Andrew Hill

The late Andrew Hill came to the piano late (aged 13), commenced his recording career in the epochal year of 1959, played in every context that Blue Note had to offer -- from hard bop to avant-garde -- in the '60s, and spent years in academia without having his creative edge dulled. He was experiencing something of a resurgence (including a reissue program, tribute discs from pianist Jason Moran and guitarist Nels Cline, and an elegiac Blue Note album, Time Lines) when he left the planet, aged 76, from lung cancer. You can check out an audio/video recording of his last concert, recorded three weeks before his death at Manhattan's Trinity Church, here (gotta have Windows Media, which means I can't).