Who is the greatest improviser in jazz history?

Speed, space, harmony, sheer nerve — no two of these players solved the same problem the same way.

1. 1
   Django Reinhardt

   Improvised with two working fingers on his fretting hand and invented a European jazz language in the process.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Louis Armstrong

   Invented the extended jazz solo with the Hot Fives and Sevens, turning a collective music into a soloist's art.
   898pts
3. 3
   Sonny Rollins

   Builds solos as long thematic arguments, most famously across the unaccompanied stretches of his live sets.
   800pts
4. 4
   John Coltrane

   Practised obsessively and improvised in sheets of sound, then abandoned the harmony he had mastered.
   800pts
5. 5
   Charlie Parker

   Bebop's architect, whose solos moved so fast through harmony that musicians transcribed them as a curriculum.
   800pts
6. 6
   Miles Davis

   Improvised by subtraction, leaving space where other trumpeters crowded the bar.
   762pts
7. 7
   Ella Fitzgerald

   Scatted with the precision of a horn player, improvising lines that instrumentalists borrowed back.
   659pts
8. 8
   Art Tatum

   A pianist whose reharmonisations were so dense that other players assumed they were hearing two people.
   659pts
9. 9
   Ornette Coleman

   Improvised free of fixed chord changes, reorganising what a jazz solo could be built on.
   467pts
10. 10
    Bill Evans

    Improvised in conversation with his trio, treating the bass and drums as equal voices rather than accompaniment.
    467pts
11. 11
    Oscar Peterson

    Brought a virtuoso's technique to the piano trio, with a swing so consistent it became its own benchmark.
    467pts
12. 12
    Cecil Taylor

    Attacked the piano as percussion, improvising dense structures that dispensed with melody and metre entirely.
    467pts
13. 13
    Wayne Shorter

    Improvised as a composer does, shaping solos into structures across Blakey, Davis and Weather Report.
    343pts
14. 14
    Keith Jarrett

    Improvised full concerts from nothing, including a solo recital that became the best-selling piano album ever made.
    343pts
15. 15
    Clifford Brown

    Combined bebop fluency with a warm tone and flawless execution before dying at twenty-five.
    343pts
16. 16
    Dizzy Gillespie

    Combined bebop's harmonic speed with a rhythmic daring that reached into Afro-Cuban music.
    343pts
17. 17
    Herbie Hancock

    Reharmonises in real time, moving between acoustic post-bop and electric funk without changing his instincts.
    343pts
18. 18
    Lester Young

    Played behind the beat with a light tone that gave every later tenor player an alternative to Coleman Hawkins.
    0pts
19. 19
    Wes Montgomery

    Played with his thumb instead of a pick, building solos from single notes to octaves to block chords.
    0pts
20. 20
    Coleman Hawkins

    His 1939 'Body and Soul' solo barely states the melody and is still the most studied tenor recording of its era.
    0pts

Comments 1