammys, Corea has embraced the possibilities of both acoustic and electric piano, dabbled in children’s and Latin and classical music, and even recorded a Christmas song with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.’ Vibrafonist Roy Ayers (76): ‘Credit Ayers with putting the vibes in vibraphone. Mashing together jazz, funk, and disco boogie, he’s the master of 1970s-bachelor-pad grooviness that holds its edge.’ Pianist McCoy Tyner (76): ‘A heartbreaking balladeer who defines sophistication on the piano, he also spent years as a sideman to the adventurous John Coltrane, playing on My FavoriteThings and Trane’s transcendent masterpiece, A Love Supreme.’ Pianist Cecil Taylor (87): ‘Taylor approaches the piano the way Jackson Pollock approached a canvas: with a wild sense of improvisational abandon that borders on violence.’ Drummer Roy Haynes (91): ‘Played with: everyone you’ve ever heard of. For starters: Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, and Sarah Vaughan.’ Klik hier voor een overzicht van de beste albums van deze krasse knarren.
Using nothing more than simple instruments and an audacious will to improvise, these ten giants of jazz have taken us places no man has gone before. And they’re still here, still playing—and always dressed to kill. What a time to be alive.
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