The Quartet consisted of John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass), and various drummers, most notably Kenny Clarke (from 1952 to 1955) and Connie Kay (from 1955 to 1994).

The group grew out of the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band from 1946 to 1948, which consisted of Lewis, Jackson, and Clarke along with bassist Ray Brown.

Clarke left the group in 1955 and was replaced as drummer by Kay, and in 1956 they moved to Atlantic Records and made their first tour to Europe.

Two of the four founding members of the Modern Jazz Quartet, pianist John Lewis and drummer Kenny Clarke, met and first performed together in 1944 while stationed with the US army in France during World War II.

The band's rhythm section now consisted of Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Ray Brown (bass), and Clarke (drums).

"[1] Upon the dissolution of Gillespie's band, the rhythm section considered continuing as a quartet under Jackson's name, but they went in their own directions for the next three years.

Brown then left the group to concentrate on working with his wife, singer Ella Fitzgerald, and was replaced as bassist by Percy Heath, who had also performed with Gillespie.

We were all equal members, and the dress, the wearing of tuxedos, and trying to perform in concert rather than always in nightclubs, was part of what he envisioned to change the whole attitude about the music.

These recordings contained the original version of Lewis's composition "Vendome", the Quartet's first experiment with combining jazz and fugal counterpoint.

[6][10] In October 1953, the Quartet began its first major booking at Birdland, which was followed by appearances in Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Carnegie Hall.

The group members had come to have various responsibilities besides playing their instruments: Lewis was the musical director, Jackson handled public relations, Heath managed the finances, and Kay organized the accommodation and transportation.

[1][9] In October of that year the Quartet took their first trip to Europe, where they recorded for South German Radio (SDR), performed on a month-long Birdland All-Star tour with Bud Powell, Miles Davis, and Lester Young, and had a two-week residency at Club Saint-Germain in Paris.

[12] The next year they came back to Europe on their own, performing 88 concerts in four months in Germany, France, and the British Isles, receiving rave reviews.

[1][9] In 1962 they released The Comedy, containing a suite by Lewis inspired by characters from Commedia dell'arte, and Lonely Woman, whose title track was one of the first recorded covers of a composition by free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman.

Lewis, who produced these albums, recalled: "Monte Kay was a friend of the president of the Beatles' company, and he felt we weren't getting the attention we should have, so we went there and had two good records.

In 1973 they recorded the last two studio albums before their hiatus, In Memoriam (with an orchestra conducted by Maurice Peress) and Blues on Bach, both of which were released the next year).

He was also unhappy with the group's touring schedule, which by then had become year-round rather than the previous arrangement in which they had vacations during the northern hemisphere summer.

[17][18][19][20] Kay died in November 1994, after which the group operated on a semi-active basis; the 1995 album Dedicated to Connie, a recording of a 1960 concert in Slovenia, was released in his memory.

There was a marked contrast in styles between Jackson's rhythmically complex blues-based solos and Lewis's restrained manner of playing and classically influenced pieces.

Such traditional jazz devices as polyphony, riffs, breaks, boogie bass, mutes, and fugal counterpoint, as well as a repertory that ranges over the entire history of the music, were everywhere apparent.