Orrin Keepnews (March 2, 1923 – March 1, 2015) was an American jazz writer and record producer

WIKIPEDIA Keepnews was born in the Bronx on March 2, 1923. He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in English in 1943. Subsequently, he was involved in bombing raids over Japan in the final months of World War II, before returning for graduate studies at Columbia in 1946. While working as an editor for the book publishers Simon and Schuster, Keepnews moonlighted as editor of The Record Changer, a small jazz magazine, after fellow Columbia graduate Bill Grauer became its owner in 1948. Keepnews wrote one of the earliest profiles of Thelonious Monk, then little known, for the publication. The following year Grauer and Keepnews founded Riverside Records, which was initially devoted to reissue projects in the traditional and swing jazz idioms. Pianist Randy Weston was the first modern jazz artist signed by the label as a conscious move into the jazz scene of the day. According to Keepnews, Grauer heard him at the Music Inn in The Berkshires, Massachusetts in 1953, and persuaded his partner to sign him after Keepnews had heard Weston for himself; he had learnt not to trust Grauer's musical taste In 1985 Keepnews founded Landmark Records, whose catalog included albums recorded by the Kronos Quartet of music by Bill Evans and Monk, as well as straight jazz albums.[7] For Landmark, Bobby Hutcherson recorded his most extensive sequence of latter-day albums. Landmark passed to Muse Records in 1993. Orrin Keepnews won several Recording Academy Grammy Awards in the 1980s: Best Album Notes for The "Interplay" Sessions performed by Bill Evans in 1984 and Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes for Thelonious Monk: The Complete Riverside Recordings in 1988. In the CD era Keepnews continued to be responsible for extensive reissue compilations, including the Duke Ellington 24-CD RCA Centennial set in 1999 and Riverside's Keepnews Editions series.
 

Clark Terry (December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015)

He was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, educator, and NEA Jazz Masters inductee. WIKIPEDIA Trumpeter Clark Terry, Who Played in ‘Tonight Show’ Band, Dies at 94VARIETY

Horace Silver (born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva, September 2, 1928 – June 18, 2014) was an American jazz pianist and composer.

WIKIPEDIA BIO Silver is known for his distinctive playing style and pioneering compositional contributions to hard bop. He was influenced by a wide range of musical styles, notably gospel music, African music, and Latin American music, and sometimes ventured into the soul jazz genre.

  

Jazz singer Jaimee Paul former backup singer for country music legend Wynonna Judd

“I was always involved with music,” the fair-haired Southern Illinois native reports. Her parents are both musical: her mom taught music and piano in the public school system for 30 years, and her dad studied music in college before deciding on a career in engineering. “I like to think I use both sides of the brain,” she says, “mathematics and science from my dad and music and art from my mother.”

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Toots Thielemans (born Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans on 29 April 1922, Brussels, Belgium) is a Belgian jazz guitarist

Thielemans is also credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century. He has worked as a bandleader (scoring an international hit in the 1960s with his song "Bluesette") and as a sideman (notably on many projects with composer/arranger Quincy Jones), and has appeared on dozens of film soundtracks. In 2009 he became NEA Jazz Master, the highest honour for a jazz musician in the United States. He may be best known to some as the performer whistling the melody in commercials for Old Spice cologne, and to others for performing the Sesame Street theme on harmonica. He announced his retirement, at the age of 91, on 12 March 2014. He took the stage since once, as a surprise act on 17 August 2014, at the Jazz Middelheim Festival in Antwerp, to perform an intimate version of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World".

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George Van Eps (August 7, 1913 – November 29, 1998) was an American swing and mainstream jazz guitarist.

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Noted for his recordings as a leader, and his work as a session musician, Van Eps was also the author of instructional books that explored his approach to guitar-based harmony. He was well known as a pioneer of the seven-string guitar, which allowed him to incorporate sophisticated bass lines into his improvisation. He was a strong influence on later seven-string players such as Howard Alden (with whom he recorded four CDs for Concord Records in the early 1990s), Bucky Pizzarelli, and John Pizzarelli (Bucky's son). His father was the legendary classic banjo player Fred Van Eps. Van Eps died of pneumonia in Newport Beach, California at the age of 85

Robert Marshall (Bobby) Rosengarden (April 23, 1924 – February 27, 2007, Sarasota, Florida) was a jazz drummer, percussionist and bandleader.

A native of Elgin, Illinois, he was a solid and versatile contributor on countless recording sessions and playing in TV network orchestras and talk-show bands. Rosengarden began playing drums when he was 12, and later studied at the University of Michigan. After playing drums in Army bands in World War II, he moved to New York City, working in several groups between 1945 and 1948 before becoming a busy studio musician. He played at NBC-TV (1949–1968) and ABC (1969–1974) on The Steve Allen Show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, Sing Along With Mitch, Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show Band, and led the band for The Dick Cavett Show.

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