Mt. Rushmore is an impressive abomination when you think about it. Carving those dudes' faces into a mountain? And those 4 faces? They're not the 4 I'd have chosen, that's for sure.

Anyway, if they carve up a mountain into Jazz faces I'd like to see:

Fletcher Henderson, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane

Who aren't the 4 what you would have chose?

Not to mention that it was a sacred site for the Lakota Sioux before it was defaced by the US government.

The Mount Rushmore faces of course: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and T. Roosevelt.

The first 3 are standard I guess and if were going to spend a gazillion dollars on carving president busts into mountains I think they're fair choices. My real problem is with TR. I just don't like him. Who to replace him with? If it has to be a US Pres I would stick with the originals and throw John Adams or James Madison up there

Coltrane, Ayler, Taylor, Coleman.

Both based on personal preference and what they brought to the scene.

Cecil Taylor?
I like the list. Mine would have looked more like it if I had listed my 4 favorite artists. Ornette Coleman for sure

I'd love to take this to PM or another thread. But why you would take down TR, I have no idea.

Not to mention, he loved what would become Jazz.

Yup, Cecil. Ornette's more of my 'influence' one - Probably just because I haven't been wowed by much that I've checked out, and becuase I simply haven't checked out enough. Since he played a really big role in Free Jazz and his compositions really helped move it along, I kind of owe a lot to him just for that, since Free Jazz is my favorite subgenre of Jazz.

Plus, in a couple of years when I'm more versed in his music than I am now, I'll definitely have more good things to say about him.

Armstrong, Ellington, Davis...yeah the 4th one is tricky. Who is the Teddy Roosevelt of jazz? Monk or Coltrane would be my suggestion(though Parker is another understandable choice)

Coltrane, Russell, Armstrong, Coleman. Debating whether or not Zorn deserves a place in there, but I figure this is more of a foundations of jazz kind of thing right? Like the founding fathers.