Who is the Best Jazz Pianist of Today?

Although his recent collaboration with Mehliana and the incredibly precise drummer Mark Giulana is a slight deviation towards electronics,

Brad Mehldau

is a harmonica genius and a master of technique. Brian Culbertson is another big name in today's jazz industry, known for his cross-musical style that plays jazz, funk and pop. He is a multi-instrumentalist who learned to compose his own songs in high school. Here are the best jazz pianists of the modern jazz era, with videos that demonstrate their incredible live performance. Art Tatum, one of the most virtuosic jazz pianists of all time, was so brilliant and ahead of his time that his influence on modern jazz pianists includes everyone else on this list and continues to be felt today.

Despite being blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other, Tatum adopted the stride piano style and developed it with an unheard of sense of harmonic ingenuity mixed with impeccable piano technique. He performed standard songs creatively while running in circles around the basic melodies of each hand in a fast style. Here you can see his brilliant interpretation of the Yesterdays standard and see how his innovative style has affected jazz pianists in the middle and late 20th century and continues today. Chick Corea is another great name in modern jazz. He adopted a jazz fusion that pleased the public with his bands Return To Forever and, later, with the Chick Corea Electrik Band, recording compositions known as “Spain”, influenced by Latin jazz, and “Armando's Rumba”.

Thelonious Monk was one of the most original and influential jazz pianists in history and a fundamental creator of the sound of modern jazz. While she is also known as a harpist and organist, her contribution to free jazz piano and experimental cosmic sounds have demonstrated her legacy. Gene Harris dabbled in many different styles of jazz, including big band and bebop, but is ultimately known for his contemporary jazz style. And, if you want to go deeper, don't miss our selection of the 10 most essential jazz piano albums. Fortunately for Armstrong, Lawrence Duhé and his Creole jazz band from New Orleans arrived in the city and were looking for a pianist.

He was a classical piano prodigy at age 11, then became a solid

jazz pianist

and then experimented with all kinds of musical styles. Even so, Money Jungle has proven to be very influential and many consider it to contain some of Ellington's most advanced jazz piano performances. He was a pioneer in comping (a way of playing chords to support the soloist) and his scarce but effective way of playing influenced generations of great jazz pianists. Born in 1904, Fats Waller is credited with laying some of the most important foundations of modern jazz piano. Nowadays, Culbertson is still a regular on the jazz charts with his continuous album releases and his exploration of different moods, such as acoustic jazz and romance with touches of R&B.

Considered one of the most important jazz pianists of his generation, Bill Evans influenced many of the youngest jazz artists, such as Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. But despite that, he became a world-renowned

jazz pianist

and a national hero in his home country, France.