RIP

The brilliant pianist and composer Jessica Williams was known for her devotion to music and her complex personality. She died on March 12.

The incandescent, influential funk musician Betty Davis died on Wednesday. She made a string of albums in the mid-1970s that helped to shape stylish, Afrofuturist strains of funk and hip-hop.

The Pulitzer Prize winner, whose music enveloped everything from the horrors of the Vietnam War to the calls of humpback whales, died Sunday.

The singer's 1968 hit "Different Strokes" became a popular hip-hop sample used by artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy and Kanye West.

Mark Levine, who made his mark in both swinging and Latin jazz as a pianist, trombonist, composer, arranger, and educator, died on Jan. 27, at 83.

The tabla player worked with trailblazing collaborators including Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman.

A master of Puerto Rico's indigenous music forms, bomba and plena, Héctor “Tito” Matos died on Jan. 18 at his home in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He was 53.

A sharp and ebullient drummer known for his close association with Roy Hargrove, Montez Coleman died on Jan. 14 in St. Louis, MO.

Teachout has died at the age of 65. He wrote acclaimed biographies of such arts figures as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and George Balanchine.