RIP

Michael Henderson, a funky, energizing bassist who worked with Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis before launching a potent R&B career in the mid-’70s, died on July 19th. He was 71.

A star alto saxophone soloist with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, Gabe Baltazar also made an outsize impact as one of the most celebrated jazz musicians ever to emerge from Hawaii, where he presided as a local hero.

Trombonist and composer Grachan Moncur III, who died last week at 85, was a pillar of Newark's creative music legacy. The Art of the Story remembers him in his own words, from a 2007 conversation with Michael Bourne.

Moncur, who played an outsize role in jazz's evolution during the 1960s, died Friday on his birthday after a period of poor health.

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.