Songwriter Arthur Schwartz(born Nov 25, 1900) was trained as a lawyer, but encouraged by friends George Gershwin and Lorenz Hart, soon abandoned that career and became a successful popular songwriter. His tunes are featured in several Broadway shows, and many of his tunes are favorite vehicles for jazz musicians due to their interesting harmonic structure. His longtime lyricist, Howard Dietz, a collaborator with composer Jerome Kern, initially rebuffed Schwartz’s entreaties to write with him, but by 1927 relented and their partnership produced many songs that are much loved contributions to the Great American Songbook.

Gerry Mulligan (born April 6, 1927) is possibly the best known baritone saxophonist in jazz, but he has also recorded on soprano and tenor saxophones, clarinet and piano. He is a prolific composer and arranger, contributing scores to the Miles Davis Birth of the Cool nonet, the Claude Thornhill and Stan Kenton bands, and his own Concert Jazz Band in the early 60s and 80s. His innovative piano-less quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker was the accidental result of the piano having been put into storage at the club where the group made its debut, and the group’s spare, lyrical, contrapuntal style immediately became emblematic of the west coast jazz style.

John Lenwood “Jackie” McClean (born May 17, 1931) grew up in the same neighborhood in Harlem that was home to Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell and Thelonius Monk, and soon fell under the sway of the Bebop Revolution, particularly as espoused by Charlie Parker. Throughout his career, Jackie kept his ears open to new developments in the music, while still remaining grounded in the bebop vocabulary of his youth, he recorded with many more adventuresome players, Ornette Coleman and Woody Shaw to name two. He became a well respected professor at Hart School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut and produced many talented students who have gone on to distinguished careers in jazz.