2021 Grammy Nominations - Music Artist Highlights

Hiatus Kaiyote is an Australian jazz/funk band formed in Melbourne in 2011, made up of singer/guitarist Nai Palm, bassist Paul Bender, keyboardist Simon Mavin, and drummer Perrin Moss.

Gretchen Parlato is an American jazz singer. She has performed and recorded with musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller and Lionel Loueke.

Kristopher Bowers (born 1989) is an American composer and pianist. He has composed scores for films, video games, television and documentaries including Bridgerton, Green Book, Madden NFL, Dear White People, and Kobe Bryant's Muse. He has recorded, performed, and collaborated with Jay-Z, Kanye West, and José James. He won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition in 2011 and a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction and Composition in 2017 for The Snowy Day. He has also composed the score for Ava DuVernay's Netflix mini-series When They See Us.

Bowers was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1989. His father is a film and television writer, and his mother is an executive at DirecTV. Although neither of his parents received more than a high school education, they wanted their son to play the piano, so they played recordings of pianists while he was still in the womb. They sent him to lessons beginning at the age of 4. He had private classical music lessons starting at around the age of 9. He listened to "classic soul records and hip-hop before falling under the spell of jazz, classical music, and film scores." Bowers studied jazz and classical piano at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts where his teachers included Mulgrew Miller and Donald Vega. He studied jazz at Colburn School for Performing Arts. He graduated in 2006 then attended Juilliard and obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in jazz performance. While a student, he performed frequently in New York City.

Kneebody is an American band formed in 2001, consisting of Adam Benjamin on keyboards, Shane Endsley on trumpet, Ben Wendel on tenor saxophone, and Nate Wood on bass guitar and drums.

Ben Wendel, Shane Endsley, Adam Benjamin, and Kaveh Rastegar met in the late 1990s as students at the Eastman School of Music. Benjamin later transferred to CalArts, where he met Nate Wood. After graduating Eastman, Wendel and Rastegar moved to Los Angeles, and the band got its start at the Temple Bar and The Vic in Santa Monica, California, where they played a weekly residency. The name of the band was a nonsense word invented by Wendel's girlfriend, so that the band had no clear leader and no clear musical connotations.

Cory Alexander Henry (born February 27, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, organist, and record producer. A former member of Snarky Puppy, Henry launched his solo artist career with Art of Love, his first independent release. On October 30, 2020, he released his sophomore full-length project called Something to Say which included Marc E. Bassy written track "No Guns" . That same year he released Art of Love Live and Christmas With You both under Culture Collective management and records.

Henry was selected by Quincy Jones to headline his curated Soundtrack of America series opening of The Shed in NYC. On August 5, 2021, Beats Electronics premiered a commercial featuring athlete Sha'Carri Richardson featuring the track "Run to Glory" which was co-produced and written by Cory Henry, Kanye West and Dr. Dre. Henry was later credited as a producer and composer for the song "24" from West's tenth studio album Donda.

Jonathan Michael Batiste is an American musician, singer, songwriter, composer, bandleader, and television personality. He has recorded and performed with artists in various genres of music, released his own recordings, and performed in more than 40 countries. Batiste, with his band Stay Human, appeared nightly as bandleader and musical director on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from 2015 to 2022.

Donald Paul McCaslin (born August 11, 1966) is an American jazz saxophonist. He has recorded over a dozen albums as a bandleader in addition to many sideman appearances, including on David Bowie's final studio album, Blackstar (2016).

McCaslin was born in Santa Clara, California, on August 11, 1966. His father was a vibraphonist, and McCaslin played in his father's ensemble at the age of twelve. He had his own group in high school, which played three years at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

In 1987 McCaslin joined Burton's group and toured the world with him for four years. In 1991 he moved to New York City and was a member of Steps Ahead.

In November 2014, McCaslin played saxophone on David Bowie's single "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". Subsequently he would play saxophone on Bowie's 2016 album Blackstar.

Prresenting the Gerry Mulligan Sextet is an album led by American jazz baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan featuring tracks recorded in 1955 and released on the EmArcy label.

Allmusic awarded the album 4 stars calling it "Fun swinging music that is still quite accessible".

All compositions by Gerry Mulligan except as indicated

Marquis Hill is an American jazz trumpet player, composer, and bandleader from Chicago, Illinois. His musical style stems from African-American music, incorporating hip-hop, R&B, Chicago house and neo-soul to jazz. In 2014 Hill won the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Trumpet Competition. He strongly advocates for the education of the next generation of musicians through active mentoring, treating the music he creates as a living art.

Thomas Abraham Misch (born 25 June 1995) is an English musician and producer. He began releasing music on SoundCloud in 2012 and released his debut studio album Geography in 2018. In 2020, he released his second studio album What Kinda Music in collaboration with English jazz drummer Yussef Dayes, distributed through Blue Note Records.

Misch studied music technology at Langley Park School for Boys and later, in 2014, enrolled in a jazz guitar course at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich but left after six months to focus on his own music. He began learning to play the violin at age 4, later learning to play the guitar.

Takuya Kuroda (jap. 黒田 卓也, Kuroda Takuya; * 21. Februar 1980 in Ashiya, Präfektur Hyōgo) ist ein japanischer Jazztrompeter und Arrangeur.

Takuya Kuroda spielte zunächst in der Big Band der Schule. Mehr Jazzerfahrungen sammelte er erst, als er zu Jam-Sessions nach Kobe fuhr. 2003 zog er in die USA, wo er zunächst einen Kurs am Berklee College of Music besuchte, bevor er nach New York wechselte. Dort studierte er an der New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music bis zum Abschluss 2006. Seitdem arbeitet Kuroda in der dortigen Jazzszene; stilistisch orientiert an Dizzy Gillespie und Clifford Brown. Früh holte ihn sein Studienkollege José James als Begleiter.

2010 erschien Kurodas Debütalbum While Bitter and High. Er arbeitete u. a. mit Junior Mance (Piano), Greg Tardy (Saxophon), Rob Swift (DJ), Jirō Yoshida (Gitarre), Andy Ezrin, Akoya Afrobeat und der Valery Ponomarev Big Band. Ferner wirkte er bei Alben von Jose James (Blackmagic) und Jiro Yoshida (Cut Back, Made In New York), China Moses, Matthias Bublath (Eight Cylinder Bigband) sowie des japanischen J-Pop-Musikers JuJu mit (Wonderful Life und My Life), für die er den Bläsersatz arrangierte. Kuroda arbeitet mit der von ihm mitgeleiteten Band Chicken Gravy, einer Formation im Spektrum zwischen Jazz, Soul und Funk und einem Jazzquartett. 2014 erschien seine CD Rising Son auf Blue Note Records. Das 2016er Studioalbum Zigzagger wurde bei Concord Records veröffentlicht. Im Jahre 2019 erschien wiederum bei Blue Note das Album Blue Note Voyage von Takuya Kuroda / Akihiro Nishiguchi / May Inoue / Jun Miyakawa / Ai Kuwabara / Ryuta Tsunoda / Tomo Kanno und Shun Ishiwaka. 2020 legte er das Album Fly Moon Die Soon vor, gefolgt von Midnight Crisp (2022).

Moses Boyd (born 30 April 1991) is a British jazz drummer, composer, record producer, bandleader and radio host. His debut solo studio album Dark Matter (2020) was nominated for the 2020 Mercury Prize.

In 2014, Boyd and saxophonist Binker Golding formed the duo Binker & Moses and released three consecutive albums, with accolades including one MOBO Award, two Jazz FM Awards and a Parliamentary Jazz Award. In 2022, Binker & Moses released their fourth album, Feeding the Machine, to critical acclaim.

Boyd's self-titled jazz band Moses Boyd Exodus (also known as the Exodus) released several mixtapes in the mid-2010s and together have recorded most of Boyd's solo releases. The group consists of Theon Cross (tubist), Artie Zaitz (guitarist), Binker Golding (saxophonist) and Nathaniel Cross (trombonist).

Julian Lage ( LAHZH; born December 25, 1987) is an American guitarist and composer.

A child prodigy, Lage was the subject of the 1996 short documentary film Jules at Eight. At 12, he performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards. Three years later, he became a faculty member of the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University. Classically trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he has studied at Sonoma State University and the Ali Akbar College of Music. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 2008.

On March 24, 2009 EmArcy released his debut album Sounding Point to favorable reviews. It was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award Best Contemporary Jazz Album. His second album, Gladwell, was released April 26, 2011, to positive reviews. His first solo acoustic album, World's Fair, was released on March 2, 2015, and his fourth album, Arclight, was released on March 11, 2016.

Brian Blade (born July 25, 1970) is an American jazz drummer, composer, session musician, and singer-songwriter.

Blade was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. The first music he experienced was gospel and songs of praise at the Zion Baptist Church where his father, Brady L. Blade, Sr., has been the pastor for fifty-two years. In elementary school, music appreciation classes were an important part of his development and at age nine, he began playing the violin. Inspired by his older brother, Brady Blade, Jr., who had been the drummer at Zion Baptist Church, Brian shifted his focus to the drums throughout middle and high school.

During high school, while studying with Dorsey Summerfield, Jr., Blade began listening to the music of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Elvin Jones, and Joni Mitchell. By the age of eighteen, Brian moved to New Orleans to attend Loyola University. From 1988 through 1993, he studied and played with most of the master musicians living in New Orleans, including Johnny Vidacovich, Ellis Marsalis, Steve Masakowski, Bill Huntington, Mike Pellera, John Mahoney, George French, Germaine Bazzle, David Lee, Jr., Alvin Red Tyler, Tony Dagradi and Harold Battiste.