The 25 essential New York City jazz icons

Even if you think you've never seen this protean saxophonist, composer and bandleader, you almost certainly have: From the moment Tony Malaby blew into town from Arizona in 1995, he seems to have been on one stage or another almost constantly. A versatile sideman and a compelling soloist who moves from inside to outside and back with ease, Malaby has enlivened projects led by Paul Motian, Kenny Werner, Tim Berne and Fred Hersch, to name only a few. Meanwhile, Malaby juggles multiple bands of his own, from the explosive trio he shares with his wife, pianist Angelica Sanchez, and drummer Tom Rainey, to Novela, the oversize group he's lately co-led with upstart pianist Kris Davis.

There are musicians who play jazz and there are those who truly create it. Matana Roberts is definitely among the latter. The saxophonist's Coin Coin series—the first volume of which has just been released on an outstanding CD, Gens De Couleur Libres—uses generations' worth of her family history as fodder for epic multimedia presentations. The result is jazz as polemical happening, works that stand alongside John Carter's Roots and Folklore and the programmatic presentations of Mingus, Ellington and Max Roach as half-celebratory, half-harrowing meditations on the African-American experience. Roberts's admirably refined yet straight-from-the-gut saxophone statements add another layer to her formidable arsenal.

New York has never lacked for prominent jazz singers, though vocalists have rarely enjoyed the serious cachet their instrumental counterparts take for granted—Cassandra Wilson, an exception, packed her bags some time ago. But Gretchen Parlato is emblematic of a bright new generation of singers now working in New York, who've applied consummate technical polish and respect for tradition with a burning need to refresh the canon and make it speak to younger audiences. First-prize winner in the 2004 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition, Parlato made leading figures like Wayne Shorter, Terence Blanchard and Kenny Barron into enthusiastic fans. Along with peers like Rebecca Martin, Becca Stevens and Jo Lawry, Parlato has overturned clichs to make jazz singing cool again.

Even though what is often known as avant-garde jazz is a half-century old, the barrier between "inside" and "outside" jazz still persists. If the wall ever topples, we will have to thank Jon Irabagon, living proof that an improviser shouldn't have to take sides. In 2008, the Filipino-American won the Thelonious Monk International Sax Competition, a prestigious honor associated with the jazz mainstream, and he's excelled in that sphere onstage and on disc. At the same time, he's issued statements like 2009's I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues, a mercilessly extreme feat of sustained intensity, and worked with esteemed absurdist-bop quartet Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Foxy, from 2010, united all these facets of Irabagon's art in a refreshing, enigmatic whole, effectively signaling the death of jazz factionalism.

The facts of pianist Fred Hersch's life story—an openly gay artist in a world still steeped in cutting-contest machismo, and an HIV-positive man whose condition resulted in perilous illness and a two-month coma—can't overshadow his status as one of the most compelling performers and composers currently working in this city. Best known as a nonpareil trio player who favors drummers that prod and cajole him (among them Tom Rainey, Nasheet Waits and Paul Motian), Hersch is also a solo player so persuasive that he became the first pianist ever honored with a week of unaccompanied sets at the Village Vanguard. Increasingly, Hersch has also tackled projects of larger scale, including Leaves of Grass, a life-affirming Walt Whitman cantata, and My Coma Dreams, a new multimedia work inspired by Hersch's brush with delirium and mortality.

Already a scenemaker in the NYC of the '40s, Lee Konitz worked closely with bebop visionaries such as Lennie Tristano and Miles Davis, lending his patented plush, darting lines to the latter's essential Birth of the Cool. The altoist still hangs with heavyweights of his own generation—check out the newly released Live at Birdland, featuring Konitz contemporary Paul Motian—but what earns him a spot on this list is his generous attitude toward younger players. Whether working alongside saxist-arranger Ohad Talmor in a colorful nonet or improvising freely with daring pianist Dan Tepfer, the 83-year-old never coasts, consistently backing up his reputation among fellow musicians as a true guru of improvisation.

A performance by Fieldwork might aptly be described as the revenge of the nerds. Saxist Steve Lehman (a former student of arch avant-jazz conceptualist Anthony Braxton), pianist Vijay Iyer (a math and physics whiz who holds a B.S. from Yale) and drummer Tyshawn Sorey (an astoundingly proficient player who reportedly boasts a photographic memory for scores) blaze through labyrinthine compositions with a high-wire flair that would make the snobbiest prog-rock fan swoon—not to mention a real sense of moment-to-moment risk. On their own, each of these musicians is a poll-topping star bandleader, but together their gifts are compounded, Voltron-style. If you want to know what state-of-the-art NYC jazz sounds like in 2011, this is the band to see.

A Houston piano prodigy who hit town to study with piano iconoclasts Jaki Byard, Andrew Hill and Muhal Richard Abrams, Jason Moran first raised eyebrows in bands led by saxophonist Greg Osby (one of the modern era's ablest talent scouts). Now a revered leader and conceptualist with a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant to show for it, Moran has shown an individualistic approach like those for which his mentors are cherished: a deep knowledge of history and repertoire combined with an irreverent streak that prompts him to push, prod and interrogate everything he knows. And the Bandwagon, Moran's longstanding combo with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits, has broken every mold of trio interplay.

Randy Weston's trademark is his championing of African-inflected jazz, a mission he's been on since he witnessed a lecture by musicologist Marshall Stearns while working as a dishwasher at a Berkshires resort in the '50s. Catch one of the lifelong Brooklynite's African Rhythms projects and you'll be treated to a musical discourse on the hidden roots of a great American art form. But you don't need to be a scholar to appreciate Weston's keyboard mastery, which, like that of his slightly older peer and friend Thelonious Monk, embodies a perfect marriage of idiosyncrasy and warmth. Even when he flirts with abstraction, the 85-year-old always sounds emotionally engaged and fully committed to a style that isn't African, or bop, or blues, or free—it's just Weston.

You may have heard about Matthew Shipp's notorious orneriness (he'll dis respected jazz icons to any interviewer who polls him) or his penchant for genre-bending experiments (check out the new Knives from Heaven, featuring rhymes from Antipop Consortium). But what really earns the local fixture a spot on this list is his stormily gorgeous pianism—the perfect marriage of impressionist reverie and free-jazz passion—and unimpeachable improvisational instincts. For a representative taste, consult Shipp's handsome recent double-disc set, Art of the Improviser.

Big bands are a longstanding tradition in New York City, where the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band still pack houses on Monday nights. But the genre got a major jolt of new vitality with the 1985 arrival of composer and bandleader Maria Schneider, whose groundbreaking residency at the late, lamented Village club Visiones extended the sophisticated work of her mentors, Gil Evans and Bob Brookmeyer. Increasingly busy in the classical world, Schneider leads her band less frequently, which makes its every appearance a must-see event; meanwhile, spiritual progeny like John Hollenbeck, Darcy James Argue and Joseph C. Phillips have continued to explore trails Schneider helped to blaze.

Once a controversial maverick much derided by establishment tastemakers, Texas-born saxophonist, composer and bandleader Ornette Coleman has quietly become an elder statesman over the past half century: His homespun melodies and freewheeling rhythmic conceptions are accepted as gospel throughout the jazz world. Yet at 80, Coleman retains his gently eccentric mystery; he's a chimerical philosopher who plays here annually at best, though his presence fans out well beyond his midtown doorstep, fueling New York's unquenchable creative flame.

Ten years ago, Ethan Iverson was the piano player in the Bad Plus, an upstart trio that garnered hype and scorn in equal measure for covering "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and other modern standards. A decade on, that core fact hasn't changed: The Bad Plus has persevered and thrived—its excellent 2010 album, Never Stop (made up of all original pieces), felt like a definitive statement. But via his peerless blog, Do the Math, and his meaningful engagement with veteran players like Billy Hart and Albert Heath, Iverson has simultaneously established himself as perhaps NYC's most thoughtful and passionate student of jazz tradition—the most admirable sort of artist-scholar.

John Zorn soaked up much of the media attention with his splashy genre-colliding experiments such as Naked City, but based purely on the recorded evidence, it may very well have been Tim Berne who was the definitive genius of NYC's downtown 1980s jazz scene. (Check out Fulton Street Maul or Fractured Fairy Tales if you need proof.) In the intervening years, Zorn has moved well beyond the small-group-jazz sphere, but Berne has remained committed to exploring that idiom with a series of gritty, head-turning projects, including Bloodcount in the '90s, Hardcell in the aughts and currently, Los Totopos: all bands that have helped propel younger players such as Jim Black, Craig Taborn and Ches Smith into alt-jazz stardom. Factor in Berne's prolific and charmingly irreverent Screwgun label and his busy local performance schedule, and you've got an unassuming legend on your hands.

It's been a half century since Cecil Taylor has played anything resembling what is conventionally called jazz, with clearly delineated themes, an orderly progression of solos or a foot-tapping pulse. But like Lena Horne and the many other vocal divas he's more likely to cite as an influence than, say, another pianist, he revels in the mode of the unabashedly dramatic, soul-baring performance. Whether attacking the piano or caressing it (or stamping on the floor around it, in one of his frequent preconcert dance expositions), the Queens-born, Brooklyn-residing 82-year-old never fails to reignite the listener's belief in the dead-seriousness of American improvised music. Taylor's marathon recitals—solo is still the best mode in which to catch him—remain the definitive un--background music, thrillingly unfettered rejoinders to anyone who thinks of jazz as a mere lifestyle accoutrement.

Roy Haynes is a jazz legend, sure, but not the kind you have to take on faith. That is to say, if you go hear this 85-year-old drumming marvel today—and you should catch his Fountain of Youth band whenever possible—you will be hearing him at his best, not as a shade of the Roy Haynes that played with Lester Young in the '40s, Charlie Parker and Sarah Vaughn in the '50s, or Eric Dolphy and Chick Corea in the '60s. In terms of combining improvisational brilliance with old-school showmanship (not to mention the rakish charm that earned him a spot on a 1960 Esquire best-dressed list), Haynes is simply peerless.

Jazz has produced few more original composers than Henry Threadgill, a Chicago saxophonist and flutist whose every project has been more distinctive and compelling than the one that came before it. From his arrival during the '70s as a member of prescient collaborative trio Air (which also featured the late Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall), Threadgill proceeded through avant-gutbucket stomps with his ebullient Sextett, bawdy carnival sounds in Very Very Circus and hypnotic grooves with Make a Move, to arrive at Zooid, a group that fuses elements of everything that came before it with Threadgill's growing penchant for chamber-music transparency. Factor in Threadgill's always penetrating playing as well as the frequency with which he workshops his inventions for the public, and he's reason enough to celebrate being a New Yorker.

Given his plum position as artistic director of Jazz at swanky Lincoln Center, his partnership with Jazz documentarian Ken Burns and his naturally garrulous personality, it's tough not to see Wynton Marsalis as more figurehead than musician. But if you clear away all the obfuscating debates about uptown and downtown, and the wholly subjective canonization of jazz, you're left with a still-phenomenal trumpeter, composer and bandleader. Leading a quintet and a septet at Rose Theater earlier this year, Marsalis was magisterial, presenting vital original works that hummed with the auras of Ellington, Parker and Armstrong. This controversial figure may revere tradition, but he's in no way shackled by it.

Were William Parker simply the earthy, elemental bassist who anchored Cecil Taylor's legendary Feel Trio and a rock-solid sideman to leaders like Peter Brtzmann and David S. Ware, his mark in jazz would be assured. Factor in his work with seminal free-jazz collaborative Other Dimensions in Music and his own ambitious big band, the Little Huey Orchestra (and satellite projects like a rousing Curtis Mayfield tribute group), and Parker's stature looms larger still. But apart from those imposing achievements, he can claim an even larger legacy: With his wife, dancer-choreographer Patricia Nicholson, in 1996 Parker founded the Vision Festival, one of the city's most important and inclusive celebrations of artistic cross-pollination and spiritual unity.

If you were surveying the NYC jazz scene in the late '50s, you might have pegged Paul Motian merely as a masterful accompanist, citing his role in pianist Bill Evans's celebrated trio. Five decades on, though, the drummer seems more rightly classified as a shaman. The bands he leads brush up against familiar jazz stylings, but always radiate a palpable sense of mystery and creeping abstraction. (He loves bringing along virtuoso sidemen, young and old, to revel in the weirdness.) Deepening Motian's mythology is the fact that he now performs only in NYC—catching him on his home turf at the Village Vanguard is like paying a visit to the Sphinx.