A selection of just some of the great acts to grace Milestones over the years. Click on the pictures to see them full size.

Pete Jacobsen

Jasper Smith

Improvisation takes place not only in performance but in the way a band develops. There is a group decision perpetually taking place, a collective intelligence that wants everyone to express themselves. That's the ideal. Jazz's unique shot at greatness lies in its active creation, which is, as it were, off the cuff. So much of Western art has self-consciously strived to appear artless; jazz has the unique distinction of artlessly becoming artful. To close I offer a scenario: if all the written music in the world suddenly burned up in a flash, who would still do a gig the same night, with complete strangers, and no rehearsals?

From sleeve notes to 'Art of the Trio 4 - Back at the Vanguard', Brad Mehldau (1999)

When an earnest interviewer asked (trombonist) Joe Nanton if he considered (Duke) Ellington a genius, Nanton replied, 'I don't know about that, but, Jesus, he can eat!'

From 'Jazz Anecdotes', Bill Crow (1991)

I like to remember that one of the great composers of the time, a man who can hardly be accused of any indulgence for jazz, once listened to the "Bag's Groove" solo with an ear that was more than merely attentive...When the record was over, just one remark was enough to compensate for all the rebuffs that the mediocrities of jazz had made me suffer from his lips; it was made in connection with the F sharp that follows a series of Cs and Fs in Monk's first chorus, and which, for all its brevity, constitutes one of the purest moments of beauty in the history of jazz. "Shattering", was my friend's only comment.

From 'Toward Jazz', André Hodeir (1962)