American jazz drummer, bandleader, composer, producer and educator.
Born : May 20, 1925.
Died : December 20, 2011, Denton, Texas (86 years of age).

He was a graduate of the Chubby Jackson-Bill Harris group and graduated from the Manhattan School of Music.
He played with Jimmy Dorsey, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Charles Mingus, Ben Webster, John LaPorta, Marian McPartland, Claude Thornhill and others.
He was a respected pioneer in jazz education and for a time taught music at three elementary schools simultaneously. Besides his elementary and high school work, he taught master classes at Harvard, the Paris Conservatory, the Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, the University of North Texas, Hofstra, Indiana University, and the Berklee College of Music.