Wynton Kelly didn’t live to see his 40th birthday, dying at 39 of an epileptic seizure in 1971. But before he passed away, the pianist made his mark on jazz, most notably through his work with the Miles Davis Quintet and Wes Montgomery. He also recorded one track each on Miles’s “Kind of Blue” and John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” recorded just two weeks apart. Kelly would have been 80 today.

Wynton Kelly didn’t live to see his 40th birthday, dying at 39 of an epileptic seizure in 1971. But before he passed away, the pianist made his mark on jazz, most notably through his work with the Miles Davis Quintet and Wes Montgomery. He also recorded one track each on Miles’s “Kind of Blue” and John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” recorded just two weeks apart. Kelly would have been 80 today.

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