Best Baritone
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Harry Carney was an American jazz musician best known for playing the baritone saxophone in the Duke Ellington orchestra. He joined Ellington in 1927 and remained with the ensemble for nearly 50 years until Ellington's death in 1974. Carney's robust and lyrical playing heavily influenced the use of...
Kurt Elling is a prominent baritone jazz musician recognized globally for his innovative approach to vocals. He specializes in vocalese—creating instrumental melodies through sung syllables—and demonstrates exceptional improvisation skills. His work resonates with audiences interested in contemporar...
Lars Gullin was a Swedish jazz musician and composer known primarily for playing the baritone saxophone. Active during the 1950s and 1960s, he combined influences from American cool jazz with melodic and harmonic elements associated with Swedish music. His recordings helped establish him as a distin...
John Surman is a British jazz multi-instrumentalist and composer recognized for his proficiency on the baritone and soprano saxophones, as well as the bass clarinet. Emerging in the late 1960s, he played with musicians such as John McLaughlin and Barre Phillips before establishing himself as a leadi...
Serge Chaloff was an American jazz baritone saxophonist who lived from 1923 to 1957 and became an important early exponent of bebop on his instrument. He was a member of Woody Herman's Second Herd and played in its celebrated Four Brothers saxophone section, whose arrangement and sound became closel...
Gregory Porter is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and actor born in 1971 in Sacramento, California, and raised in Bakersfield. His warm baritone and soul-inflected vocal style have earned him two Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album: Liquid Spirit (2014) and Take Me to the Alley (2017). He i...
Gary Smulyan is an American jazz musician, born in 1956, whose primary instrument is the baritone saxophone. He has been closely associated with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and has also performed with major large ensembles, including the Woody Herman and Mel Lewis orchestras. Known for working in be...
American baritone saxophonist born 1941, known for his commanding hard bop style and sideman work with George Benson, Lee Konitz, and many others.
American baritone saxophonist (1925–1962), a bebop musician who recorded with Dizzy Gillespie and Illinois Jacquet in the late 1940s.
British alto saxophonist and clarinettist born 1959, one of the most prolific UK jazz musicians with dozens of recordings as leader since the 1980s.
Giveon is an American R&B singer from Long Beach, California, distinguished by his resonant, deep baritone vocal delivery. He gained significant mainstream recognition in 2020 following his feature on Drake's single "Chicago Freestyle," which subsequently led to wider exposure on Justin Bieber's cha...
