Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz

Robin Meloy Goldsby may have been destined for show business. She had the requisite musical roots –- her father, Bob Rawsthorne, played drums for the PBS program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. She also had the early childhood experiences: Through her dad's involvement in Pittsburgh show business, she had the opportunity to act and play piano in various local productions.

Like many artists of his generation, singer Ed Reed saw his career interrupted by drug use and incarceration. JazzTimes magazine recently ran a piece on the Narcotic Farm, a prison for addicts in Lexington, Ky., known for the jazz players who performed behind bars. San Quentin, where Reed did his time, also hosted some notorious jazz players, including Art Pepper, Frank Butler and Frank Morgan.

Guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli is one of the hottest acts in jazz today. With his hip, swinging and sophisticated style, he makes music that sounds both classic and thoroughly modern.

Bobby Broom was born in Harlem on January 18, 1961 and grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He didn't begin playing guitar until age 12 and his first lessons focused on folk music. A year later, Broom began studying with a jazz guitar teacher named, Jimmy Carter. Though Carter encouraged his student to listen to jazz, Broom was more interested in the pop hits of the day from Earth Wind and Fire and Kool and The Gang.

Born in 1942 in Harlem, Larry Willis grew up around music; jazz was popular in his neighborhood, and closer to home, he had a brother who played piano. As a child, Willis noodled around on the piano that was in the house, but his talent seemed to lie in singing.

Since he first came to New York 30 years ago, pianist and composer Michel Camilo has made a name for himself as an inventive and ferocious jazz player. His amazing skills at the piano, forged at the Dominican Republic's National Conservatory and National Symphony Orchestra — and later, at Mannes and Juilliard in New York — have allowed him to make contributions to the world of classical music as well.