Teddy Wilson....

Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson (November 24, 1912 – July 31, 1986) was a jazz pianist from the United States born in Austin, Texas. His sophisticated and elegant style graced the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. He is considered one of the most influential jazz pianists of all time.

Wilson studied piano and violin at Tuskegee Institute. After working in the Lawrence "Speed" Webb band, with Louis Armstrong and also "understudying" Earl Hines in Hines's Grand Terrace Cafe Orchestra, Wilson joined Benny Carter's Chocolate Dandies in 1933. In 1935 he joined the Benny Goodman Trio (which consisted of Goodman, Wilson and drummer Gene Krupa, later expanded to the Benny Goodman Quartet with the addition of Lionel Hampton). The trio performed during the big band's intermissions. By joining the trio, Wilson became the first black musician to perform in public with a previously all-white jazz group.

The noted jazz writer and producer John Hammond was instrumental in getting Wilson a contract with Brunswick, starting in 1935, to record hot swing arrangements of the popular songs of the day, with the growing jukebox trade in mind. He recorded fifty hit records with various singers such as Lena Horne and Helen Ward, including many of Billie Holiday's greatest successes. During these years he also took part in many highly regarded sessions with a wide range of important swing musicians, such as Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Charlie Shavers, Red Norvo, Buck Clayton and Ben Webster.

Wilson formed his own short-lived big band in 1939, then led a sextet at Cafe Society from 1940 to 1944. He was dubbed the "Marxist Mozart" by Howard "Stretch" Johnson due to his support for left-wing causes – he performed in benefit concerts for The New Masses journal and for Russian War Relief, and chaired the Artists' Committee to elect Benjamin J. Davis.[1] In the 1950s he taught at the Juilliard School. Wilson can be seen appearing as himself in the motion picture The Benny Goodman Story (1955).

Wilson lived quietly in suburban Hillsdale, NJ in the 1960s and 1970s. He performed as a soloist, and with pick-up groups until the final years of his life. Teddy Wilson died on July 31, 1986.
http://www.wikipedia.com/

Wilson was the most important pianist of the swing period. His early recordings reveal a percussive style, with single-note lines and bold staccatos, that was indebted to Earl Hines; but by the time of his first performances with Goodman he had fashioned a distinctive legato idiom that served him for the rest of his career. Wilson's style was based on the use of conjunct 10ths in the left hand; by emphasizing the tenor voice and frequently omitting the root of the chord until the end of the phrase he created great harmonic refinement and contrapuntal interest.

For the right hand he adapted Hines' "trumpet" style, playing short melodic fragments in octaves, frequently separated by rests and varied with fleet, broken-chord passage work. He used the full range of the piano, often changing register or texture to underscore formal divisions. His poised, restrained manner and transparent textures are especially evident on his solo recordings from the late 1930s, which served as models for countless pianists in the late swing period. From 1940 Wilson's playing became somewhat florid, with frequent pentatonic passage work, but he retained his basic approach and prowess into the 1980s. http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_wilson_teddy.htm