A Grammy-winning vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Jacob Collier is known for his sophisticated yet hooky sound that blends crossover jazz, soulful '70s-style R&B, and pop with contemporary electronic production techniques. Collier became an internet sensation in the early 2010s with his layered performances, achieving a one-man harmony vocal group, often with accompanying video takes, a technique he expanded upon in 2014 working with the MIT Media Lab. His debut album, 2016's In My Room, topped the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and took home two Grammy Awards. Collier has continued to develop his sound, releasing a series of ambitious albums, beginning with 2018's Djesse, Vol. 1, and featuring collaborations with artists like Laura Mvula, Becca Stevens, Lianne La Havas, Tori Kelly, and others.

Born in 1994 and raised in a North London family of musicians, Collier began sharing music videos of his slick, multi-track performances from his home-music room as a 17-year-old in late 2011. Presenting most of the videos in a grid layout so that each vocal and instrumental take was visible, he would often arrange and perform up to eight-part vocal harmonies, with accompaniment ranging from keyboards and stringed instruments to varied percussion. His early songs included original tunes such as "Serendipity" and covers of songwriters spanning George & Ira Gershwin, Burt Bacharach, and Stevie Wonder.

After high school, he enrolled as a jazz piano performance major at the Royal Academy of Music. While there, he caught the attention of legendary producer Quincy Jones who signed Collier to his management company. Also while in school, Collier further developed his method of solo multimedia live performance, collaborating on the project with engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. With Jones' backing, he debuted the performance technology at the 2015 Montreux Jazz Festival, where he opened for Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. Soon in demand for his arranging skills as well as performing, he began collaborating with other musicians, including an appearance on Snarky Puppy's early-2016 release Family Dinner, Vol. 2.

As a solo artist, Collier's first official single from an album of his own, "Hideaway," appeared in April 2016. His debut LP, In My Room, followed mid-year on the Membran label and charted in Switzerland and the Netherlands in addition to reaching number three on Billboard's Jazz Albums chart. In 2017, Collier won two Grammy Awards for his arranging: one for his version of Stevie Wonder's "You and I" (Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella) and one for his cover of The Flintstones theme song (Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals).

By the time he returned to the studio to work on his second album in 2018, he'd been touring internationally for over two years. Described as the first of a four-volume project, Djesse, Vol. 1 arrived on Decca in December 2018. It featured the Metropole Orkest conducted by Jules Buckley, as well as collaborations with Laura Mvula, Moroccan singer Hamid El Kasri, the a cappella groups Take 6 and Voces8, and Suzie Collier, Jacob's mother. Djesse, Vol. 2 followed in 2019 and found Collier exploring more intimate acoustic settings alongside an equally impressive list of collaborators, including Lianne La Havas, Oumou Sangaré, Sam Amidon, Becca Stevens, and others. Both albums earned Collier Grammy Awards, including Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella for "All Night Long" off Djesse, Vol. 1, and Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals for "Moon River" off Djesse, Vol. 2. The following year saw the arrival of Djesse, Vol. 3, which featured collaborations with Tori Kelly, T-Pain, Daniel Caesar, and Ty Dolla $ign, among others. ~ Marcy Donelson

A singer/songwriter with a distinctive sound that combines elements of folk-pop, jazz, and R&B, Lizzy McAlpine found mainstream success in 2020 with her acclaimed debut album, Give Me a Minute. She issued her sophomore LP, Five Seconds Flat, in 2022.

The Philadelphia native started penning songs in middle school, so by the time she began studying songwriting at Berklee College of Music in Boston, she was already ahead of the game. Citing a wide array of influences that includes Dodie, H.E.R., and John Mayer, she released her debut EP, Indigo, in 2018. Two years later, she issued her first full-length effort, Give Me a Minute, with producer and multi-instrumentalist Philip Etherington. An evocative and intimate folk-pop outing that garnered millions of streams, the album elicited praise from contemporaries like FINNEAS, Phoebe Bridgers, and Shawn Mendes. 2021's When the World Stopped Moving: The Live EP delivered an intimate eight-song set of stripped-down favorites culled from McAlpine's popular social media channel, and in 2022 she unveiled her sophomore long-player, Five Seconds Flat. A bold and immersive collection of songs written after a difficult breakup, the 14-track set reached number five on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, thanks in part to the streaming hits "Doomsday" and "All My Ghosts," and guest spots from FINNEAS and Jacob Collier. ~ James Christopher Monger

John Mayer was one of those multiple-threat music talents that made most other players' lives and career paths seem simple. Born in India to Anglo-Indian parents, he studied classical music and had a successful career as an orchestral violinist, but gave it up to work as a composer and, later, in jazz fusion as a composer-violinist-band-leader. From the mid-'60s onward, he made his mark in the fields of jazz, progressive rock, and world music. Along with Dave Arbus of East of Eden, Mayer was probably the most well-liked violinist among rock musicians in London during the late '60s, although his career is much more rooted in classical music.

Born in 1930 in Calcuttato an Anglo-Indian father and an Indian mother, Mayer was born in 1930, his musical interests manifesting themselves early, and at seven he was studying violin with Phillipe Sandre at the Calcutta School of Music, who agreed to teach him in his free time, because Mayer's parents lacked the resources to send him there as a paying pupil. He later studied with Melhi Metha, who encouraged him, while in his late teens, to compete for a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London. By then, Mayer was determined to become a composer who would be taken seriously both in his own country and abroad. He also wanted to achieve this utilizing both European and Indian techniques, and toward this end he studied with Sanathan Mukherjee, who taught him the theoretical aspects of Indian classical music. At the time, he knew and heard little of jazz, although he did start sitting in as a drummer with jazz bands. Mayer won the scholarship, and arrived in London in 1950 to study at the Royal Academy. He had won through his violin playing, but he started out studying composition with Matyas Sether, who encouraged him to use the techniques of Indian and western music in serial composition. His money ran out after only a year, but he was fortunate enough to earn a spot in the violin section of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Thus began a somewhat awkward eight-year period in which he played in the violin section of the orchestra while continuing to study composition -- despite having some of his works played by the orchestra, and conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, he didn't begin to make headway as a composer until Sir Charles Groves commissioned him to write his Dance Suite for sitar, flute, tabla, tambura, and symphony orchestra, which was premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 1958. This early success, however, created problems with the management of the London Philharmonic, however, which was a conservative organization and didn't appreciate having a composer within the ranks of its performing musicians. Mayer was forced to leave his job at the LPO, but was hired by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Sir Thomas Beecham, who asked him to join. Mayer began a happy seven-year relationship with the RPO, in the process learning a huge amount about orchestration (as well as conducting) from some of the finest players in England. By 1965, when he left the RPO's violin section, he was able to finally earn his living from his compositions and to quit full-time orchestral playing. Additionally, by that time, fate had taken a hand in his career -- Mayer was known in avant-garde London circles for his work mixing western and Hindustani classical music, and in 1964, EMI producer Dennis Preston asked him if he had available a short jazz-based piece with which to complete an album Preston was working on. Mayer told him he did, even though he had nothing ready -- Preston said he wanted to record it the next day, and Mayer stayed up all night writing the piece. He attended the recording the following day, and thought no more about it until six months later when Preston told him that he'd played the piece to Atlantic Records founder and president Ahmet Ertegun in New York, who'd liked what he'd heard and suggested that Mayer write music for an album which would fuse Indian music and jazz. Ertegun's idea was to combine the quintet of Indian musicians with whom Mayer worked, featuring a sitar, tabla, tambura, flute, with Mayer on violin and harpsichord, and a jazz quintet led by Joe Harriott, himself an under-appreciated alto player who had shown an appreciation of various aspects of world music. Mayer wrote the music in a month, and it was recorded by this group, known as the Joe Harriott & John Mayer Double Quintet, in two days. The resulting album, Indo-Jazz Fusions, was released in 1966 and became an immediate favorite in avant-garde circles and an unexpectedly good seller. Additionally, the group ended up not only in demand as a performing unit, but with a new name -- from that day on, they were known as the Indo-Jazz Fusions. Among those in the lineup was future Mahavishnu Orchestra bassist Rick Laird. They cut a second album that did as well as the first, and played in England and throughout Europe for the next seven years, until Harriott's death in 1973. During this period, Mayer became a familiar figure in progressive rock circles as well -- he was mentioned as a mentor and colleague of Keith Emerson's on the Nice's third album, and credited with suggesting some of their repertory ("Diary of an Empty Day"); he later co-orchestrated and conducted the orchestra on the recording of Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto from Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Works, Vol. One album (the biggest-selling album and CD on which Mayer has appeared to date). Additionally, he played violin with a group called Cosmic Eye, who cut an album, Dream Sequence (EMI-Regal Zonophone), in 1972. Mayer devoted much of his time in the years after Harriott's death to composition and academic pursuits, and was rewarded with professorships and composer-in-residence positions at the Birmingham Conservatory. He revived Indo-Jazz Fusions in 1995, and resumed performing and recording with them (most recently on the Nimbus label), as well as composing new works with the same Indian-Jazz fusion idiom that he pioneered 40 years earlier. In March of 2004, Mayer was hit by a car and fatally injured. He was 73. ~ Bruce Eder