Indiana

Jerry Coker (November 28, 1932 – January 14, 2024) was an American jazz saxophonist and pedagogue.Coker was born in South Bend, Indiana. He attended Indiana University in the early 1950s, but interrupted his studies in 1953 when Woody Herman offered him a job in "The Herd". Coker eventually earned undergraduate and graduate degrees while he taught jazz at Sam Houston State University (then Sam Houston State Teachers College). He recorded under his own name in the mid-1950s and as a sideman with Nat Pierce, Dick Collins, and Mel Lewis; later that decade he played with Stan Kenton.
In 1960 he began teaching and increasingly turned to music education and composition. He taught at Duke University, University of Miami (where he created one of the first jazz degree programs in the country at the Frost School of Music), North Texas State University, and started the Studio Music and Jazz program at the University of Tennessee, where he was a professor of music from the 1980s through the 2000s. Notable students include Randy Brecker and Pat Metheny. Coker and his colleagues Jamey Aebersold and David Baker have been called the "ABCs" of jazz education, and in 1994 Coker was inducted into the Jazz Educators Hall of Fame.Coker died on January 14, 2024, at the age of 91.

Benjamin James Aronov (October 16, 1932 – May 3, 2015) was an American jazz pianist, professionally known as Ben Aronov or Benny Aronov.

Wilton Jameson "Jamey" Aebersold (born July 21, 1939) is an American publisher, educator, and jazz saxophonist. His Play-A-Long series of instructional books and CDs, using the chord-scale system, the first of which was released in 1967, are an internationally renowned resource for jazz education. His summer workshops have educated students of all ages since the 1960s.

Robert Pfenning Murray (Oct. 24, 1936 – Aug. 11, 2020) was an American violinist, scholar and teacher. He premiered the 5th Sonata for Violin and Piano by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Leo Sowerby.
Murray was the first violinist to record the four sonatas of Anton Rubinstein.
More recently, he has partnered with Ardyth Lohuis in a violin and pipe organ duo which brought attention to the large body of musical repertoire available for this combination of instruments through concerts and recordings. Several well known contemporary composers have written pieces for Murray and Lohuis, and have worked closely with Murray and Lohuis to create definitive recordings of these works.

Andrew Simpkins (April 29, 1932 – June 2, 1999) was an American jazz bassist.
Born in Richmond, Indiana, he first became known as a member of the group The Three Sounds, with which he performed from 1956 to 1968. After that, until 1974, he was a member of pianist George Shearing's group, and from 1979 to 1989 toured with singer Sarah Vaughan. Throughout and after that time, during which he settled in Los Angeles, Simpkins became respected as a top-quality bassist and widely known as a solid and reliable studio musician. He performed with singers Carmen McRae and Anita O'Day, instrumentalists Gerald Wiggins, Monty Alexander, Buddy DeFranco, Don Menza, and Stéphane Grappelli, and many others. He recorded three albums as a leader.
He also played acoustic bass on the 1997 covers album In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy by artist Pat Boone.
Simpkins died of stomach cancer in Los Angeles.

The Carol Lou Trio was a jazz combo which gained modest popularity in the mid-eastern United States between the 1950s and 1970s, and international distribution of its few recordings. The group was headed by Carol Lou Hedges (born May 20, 1931, Peru, Indiana), whose modest demeanor belied her piano virtuosity and swinging style. Husband and bassist John Hedges was the other permanent member of the group, with various drummers having been employed, including future drummer for the Count Basie band and Tony Bennett, Harold Jones (drummer) in 1956-57. The trio's reputation spread mostly by word of mouth, but it did release several singles and one album.Having remarried, Carol Lou Woodward continued to play as a soloist and in small combos in and around her home since 1957, Richmond, Indiana, where Gennett Records produced important early jazz recording, including the first by Louis Armstrong. In 2013 Woodward recorded an album for the Starr-Gennett Foundation called “Rags to Richmond: A Tribute to Ragtime and Starr Piano.” The album includes three compositions by erstwhile Richmond resident May Aufderheide, a leading female ragtime composer.In 2006, Woodward released a CD featuring solo piano arrangements of jazz and popular music standards, "An Evening With Carol Lou". In 2008 she released a holiday collection titled “Christmas With Carol Lou."
She has said that her favorite pianist is Gene Harris, whose style has been described as "hard-swinging, soulful, blues-drenched". Woodward's considerable talent might have carried her to greater recognition, but she chose instead to raise a family and live quietly.John Hedges died in October, 2012.Carol Lou retired in 2016.

Belford Cabell "Sinky" Hendricks (May 11, 1909 – September 24, 1977) was an American composer, pianist, arranger, conductor and record producer. He used a variety of names, including Belford Hendricks, Belford Cabell Hendricks, Belford Clifford Hendricks, Sinky Hendricks, and Bill Henry.
Hendricks is primarily remembered as the co-composer of numerous soft-R&B songs of the 1950s, many in collaboration with Clyde Otis and Brook Benton, and as an accomplished arranger. His versatility allowed him to write in various styles, from big band swing for Count Basie, through blues ballads for Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, R&B-influenced pop for Benton and country and western numbers for Nat King Cole and Al Martino, to early soul for Aretha Franklin. His most successful songs are "Looking Back" and "It's Just a Matter of Time", both co-written with Otis and Benton.

Joe Dowell (January 23, 1940 – February 4, 2016) was an American pop singer.

Alan Abel (December 6, 1928 – April 25, 2020) was an American percussionist, music educator, and inventor of musical instruments. He was the associate principal percussionist of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1959 until his retirement in 1997. He is widely regarded as one of the most important percussion educators of the second half of the twentieth century, having taught at Temple University beginning in 1972. Abel's inventions include several unique and ubiquitous triangles and a bass drum stand that allowed the instrument to be suspended with the use of rubber bands.

Jack Frasure Hyles (September 25, 1926 – February 6, 2001) was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.