# The centre of jazz is not Miles Davis. It is his bass player.

Sidney Bechet played soprano saxophone in a jam session with Miles Davis and Charlie Parker in Paris on May 15, 1949. Three sessions link Bechet to Joshua Redman, and the one in the middle is Miles Davis’s quintet with Ron Carter.

Link every pair of musicians listed on the same recording session and 23,067 people, from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1919 to a quintet at Smoke in New York in 2024, form one web. On average, a chain of 3.63 shared sessions joins any two of them. Closest to everyone in it is Ron Carter, Miles Davis’s bass player from 1963: 68.8% of the web is within two sessions of him.

## How many sessions apart are two jazz musicians?

- Sidney Bechet and Miles Davis: Festival International De Jazz All Stars, Salle Pleyel, Paris, France, May 15, 1949. https://www.jazzdisco.org/al-haig/discography/#490515
- Miles Davis and Ron Carter: Miles Davis Quintet, Columbia Studios, Los Angeles, CA, April 16, 1963. https://www.jazzdisco.org/miles-davis/discography/#630416
- Ron Carter and Joshua Redman: John Hicks Combo, BMG Studios, NYC, January 14, 1992. https://www.jazzdisco.org/john-hicks/discography/#920114

## Who is at the centre of jazz?

Count, for each musician, the sessions that separate them from each of the other 23,066, then take the average. For the typical musician it is 3.51. For Ron Carter it is 2.31, the lowest of all. He shared a session with 1,346 different musicians; another 14,531 played with at least one of them. That makes 68.8% of the web within two sessions of him, and 95.1% within three.

Miles Davis, named in the heading (the leader or band name above the personnel list) of 344 of the 396 sessions he played on here, comes 25th. Carter played on 59 of those sessions, from April 16, 1963 on. John Coltrane is 166th.

Carter is also on more sessions here than anyone else, 693. That alone does not decide the order: Hank Jones, second for sessions with 452, ranks 7th, and Jerome Richardson, with 309, ranks second.

## Who connects jazz? Players rarely named in a session’s heading

Of the 50 musicians closest to everyone else, 23 are named in the heading of fewer than one in twenty of their own sessions. They are lit in gold in the sky.

Jerome Richardson, who played flute and saxophones, is second. He was on 309 sessions and named in the heading of 7; the heading he appears under most often is Quincy Jones And His Orchestra, 29 times. The trumpeter Ernie Royal is 5th, named in 4 of his 332. Jim Buffington played French horn on 139 sessions and was named in the heading of none of them. He is 33rd, ahead of John Coltrane: both are listed on John Coltrane Orchestra, Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 23, 1961.

Their sessions were crowded. The median session in the web lists 5 of its musicians. Jerome Richardson’s median session had 14, Ernie Royal’s 17 and Jim Buffington’s 20. A big-band or orchestral date put that many players on one session, and the same players were booked for date after date.

## Does the centre hold for small groups?

Count only sessions with ten musicians or fewer: 15,057 musicians remain in one web, on average 3.93 sessions apart. Ron Carter is still first, at 2.48. Next come Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan and Kenny Burrell.

## Which jazz musicians are closest to everyone?

| Rank | Musician | Average sessions away | Played with | Sessions | In heading |
|---:|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| 1 | Ron Carter | 2.31 | 1,346 | 693 | 60 |
| 2 | Jerome Richardson | 2.40 | 1,142 | 309 | 7 |
| 3 | Phil Woods | 2.42 | 804 | 318 | 99 |
| 4 | Kenny Burrell | 2.42 | 783 | 373 | 128 |
| 5 | Ernie Royal | 2.42 | 1,003 | 332 | 4 |
| 6 | Clark Terry | 2.43 | 864 | 306 | 46 |
| 7 | Hank Jones | 2.44 | 792 | 452 | 71 |
| 8 | Richard Davis | 2.45 | 830 | 287 | 5 |
| 9 | Tommy Flanagan | 2.45 | 563 | 321 | 60 |
| 10 | Jimmy Cleveland | 2.46 | 881 | 295 | 9 |
| 11 | Hubert Laws | 2.46 | 910 | 173 | 32 |
| 12 | Grady Tate | 2.46 | 803 | 268 | 1 |
| 13 | Frank Wess | 2.47 | 639 | 191 | 19 |
| 14 | Pepper Adams | 2.48 | 654 | 160 | 27 |
| 15 | Seldon Powell | 2.48 | 866 | 184 | 4 |
| 16 | Zoot Sims | 2.48 | 711 | 266 | 102 |
| 17 | Stan Getz | 2.48 | 729 | 277 | 194 |
| 18 | Ray Brown | 2.48 | 717 | 424 | 28 |
| 19 | Freddie Hubbard | 2.48 | 650 | 206 | 69 |
| 20 | Joe Newman | 2.48 | 766 | 262 | 20 |
| 21 | Dizzy Gillespie | 2.48 | 824 | 257 | 154 |
| 22 | Herbie Hancock | 2.48 | 701 | 306 | 54 |
| 23 | Milt Hinton | 2.49 | 842 | 363 | 2 |
| 24 | Snooky Young | 2.49 | 787 | 148 | 1 |
| 25 | Miles Davis | 2.49 | 596 | 396 | 344 |
| 26 | J.J. Johnson | 2.49 | 577 | 179 | 40 |
| 27 | Roy Haynes | 2.50 | 441 | 252 | 25 |
| 28 | Art Farmer | 2.50 | 646 | 215 | 90 |
| 29 | Benny Powell | 2.50 | 637 | 143 | 5 |
| 30 | Elvin Jones | 2.50 | 480 | 341 | 63 |
| 31 | Urbie Green | 2.51 | 760 | 181 | 9 |
| 32 | Romeo Penque | 2.51 | 763 | 161 | 0 |
| 33 | Jim Buffington | 2.51 | 778 | 139 | 0 |
| 34 | George Duvivier | 2.52 | 765 | 324 | 0 |
| 35 | Garnett Brown | 2.52 | 753 | 110 | 0 |
| 36 | Herbie Mann | 2.52 | 565 | 205 | 159 |
| 37 | Bob Cranshaw | 2.52 | 543 | 280 | 0 |
| 38 | Howard Johnson | 2.53 | 548 | 76 | 0 |
| 39 | Benny Golson | 2.53 | 493 | 145 | 52 |
| 40 | Milt Jackson | 2.53 | 558 | 265 | 95 |
| 41 | Jerry Dodgion | 2.53 | 601 | 124 | 1 |
| 42 | Bernie Glow | 2.54 | 711 | 152 | 0 |
| 43 | Danny Bank | 2.54 | 617 | 159 | 0 |
| 44 | Kenny Barron | 2.54 | 549 | 258 | 55 |
| 45 | Jon Faddis | 2.54 | 708 | 95 | 2 |
| 46 | Britt Woodman | 2.54 | 528 | 74 | 0 |
| 47 | Chuck Rainey | 2.54 | 718 | 199 | 0 |
| 48 | Ralph MacDonald | 2.54 | 656 | 166 | 0 |
| 49 | Jack DeJohnette | 2.54 | 515 | 267 | 37 |
| 50 | Max Roach | 2.54 | 538 | 307 | 123 |
| 51 | Eric Gale | 2.54 | 726 | 190 | 3 |
| 52 | Joe Henderson | 2.54 | 580 | 176 | 48 |
| 52 | Thad Jones | 2.54 | 461 | 147 | 29 |
| 54 | Johnny Griffin | 2.54 | 528 | 178 | 71 |
| 55 | Julius Watkins | 2.55 | 480 | 133 | 3 |
| 56 | Billy Higgins | 2.55 | 346 | 262 | 11 |
| 57 | Mel Lewis | 2.55 | 511 | 198 | 16 |
| 58 | Sam Jones | 2.55 | 346 | 259 | 11 |
| 59 | Bernard Purdie | 2.55 | 652 | 204 | 2 |
| 60 | Cedar Walton | 2.55 | 379 | 216 | 39 |
| 61 | Joe Wilder | 2.56 | 591 | 120 | 2 |
| 62 | Jim Hall | 2.56 | 402 | 193 | 52 |
| 63 | Wayne Andre | 2.56 | 629 | 97 | 0 |
| 64 | Donald Byrd | 2.56 | 449 | 178 | 68 |
| 65 | Philly Joe Jones | 2.56 | 392 | 191 | 18 |
| 66 | Joe Farrell | 2.56 | 621 | 138 | 10 |
| 67 | Lee Konitz | 2.56 | 345 | 121 | 54 |
| 68 | Dexter Gordon | 2.56 | 472 | 191 | 130 |
| 69 | Jimmy Knepper | 2.56 | 437 | 85 | 5 |
| 70 | Eddie Bert | 2.56 | 565 | 82 | 6 |
| 71 | Chick Corea | 2.57 | 486 | 219 | 86 |
| 72 | Nat Adderley | 2.57 | 406 | 168 | 35 |
| 73 | Charlie Haden | 2.57 | 378 | 183 | 61 |
| 74 | Gene Orloff | 2.57 | 721 | 127 | 1 |
| 75 | Art Blakey | 2.57 | 412 | 317 | 154 |
| 76 | Bobby Hutcherson | 2.57 | 435 | 164 | 61 |
| 77 | Julian Priester | 2.58 | 441 | 103 | 4 |
| 78 | Sahib Shihab | 2.58 | 446 | 110 | 8 |
| 79 | Marvin Stamm | 2.58 | 587 | 106 | 9 |
| 80 | Blue Mitchell | 2.58 | 439 | 137 | 33 |
| 81 | Chet Baker | 2.58 | 571 | 236 | 195 |
| 82 | Jimmy Cobb | 2.58 | 389 | 208 | 14 |
| 83 | Stanley Turrentine | 2.58 | 575 | 152 | 86 |
| 84 | Tony Studd | 2.58 | 553 | 132 | 0 |
| 85 | Slide Hampton | 2.58 | 470 | 78 | 18 |
| 86 | Bob Brookmeyer | 2.58 | 374 | 176 | 47 |
| 87 | Ray Barretto | 2.58 | 519 | 125 | 6 |
| 88 | Curtis Fuller | 2.58 | 417 | 170 | 39 |
| 89 | Eddie Gomez | 2.59 | 374 | 176 | 2 |
| 90 | Al Cohn | 2.59 | 517 | 187 | 54 |
| 91 | Kai Winding | 2.59 | 510 | 160 | 50 |
| 92 | Charlie Persip | 2.59 | 454 | 152 | 2 |
| 93 | Wayne Shorter | 2.59 | 480 | 255 | 35 |
| 94 | Osie Johnson | 2.59 | 587 | 285 | 6 |
| 95 | Billy Hart | 2.59 | 473 | 193 | 10 |
| 96 | Paul Faulise | 2.59 | 495 | 70 | 0 |
| 97 | Jimmy Heath | 2.60 | 344 | 112 | 20 |
| 98 | Cecil Payne | 2.60 | 449 | 116 | 21 |
| 99 | Cornell Dupree | 2.60 | 570 | 136 | 4 |
| 100 | Randy Brecker | 2.60 | 624 | 112 | 4 |

## How the web was built

The Jazz Discography Project lists recording sessions with their personnel, date and place. It covers the catalogues of 20 labels, among them Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Verve, Impulse!, Atlantic, Savoy, CTI and ECM, the careers of 873 artists and groups, and the sessions of Rudy Van Gelder’s studio year by year. Its 1,239 session pages, read on 20 October 2026, hold 41,913 session entries. The same session often appears on a label’s page and on several musicians’ pages; merging entries with the same date and largely the same players leaves 27,977.

Two musicians are linked if both are listed on one session. Names are matched after merging spellings of the same person (Arthur Taylor and Art Taylor, Charlie and Charles Mingus); 850 such merges were made, each checked against the players the two names shared. Attributions marked “possibly” or “probably”, or given as one player “or” another, are left out. Unnamed players (“unidentified strings”) are left out, and so are credits that do not put someone on the date: producers, arrangers, composers, engineers, announcers, and bands credited under a group name.

Of 24,689 musicians, 23,067 (93.4%) are joined in one web by 377,641 pairs. The rest recorded only with each other, or alone. The 23,067 musicians in the web appear on 25,511 sessions. Distances are the fewest sessions needed to get from one musician to another; the average for a musician is taken over every other musician in the web, and musicians with equal averages share a rank. When several shortest chains exist, the page shows the one through the busiest musicians, and for each step the earliest session the two share.

### What the web leaves out

The web is only as wide as the discography. It follows labels and musicians that the project has documented, mostly from bebop onwards, so a musician recorded mainly for other labels looks less connected than they were. Louis Armstrong appears on 41 sessions here, a fraction of his career, and ranks 1,687th.

A name is not always one person. Two players with the same name are split when they played different instruments in eras at least ten years apart with no partner in common (214 names), and 22 more were split by hand from their instruments and dates, among them Bill Evans the pianist and Bill Evans the saxophonist, and Howard Johnson the 1930s alto player and Howard Johnson the tuba player. Namesakes on the same instrument at the same time cannot be told apart from the listings alone.

Some entries list a whole album recorded over several dates: 3,513 of the 25,511 sessions in the web carry more than one date. Two players on such an entry may not have recorded together, and the chain finder says so when a step rests on one.

A shared session means both names are in its personnel. On an overdubbed or orchestral date, or when the listing puts them on different tracks, they may never have met.

## Source

Jazz Discography Project, https://www.jazzdisco.org/ (GNU Free Documentation License 1.3).

https://mariuscomper.uk/the-centre-of-jazz/