George Winston (born December 26, 1949) is an American pianist. He was born in Michigan and raised mainly in Montana (Miles City and Billings),as well as Mississippi and Florida. He is best known for his solo piano recordings. Each of several of his albums from the early 1980s have sold millions of copies. He plays in three styles: the melodic approach he developed that he calls “rural folk piano”; stride piano, primarily inspired by Thomas “Fats” Waller and Teddy Wilson; and his primary interest, New Orleans R&B piano, influenced by James Booker, Professor Longhair, and Henry Butler.

When growing up, Winston’s musical interests lay with instrumentals of the R&B, rock, pop, and jazz genres, especially those by organists. After hearing The Doors in 1967, he was inspired to start playing the organ. In 1971, he switched to solo piano after hearing stride pianists Thomas “Fats” Waller, Teddy Wilson, and later Earl Hines, Donald Lambert, and Cleo Brown.

Winston attended Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, in the 1960s, where he majored in sociology. While he did not complete his undergraduate degree, following his rise to prominence the university awarded him an honorary doctor of arts degree.

Doug Hammond (born December 26, 1942) is an American free funk/avant-garde jazz drummer, composer, poet, producer, and professor. His first major release was Reflections in the Sea of Nurnen on Tribe Records in 1975.

He has worked with musicians including Earl Hooker, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Sammy Price, Donald Byrd, Wolfgang Dauner, Ornette Coleman, Steve Coleman, Nina Simone, Betty Carter, Marion Williams, Paquito D’Rivera, Arnett Cobb, James Blood Ulmer and Arthur Blythe.

In 2010 Doug Hammond wrote and conducted “Acknowledgement Suite” with Dwight Adams, Jean Toussaint, Roman Filiú, Howard Curtis, Wendell Harrison, Dick Griffin, Stéphane Payen, Kirk Lightsey and Arron James.

He was a professor at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz.

János Kőrössy (26 December 1926 – 21 January 2013) was a Romanian jazz musician of Hungarian descent. He was a piano player, composer and arranger.

He was born to an ethnic Hungarian family in Cluj. His first teacher was pianist and conductor Teodor Cosma, of whom he said, “I owe him everything, and for me the beginning is everything, the rest comes by itself.” Kőrössy was noted for combining the musical language typical of jazz with elements of local folk music, a trend referred to as ethno jazz. He arranged in jazz-style George Enescu‘s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1.

Kőrössy’s first name is spelled in many different ways: Hansel, Jancy, Jancsy, Iancsi, Yancy and Yancey. He became a well known jazz musician in the European Eastern bloc in the 1960s, appearing at the International Jazz Festivals in Prague (1960), Warsaw (1961) and Budapest (1962). In 1969 he moved to West Germany and subsequently relocated to the United States, settling in Atlanta, Georgia. He played in Atlanta and in 1981 performed with Zoot Sims. After the Romanian Revolution, he returned to Romania, appearing in 1993 at the Costineşti and Galaţi jazz festivals and 2001 at the International Jazz Festival in Bucharest.

Monte Rex Budwig (December 26, 1929 – March 9, 1992) was a West Coast jazz double bassist, professionally known as Monty Budwig. Monte Rex Budwig was born in Pender, Nebraska, on December 26, 1929. His parents were musical. He began playing bass during high school, and continued in military bands while he was enlisted in the Air Force for three years.

In 1954, Budwig moved to Los Angeles and performed and recorded under the name Monty Budwig with jazz musicians including Carmen McRae, Barney Kessel, Woody Herman, Red Norvo, and Shelly Manne. Budwig played with pianist Vince Guaraldi in the 1960s, including on the pianist’s album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus. Budwig was part of Benny Goodman‘s band for performances in New York, and a tour of Japan in 1964. He also began his career as a studio musician in the 1960s, which encompassed film and television shows, with Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Judy Garland. Budwig taught jazz bassist Scott Colley, then a teenager.

David Noel Redding (25 December 1945 – 11 May 2003) was an English rock musician, best known as the bass player for the Jimi Hendrix Experience and guitarist/singer for Fat Mattress.

Following his departure from the Experience in 1969 and the dissolution of Fat Mattress in 1970, Redding formed the short-lived group Road in the United States, which released the self-titled album Road before he re-located to Clonakilty, Ireland, in 1972. There he formed the Noel Redding Band with former Thin Lizzy guitarist Eric Bell, with whom he released two albums. Although by the 1980s Redding had largely removed himself from the music business, he would later perform around his new hometown with wife Carol Appleby.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1992. Redding was found dead in his home in Clonakilty on 11 May 2003, three weeks after the death of his mother.A postmortem was carried out on 13 May at Cork University Hospital in Wilton, Cork. The report concluded that Redding died from “shock haemorrhage due to oesophageal varices in reaction to cirrhosis of the liver”. He was 57 years old; he was survived by a brother, a sister, and a son, Nicolas Noel Redding, by his former wife, Danish-born Susanne.

Don Gabriel Pullen (December 25, 1941 – April 22, 1995) was an American jazz pianist and organist. Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career. He composed pieces ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz. The great variety of his body of work makes it difficult to pigeonhole his musical style.

Pullen was and raised in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. Growing up in a musical family, he learned the piano at an early age. A graduate of Lucy Addison High School, Pullen played in the school’s band. He played with the choir in his local church and was heavily influenced by his cousin, Clyde “Fats” Wright, who was a professional jazz pianist. He took some lessons in classical piano and knew little of jazz. At this time, he was mainly aware of church music and the blues.

Pullen left Roanoke for Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina to study for a medical career, but soon he realized that his true vocation was music. After playing with local musicians and being exposed for the first time to albums of the major jazz musicians and composers, he abandoned his medical studies. He set out to make a career in music, desirous of playing like Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy.

Charles “Don” Alia (December 25, 1939 in New York City – March 28, 2006 in New York City) was an American jazz percussionist.

Alias was best known for playing congas and other hand drums. He was, however, a capable drum kit performer: for example, Alias played drums on the song “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down” from trumpeter Miles Davis‘s album Bitches Brew (1969) when neither Lenny White nor Jack DeJohnette was able to play the marching band-inspired rhythm requested by Davis.

Alias performed on hundreds of recordings and was perhaps best known for his associations with Miles Davis and saxophonist David Sanborn, though he also performed or recorded with the group Weather Report, singer Joni Mitchell, pianist Herbie Hancock, the Brecker Brothers, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny, Nina Simone and many others. Alias was born in New York City and arrived in Boston in the early 1960s intending to study medicine but, after playing congas in a number of local bands, made an abrupt career switch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtLAaKMhb1w

Ben Dixon (born 25 December 1934 in Gaffney, South Carolina; died 8 November 2018) was an American jazz drummer.

Dixon is best known for his contributions to many soul jazz albums on the Blue Note label led by Grant Green, Lou Donaldson and Big John Patton. He died in 2018.

Oscar Frederic Moore (December 25, 1916 – October 8, 1981) was an American jazz guitarist with the Nat King Cole Trio.

The son of a blacksmith, Moore was born in Austin, Texas, United States. The Moore family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he began performing with his older brother Johnny, who played both trombone and guitar. After moving to Los Angeles, he participated in his first recording session for Decca as part of the Jones Boys Sing Band led and arranged by Leon René. The group attracted local attention on radio and in two short films for MGM directed by Buster Keaton. Soon after, Moore accompanied pianist Nat King Cole at the Swanee Inn in North La Brea, Hollywood. He spent ten years with Cole in the piano-guitar-bass trio format, that influenced Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal. Moore placed or topped polls in DownBeat, Metronome, and Esquire magazines from 1943 through 1948. Art Tatum professed his admiration for Moore in a 1944 magazine interview. After he left the King Cole Trio in October 1947, he joined his brother in Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers as a member of that group into the early 1950s. Moore formed his own trio in 1952 and was active in Los Angeles. He recorded sessions as a leader and as a sideman throughout the 1950s, but left the industry at the end of the decade. He returned to the recording studio in 1965 to record a tribute to Cole and again in the 1970s, briefly backing Helen Humes. Moore died of a heart attack in Clark, Nevada, in 1981.

Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero (December 24, 1916 – March 17, 2005) was an American guitarist, singer and farm labor activist best known for his strong influence on later Latin musical artists.

Guerrero was born in Tucson, Arizona, one of 21 siblings (although only nine survived). His father worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Guerrero left his hometown to pursue his dream in music. He says that he gives his mother all the credit for his musical talent, and Guerrero said she taught him to “embrace the spirit of being Chicano”. Lalo’s mother, Concepcion Guerrero, taught him some basic musical skills and encouraged him to hone them during adolescence. She was no professional musician but had taught herself to play guitar. His relationship with his mother greatly influenced his music; one of the major themes of his work was the visibility of the Chicana struggle for dignity. His first group, Los Carlistas (the quartet included Greg “Goyo” Escalante, Chole Salaz and Joe Salaz), represented Arizona at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and performed on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour on radio.