From London’s hybrid club scenes to Cairo’s experimental collectives, from the New York loft lineage to Nordic lyricism, 21st-century jazz has been borderless, groove-savvy, and relentlessly inventive. Streaming and global touring broadened audiences; hip-hop, Afro-diasporic rhythms, and electronic production reshaped the palette; and a new generation fused virtuosity with storytelling and social urgency.
Below is a ranking—counting down from No. 21 to No. 1—of globally popular, era-defining artists and ensembles whose work has carried jazz into the present tense.
21. Sarathy Korwar
A percussionist, composer, and bandleader bridging Indian classical traditions with London’s jazz vanguard, Korwar turns polyrhythms into political testimony. His albums blend tabla, drum-set, and electronics with sampled voices to critique nationalism and celebrate diasporic identity. The result: ecstatic, densely layered music that speaks as much to the dance floor as to the conservatory.
20. Kamasi Washington
The tenor saxophonist who helped put contemporary jazz back into the mainstream conversation, Washington became a crossover beacon with monumental, choir- and string-laden suites. Drawing from spiritual jazz, P-Funk, film scoring, and hip-hop, he made ambitious, long-form albums feel communal and accessible. His arena-sized tone and star-level festival presence lifted an entire scene.
19. Polar Bear
Led by drummer Sebastian Rochford, this British group pioneered a post-rock, electronic, and improv splice that made mid-2000s UK jazz feel futuristic. Saxophones, bass, and kit moved like a single organism, with textures as important as tunes. Their art-house adventurousness shaped the experimental DNA of London jazz that followed.
18. Tomasz Stańko Quartet
The Polish trumpet icon’s 21st-century quartet perfected a brooding, spacious lyricism—poetic themes, open harmonies, and a cinematic calm. With younger collaborators, Stańko folded European classical sensibilities into post-bop freedom, exporting a distinctly Central European sound to global stages. His late-period recordings became touchstones for modern trumpet tone.
17. Hiromi Uehara
A virtuoso pianist whose left-hand thunder meets right-hand sparkle, Hiromi fuses jazz, prog-rock, classical fireworks, and fusion energy. Her trios ignite concert halls with rhythmic hairpin turns and singable hooks. She’s a global touring powerhouse who proves that technical bravura and emotional directness can happily coexist.
16. Yazz Ahmed
The Bahrain-born, London-based trumpeter and composer threads Arabic maqam, psychedelic textures, and jazz improvisation into luminous, orchestral-scale works. Her pieces spotlight women’s stories, reframing jazz as a platform for cultural and political narrative. Lush brass choirs and hypnotic grooves make her concerts immersive experiences.
15. Shabaka and the Ancestors
An Afro-cosmic collaboration led by Shabaka Hutchings with South African luminaries, the Ancestors channel spiritual jazz through histories of migration, resistance, and ritual. Long-form themes, chant-like melodies, and volcanic rhythm sections create trance-state intensity. It’s music that sounds ceremonial and insurgent at once.
14. Ezra Collective
This London quintet reframed jazz for a generation raised on Afrobeat, grime, reggae, and gospel. Joy is their thesis statement—tight horn lines, pocket-perfect drums, and communal call-and-response make their live shows cathartic. They also shattered glass ceilings for UK jazz on prize stages, signaling mainstream embrace without sacrificing groove.
13. Yussef Dayes
A drummer-producer with an instantly recognizable pocket, Dayes blends broken-beat, dub, and jazz tradition into sleek, modern propulsion. His work—solo and in collaborations—pairs improvisation with studio craft, giving his records a cinematic crispness. Onstage, he’s a timekeeper and a storyteller, stretching vamps into ecstatic arcs.
12. Kokoroko
Rooted in West African highlife and Afrobeat, Kokoroko crafts luminous horn harmonies over loping, sun-baked rhythms. Their tunes feel conversational—call-and-response lines, elastic bass figures, and patient builds that reward deep listening. They helped globalize the London Afro-jazz sound while centering community and dance.
11. Nubya Garcia
A tenor saxophonist and composer with a resonant, burnished tone, Garcia navigates dub, cumbia, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and hard-swing. Her long forms breathe; themes emerge, dissolve, and return like tides. As a bandleader, she’s a connective node in London’s scene and a festival headliner worldwide.
10. Sons of Kemet
This tuba-and-two-drums juggernaut, led by Shabaka Hutchings, made rhythm the headline: carnival cadence, Caribbean histories, and UK sound-system heft. Politically charged and dance-igniting, their music turned street processions into concert rituals. Even after closing their run, their blueprint—earthy, primal, unstoppable—continues to reverberate.
9. Makaya McCraven
Self-styled as a “beat scientist,” the Chicago drummer reconstructs live recordings into studio-shaped tapestries, blurring the line between composition and curation. He channels hip-hop sampling logic through jazz improvisation, creating albums that feel both archival and futuristic. McCraven’s approach changed how a generation thinks about producing jazz.
8. Cécile McLorin Salvant
A vocalist and composer who treats the repertoire like theater, Salvant resurrects forgotten tunes, writes sharp originals, and renders standards with forensic nuance. Her timbral control, multilingual storytelling, and sly dramaturgy make each set a narrative arc. She’s expanded what “jazz singing” can mean without losing the genre’s emotional core.
7. Jaimie Branch
The late trumpeter, composer, and producer fused punk urgency with spiritual-jazz openness. Her Fly or Die projects moved from anthemic hooks to free-improv squalls, always with a sense of purpose and play. Branch’s legacy is fearless: music as protest, joy, and unfiltered presence.
6. Yussef Kamaal
The short-lived duo of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams sparked a sea change with liquid-funk drumming, Rhodes vamps, and breakbeat kinetics. Their studio sound—minimal, warm, endlessly loopable—became a north star for club-forward jazz. Even apart, the project’s influence remains a foundation of the UK wave.
5. Gregory Porter
Porter’s baritone is a global calling card—comforting, oracular, and radio-ready. He reconnected jazz singing with soul and gospel lineages, writing originals that feel instantly standard-worthy. Stadiums, TV stages, and jazz festivals alike embraced his blend of intimacy and uplift, making him one of the century’s most recognizable jazz voices.
4. Esperanza Spalding
A bassist, vocalist, and composer whose projects range from chamber-jazz operetta to groove-centric fusion, Spalding made creative risk her brand. She brought conservatory-level craft to pop-culture visibility, showing that adventurous music can captivate mass audiences. Each album is a new world, rigorously imagined and beautifully executed.
3. Robert Glasper
Glasper erased borders between jazz harmony, neo-soul texture, and hip-hop rhythm. His “Black Radio” universe introduced jazz improvisers to R&B stars and vice versa, shifting mainstream aesthetics. On keys, he’s all about feel: lush voicings, behind-the-beat phrasing, and an ear for collaboration that keeps redefining crossover.
2. Ambrose Akinmusire
The trumpeter-composer writes with novelist depth—melodic fragments that bloom into ethical questions and civic meditations. His bands sound like living organisms, balancing chamber subtlety with sudden flame. Akinmusire’s work is modern jazz at its most searching: technically formidable, emotionally exacting, and socially awake.
1. Esbjörn Svensson Trio (e.s.t.)
The Scandinavian trio that taught a generation how to make the acoustic piano trio feel cinematic, contemporary, and cool. With rock dynamics, lyrical hooks, and studio-craft sheen, e.s.t. filled arenas and brought European jazz into global popular consciousness. Their catalog remains a touchstone: melodic clarity meeting rhythmic daring, profoundly human and unmistakably modern.
These 21 artists didn’t just keep jazz alive in the 21st century—they expanded its habitat. They proved the music could thrive at festivals and in clubs, on playlists and in concert halls, as protest and as celebration. Above all, they reminded the world that jazz’s true constant is change: a living conversation, renewed with every voice that joins it.
