Hard Bop

Bud Powell struck the first dated credit in 1947, and within a year Lucky Thompson, Duke Jordan, and Howard McGhee were on the books, with Kenny Dorham following in 1949 and Roy Haynes by 1950. The Heath brothers, Percy and Jimmy, arrived together in 1951 alongside Idrees Sulieman and James Moody, with Sahib Shihab closing out the founding stretch in 1952 — and it's here that Max Roach and Miles Davis begin binding the early names, Roach turning up across Bud Powell, Barney Kessel, and Duke Jordan, Davis recurring through Howard McGhee, Duke Jordan, and Al Cohn. As the sessions deepened, engineer Rudy Van Gelder and Blue Note founder Alfred Lion became the fixed coordinates, Van Gelder threading "Philly" Joe Jones, Art Taylor, and Bobby Jaspar while Lion's credits ran through Bobby Timmons and Charlie Persip. Drummer Art Blakey carried the baton forward across Doug Watkins and Gigi Gryce, bassist Paul Chambers anchored "Philly" Joe Jones and Bobby Timmons, and John Coltrane and Lee Morgan kept the line moving through Art Taylor and Doug Watkins. From there the spine reaches its later names — Johnny Coles in 1964, Pharoah Sanders and James Spaulding in 1966 — and runs out to Joe Farrell in 1968