Wynton Kelly
b. 2 December 1931, Jamaica, West Indies, d. 12 April 1971. Raised in New York, Kelly first played piano professionally with various R&B bands, where his musical associates included Eddie Lockjaw Davis. In the early '50s, he played with Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington and Lester Young. In 1954, after military service, he rejoined both Gillespie and Washington for brief stints and later played with many important contemporary musicians, notably Charles Mingus and Miles Davis, with whom he worked from 1959-63. Kelly also led his own trio, using the bass ( Paul Chambers) and drums ( Jimmy Cobb) from Davis's band, and also recorded successfully with a variety of artists such as Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard and George Coleman. A subtle and inventive player, Kelly's style was his own even if his work denotes his awareness both of his contemporaries and the piano masters of an earlier generation. Throughout his records there is a constant sense of freshness and an expanding maturity of talent, which made his death, in April 1971, following an epileptic fit, all the more tragic.