TGIF! 
Why? Because it's the weekend and time for you to unwind by....going to a live jazz show!!!
Some of the artists mentioned today in honor of JAM are pianist Keiko Matsui; saxophonists Lou Donaldson, Kenny Garrett, Mantana Roberts; guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, bassist Lonnie Plaxico; and drummers Kendrick Scott and Marcus Gilmore.
Enjoy ~
1. (79) Keiko Matsui born in Tokyo as Keiko Doi is a Japanese smooth jazz/new age/Chill-out music keyboardist and composer whose career spans three decades, during which time she has released twenty CDs (in addition to various compilations) and has received international acclaim.
2. (80) Kendrick A.D. Scott is a drummer, bandleader and composer. He was born on 8 July 1980 in Houston, TX.
Scott’s debut recording with his group Oracle "The Source
3. (81) Saxophonist Kenny Garrett was born in Detroit, MI (1960). He gained fame as a member of both the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis’s band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career and, most recently, joined a super group of jazz musicians called the “Five Peace Band”.
4. (82) Kevin Mahogany (born July 30, 1958, in Kansas City, MO) is a jazz vocalist who became prominent in the 1990s. He is known for his scat singing and his singing style has been compared with jazz singers Joe Williams and Johnny Hartman.
His first CD release as a solo artist was "Double Rainbow
5. (83) Concord Jazz recording artist, Grammy-Award winner Kurt Elling was born on 2 November 1967.
Elling has won the Down Beat and JazzTimes critics' polls three years in a row in the Best Male Singer category. He is also Vice Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the 17,000-member service organization that produces the annual Grammy Awards. Elling's 2007 album "Nightmoves", released by Concord Jazz, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album.
One of Kurt Elling's contributions is as a writer and performer of vocalese, the art of writing and performing words over the recorded improvised solos of jazz artists. In 2007, Elling's vocalese lyrics were published by Circumstantial Productions in a book entitled "Lyrics".
He won his first Grammy-Award in 2010 for the CD "Dedicated To You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman
6. (84) Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel was born in 1970 (Philadelphia). He is known for his distinct sound and style of improvisation that is influenced by artists as diverse as Allan Holdsworth, George Van Eps, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Elmo Hope and The Notorious B.I.G.
He attended the Berklee School of Music for two and a half years before leaving in his junior year to tour with Gary Burton, the dean of the school at the time. Subsequently, he moved to Brooklyn where he continued to develop his jazz guitar skills by performing with Human Feel, Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band, Joe Henderson Group, and the Brian Blade Fellowship.
During that time he began using a Lavalier lapel microphone fed into his guitar amplifier that blends his vocalizing with his guitar and has become a trademark of his sound both live and in the studio.
7. (85) Guitarist Lionel Loueke was born in 1973 in the west African country of Benin. He moved to Ivory Coast in 1990 to study at the National Institute of Art . He attended the American School of Modern Music in Paris, France from 1994-1998. In 1999, Loueke was awarded a scholarship to Berklee College of Music, where he earned a degree in Jazz Performance in 2000.
Loueke made his major-label debut in 2008, when Blue Note released his album "Karibu [+digital booklet]". NPR.org praised the guitarist for his fusion of traditional African music with modern jazz harmonies, unique vocal inflections, and complex time signatures.
8. (86) Lisa Celeste Stroud [Nina Simon’s daughter] is a vocalist and actress [aka Simone], born 12 September 1962.
She is her own woman, a singer, songwriter and performer whose ability to transcend genres echoes the tradition of her mother, musical icon and pioneer Nina Simone. Blessed with a rich vocal range, an innate skill for lyrical interpretation and a soul-deep understanding of music as a means of healing, empowerment and celebration, Simone is very much her mother’s daughter, she is most assuredly a multi-talented artist in her own right.
9. (87) Lonnie Plaxico was born in Chicago, Illinois into a musical family, and started playing the bass at the age of twelve, turning professional at fourteen (playing both double bass and bass guitar). His first recording was with his family's band, and by the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City, where he had stints playing with Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Stitt, Junior Cook, and Hank Jones. He won the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award in 1978.
Plaxico first came to public attention through his work with the Wynton Marsalis group in 1982, though his first regular attachment was with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers (1983–1986), with whom he recorded twelve albums.
Lonnie Plaxico Group's latest CD "Ancestral Devotion
10. (88) Lou Donaldson (born 1926) is an alto saxophonist. He was born in Badin, North Carolina. He is best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was, as many were of the bebop era, heavily influenced by Charlie Parker.
11. (89) Composer and orchestra leader Maria Schneider was born on 27 November 1960. She founded the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra in 1993. Maria Schneider’s 2004 CD “Concert in the Garden” became the 1st Grammy-Award winning recording sold exclusively via the Internet.
12. (90) Marcus Gilmore, 23, is the grandson of Roy Haynes, jazz’s most important living drummer, but he has proved his own virtues quickly. Around the winter of 2004-5 he created that pleasant citywide buzz when someone new and special blows through New York clubs and jam sessions. Now you can hear him regularly, playing with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Nicholas Payton, Vijay Iyer, Ambrose Akinmusire, Yosvany Terry, Gretchen Parlato and others.
13. (91) Chicago born saxophonist and composer Matana Roberts is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians [AACM]. The Jazz Journalists Association selected Roberts as a finalist nominee for the 2008 "Up and Coming Musician of the Year" award.
She was raised on the Chicago's South Side and studied classical clarinet during her youth. She formed a trio, Sticks and Stones, with bassist Josh Abrams and drummer Chad Taylor, with whom she regularly performed at the Velvet Lounge. In 2002, Roberts moved to New York, initially busking in subways and publishing a zine, Fat Ragged, about her experiences.