Arnold Schoenberg

popular name: Al Wilson

date_of_death: April 21, 2008

age: 68

cause_of_death: Kidney Failure

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Al Wilson is best remembered for the #1 pop hit "Show and Tell". From the age of 12 Wilson was already singing professionally - his own spiritual quartet and singing in the church choir, even performing covers of country & western hits. After a two-year military stint, Wilson settled in Los Angeles, touring the local nightclub circuit before joining the R&B vocal group the Jewels; from there he landed with the Rollers, followed by a stint with the instrumental combo the Souls. In 1966 singer Johnny Rivers not only signed Wilson to his Soul City imprint, but also agreed to produce the sessions that yielded the 1968 R&B smash "The Snake." The minor hit "Do What You Gotta Do" appeared that same year, but Wilson then largely disappeared from sight until 1973, when he issued the platinum-selling Weighing In -- the album's success was spurred by the shimmering "Show and Tell," a Johnny Mathis castoff that sold well over a million copies. "The La La Peace Song," released in 1974, proved another major hit, and two years later, "I've Got a Feeling We'll Be Seeing Each Other Again" peaked at number three on the R&B chart. With 1979's "Count the Days" Wilson scored his final chart hit and spent the next two decades touring local clubs and lounges before succumbing to kidney disease at the age of 68.

popular name: Art Pepper

date_of_death: June 15, 1982

age: 56

cause_of_death: Stroke

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Considered by many to be the the world's great altoist of his generation, Art Pepper was an alto saxophonist anda longtime fixture in West Coast jazz circles. He first started jamming at the age of 13 on Central Avenue (the black nightclub district in South Central L.A. in the 1940s). At the age of 17, he began playing professionally with Benny Carter and then became part of the Stan Kenton orchestra, touring with that band until 1943. After he played primarily with his own group. Despite his addiction to heroin, his substance abuse and legal travails did not affect the quality of his recordings, which maintained a high level of musicianship throughout his career until his death in 1982.

popular name: Cootie Williams

date_of_death: September 15, 1985

age: 74

cause_of_death: Kidney disease

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Cootie Williams was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter who is best remembered for his tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Cootie first played professionally with the Young Family Band (which included the future tenor sax superstar Lester Young) when he was 14. In his later teens, he settled in New York and worked with James P. Johnson, Chick Webb, and Fletcher Henderson. Joining the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1929, among the hundreds of Ellington recordings on which he is featured, the “miniature concertos” “Echoes of Harlem” and “Concerto for Cootie” are especially noted; he also led a small ensemble of fellow Ellington band members, Cootie Williams and His Rug Cutters, on outstanding recordings. Williams left Ellington in 1940 and spent a year in Benny Goodman’s band. In the face of the general decline of the big band business, he led a big band for much of the 1940s and rhythm-and-blues units after that. He rejoined Ellington in 1962; by then he was a somewhat coarser but no less dramatic player. After Duke’s death he played in the Mercer Ellington band into the 1970s.