Biography

Pianist/composer/musical director John Lewis, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, drummer Kenny Clarke (later replaced by Connie Kay), and bassist Percy Heath formed the Modern Jazz Quartet in the mid 1950s and were still together in the mid '90s (after a six-year break). The group's popular chamber-jazz sound was informed by Lewis's extensive studies in European compositional techniques. Jackson died in 1999, definitively closing the book on the long-lived, enormously influential quartet.

Top Tracks

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• A Cold Wind Is Blowing

• Almost Like Being In Love

• Bachianas Brasileiras

• Bag's Groove

• Bags' Groove

• Blues In B Flat

• Bluesology

• Buhaina

• Carnival

• Cherokee

• Columbine

• Concorde

• Delaunay's Dilemma

• Delauney's Dilemma

• Django

• Fontessa

• For Someone I Love

• Fugato

• Gershwin Medley: Soon/for You, For Me, Forevermore/love Walked In/our L

• Here's That Rainy Day (carnival Of Flanders)

• In Memoriam

• La Ronde

• Lonely Woman

• Medley: Stardust/i Can't Get Started/lover Man

• My Funny Valentine

• Night In Tunisia

• Novamo

• One Note Samba

• Opus De Funk

• Piazza Navona

• Pierrot

• Precious Joy

• Reunion Blues

• 'round Midnight

• Shadrack

• Skating In Central Park

• Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise

• Spanish Steps

• Stonewall

• That Slavic Smile

• The Comedy

• The Golden Striker

• The Legendary Profile

• The Sheriff

• The Spiritual

• The Watergate Blues

• Three Little Feelings, Pts. 1-3

• Topsy, Pt. 2

• Trav'lin'

• Trieste

• Valeria

• Vendome

• Versailles (porte De Versailles)

• Visitor From Mars

• Walkin' Stomp

• What Now My Love (et Maintenant)

• Winter Tale

Discography

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• Rose of the Rio Grande

  Capitol

  1989

• In Memoriam

  Little David

  1973

• The Legendary Profile

  Wounded Bird Records

  1972

• Place Vendôme

  Philips / Universal Distribution

  1966

• Vendome

  Capitol

  1966

• A Quartet Is a Quartet Is a Quartet

  Rhino Atlantic / Wounded Bird Records

  1963

• European Concert, Vol. 2

  Atlantic

  1962

• The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays for Lovers

  Prestige Records

  1960

• Patterns

  United Artists Records

  1960

• The Modern Jazz Quartet on Tour

  Solid State

  196?

• The Modern Jazz Quartet and Oscar Peterson Trio at the Opera

  Verve

  1957

• One Never Knows

  Atlantic

  1957

• Modern Jazz Quartet, Vol. 2

  1955

• Modern Jazz Quartet, Vol. 2: 1954-1955

  1953