William McKinley “Red” Garland Jr. (May 13, 1923 – April 23, 1984) was an American modern jazzpianist. Known for his work as a bandleader and during the 1950s with Miles Davis, Garland helped popularize the block chord style of playing in jazz piano.

William “Red” Garland was born in 1923 in Dallas, Texas. He began his musical studies on the clarinet and alto saxophone but, in 1941, switched to the piano. Less than five years later, Garland joined the trumpet player Hot Lips Page, well-known in the southwest, playing with him until a tour ended in New York in March 1946. With Garland having decided to stay in New York to find work, Art Blakey came across Garland playing at a small club, only to return the next night with his boss, Billy Eckstine.

Ian Ernest Gilmore Evans (né Green; May 13, 1912 – March 20, 1988) was a Canadian–American jazzpianist, arranger, composer and bandleader. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest orchestrators in jazz, playing an important role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, and jazz fusion. He is best known for his acclaimed collaborations with Miles Davis.

Gary George Peacock (May 12, 1935 – September 4, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist. He recorded a dozen albums under his own name, and also performed and recorded with major jazz figures such as avant garde saxophonist Albert Ayler, pianists Bill Evans, Paul Bley and Marilyn Crispell, and as a part of Keith Jarrett’s “Standards Trio” with drummer Jack DeJohnette. The trio existed for over thirty years, and recorded over twenty albums together. DeJohnette once stated that he admired Peacock’s “sound, choice of notes, and, above all, the buoyancy of his playing.” Marilyn Crispell called Peacock a “sensitive musician with a great harmonic sense.”

Peacock was born in Burley, Idaho, on May 12, 1935; his father worked as a business consultant for grocery stores, and his mother was a homemaker. He grew up in Yakima, Washington, where he attended Yakima Senior High School, now called A.C. Davis High School. His earliest musical experiences involved playing piano, trumpet, and drums. When he was 15, he heard live jazz for the first time, attending a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert featuring Oscar Peterson and Ray Brown. Peacock graduated in 1953; while playing for his class, he had a profound experience, stating: “I was playing the drums, and had the experience of being played rather than playing… I realized that something transformative had happened… and there was this certainty. From the bottom of my feet to the top of my head, it was totally clear: ‘Oh, this is the direction to go.’

Gerald Foster Wiggins (May 12, 1922 – July 13, 2008) was an American jazz pianist and organist. Wiggins was born in New York City on May 12, 1922. He studied classical music, but switched to jazz in his teens.

Wiggins began as a professional career as a musician accompanying comedian Stepin Fetchit. Wiggins worked with Louis Armstrong and Benny Carter. He was in the military from 1944 to 1946. In the 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he played music for television and film. He also worked with singers like Lena Horne (1950–51), Kay Starr, and Eartha Kitt. In 1960, his best recording as an organist appeared, Wiggin’ Out, known for the quality of its music and fresh, clear sound. He recorded another LP at the organ with saxophonist Teddy Edwards. “In the 1960s he worked as a music director and vocal coach in film studios,” including “a lengthy stint as vocal coach for Marilyn Monroe.” In the 1970s he often collaborated with vocalist Helen Humes.

Rumba Flamenca may be the most widely known and least understood of the flamenco forms. Most of the world first heard Rumba Flamenca via the Gypsy Kings in songs like Bamboleo and Volare. In Spain, Rumba Flamenca has come in and out of style since Niña de los Peines first recorded a Rumba in 1918. Since then, artists such as El Chaqueta, Chano Lobato and Miguel Vargas Jiménez (Bambino) have become closely associated with the form. Thanks to the Gypsy Kings and their countless imitators, and to recordings like Paco de Lucia’s Entre Dos Aguas, Rumba Flamenca has become essentially a two guitar form, with one guitar playing a solo melody while the other plays the harmony with the characteristic rumba rasgueado pattern, this often assisted with bass and percussion. 

Claude Hudson “Butch” Trucks (May 11, 1947 – January 24, 2017) was an American drummer. He was best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Trucks was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. He played in various groups before forming the 31st of February while at Florida State University in the mid-1960s. He joined the Allman Brothers Band in 1969. Their 1971 live release, At Fillmore East, represented an artistic and commercial breakthrough. The group became one of the most popular bands of the era on the strength of their live performances and several successful albums. Though the band broke up and re-formed various times, Trucks remained a constant in their 45-year career. Trucks died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on January 24, 2017. Claude Hudson Trucks was born on May 11, 1947, in Jacksonville, Florida. His father was an optician. He first discovered his talent at drumming when prompted by a band director at Ribault Junior High: “The band director gave three of us sticks and said, ‘Play me something,'” he recalled. He then attended Jean Ribault High School, where he was made first chair as a freshman.

Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera Escalator over the Hill (released as a triple LP set), as well as a book of compositions that have been performed by many other artists, including Gary Burton, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Art Farmer, John Scofield and her ex-husband Paul Bley.

Bley was born in Oakland, California, United States, to Emil Borg (1899–1990), a piano teacher and church choirmaster, who encouraged her to sing and to learn to play the piano, and Arline Anderson (1907–1944), who died when Bley was eight years old. After giving up the church to immerse herself in roller skating at the age of fourteen, she moved to New York at seventeen and became a cigarette girl at Birdland, where she met jazz pianist Paul Bley. She toured with him under the name Karen Borg, before she changed her name in 1957 to Carla Borg and married Paul Bley the same year adopting the Bley name. He encouraged her to start composing. The couple divorced in 1967, but she kept his surname professionally.

Carlos Eduardo Lyra Barbosa (born 11 May 1933) is a Brazilian singer and composer of numerous bossa nova and Música popular brasileira classics. He and Antonio Carlos Jobim, were the first two music composers, together with lyricists Vinicius de Moraes and Ronaldo Boscoli, to be recorded by João Gilbertoon his first LP entitled Chega de Saudade (1959), which was called the first generation of Bossa Nova.

Frederick Roach (May 11, 1931 – October 3, 1980) was an American soul jazz Hammond B3 organist born in The Bronx, New York, United States. Roach’s first commercial recordings were with saxophonist Ike Quebec for Blue Note Records in the fall of 1961. These sessions produced Quebec’s albums Heavy Soul and It Might as Well Be Spring. In March of 1962, Roach recorded as a backing musician for the Thunderbird album by Willis Jackson. From 1962-64, Roach recorded 5 albums as a leader for Blue Note, and also recorded with Donald Byrd on the album I’m Tryin’ to Get Home. Roach’s original writing, steady basslines, and highly musical fleet-fingered right hand set him apart From 1966-67 he recorded three more albums as a leader for Prestige Records, which are in a more commercial vein than his Blue Note dates. Roach’s Prestige albums were his last commercial recordings.

Dean Rudland, in the liner notes to a CD reissue of Roach’s Prestige albums Soul Book and Mocha Motion, wrote that Roach moved to Paris in the 1970s and worked as an arranger for Oliver Lake’s big band. Roach can be heard reciting one of his own poems on a 1974 album by jazz bassist Bob Reid titled Africa Is Calling Me: A Modern Day Black Opera (Kwela Records, 30K010), which was recorded in Paris and featured Oliver Lake.

Roach reportedly later moved to California to work in the film industry. He suffered a heart attack and died in 1980.

Seán Keane, one of the finest Irish folk music fiddlers, passed away on May 7, 2023. He was best known as the fiddler for the influential Irish and Celtic music band, The Chieftains.

Keane grew up in Drimnagh, a suburb of Dublin. He was born into a family with a rich musical heritage. His parents, both accomplished fiddle players, were revered members of the traditional music communities in County Longford and County Clare. Their home was a frequent destination for a multitude of traveling traditional players from all across Ireland, who performed in the bustling streets of Dublin. The Keane household became a veritable landmark in Dublin’s traditional music scene in the 1950s and 1960s, and it was here that Seán and his brother James, an accordion player, honed their craft.

Their summer trips to Longford and Clare further fueled their passion for traditional music and introduced them to an array of styles and techniques. These experiences were instrumental in shaping Seán’s musical direction and creative expression.

In 1968, Seán Keane made his foray into the world of professional music by joining the acclaimed Irish traditional music band, The Chieftains. With his virtuosic fiddle playing and his deep-seated passion for traditional music, he quickly became an integral member of the group. Seán’s contributions to The Chieftains’ discography, which spans several decades, are nothing short of remarkable.