Pee Wee Russell, though often mistakenly associated only with Dixieland jazz, defied classification.  His unorthodox playing and highly individualistic and spontaneous clarinet style pushed boundaries. Coleman Hawkins is almost unanimously considered to be one of the first prominent saxophonists of jazz. While he came up with swing during the big band era, he had a crucial role in the development of bebop in the 1940s. And by the 1960s' he was considered a jazz patriarch.