Jean got her first taste of show business when she worked as an executive secretary for the New York office of Seven-Arts Productions. After her stint at Seven Arts, she also worked for a time at ABC Productions. When at last she moved on to BMI in the mid-1970s, she was a temp — but BMI’s Stanley Catron was so impressed with her that he asked her to stay on permanently. BMI was her career home thereafter.

She worked her way up through various positions at BMI and in the 1990s became Senior Director of Jazz, where her duties included working with and recruiting new songwriter and composer members, as well as overseeing internal events and programs. In the mid-’90s, her duties expanded to overseeing the Musical Theatre department. It was in this capacity that she found herself as the administrative head of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, and in many ways that became her home away from home.

The Workshop, which had its origins in the mid-’60s and was initiated by the late Lehman Engel, a ubiquitous and renowned Broadway musical director of the era, was — and remains — a training ground for aspiring musical theatre writers, with admission determined via application screenings and subsequent auditions. The list of notable writers who learned their craft there is far too long to include here in its entirety, but spans generations and includes Maury Yeston, Alan Menken, Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, Michael John LaChiusa, Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, Ed Kleban, Tom Kitt, Brian Yorkey, Carol Hall and Clark Gesner. She loved and worked closely with Skip Kennon and Richard Engquist, who for 20 years taught, fostered and nurtured some of the biggest stars in today's musical theatre.

Jean was also an officer and director of the BMI Foundation for over a decade, something of which she was particularly proud. She was elected to the Foundation's board in 2000 and served as the Secretary until her retirement in 2011.

Jean was one of the most supportive people in the business. Reports one writer, “I had a show in a fairly minor musical theatre festival — and it was also in Wales, way off the beaten theatre path. But sure enough, at the first performance, there she was. . . . I had no idea she was planning to come. That goes beyond support to devotion.”

This devotion extended to her pursuit of writers to join the BMI roster, from the youngest unknown aspirant to the established brand name, so long as they were talented enough to make her proud of the association. Yet she did it with the softest possible touch, eschewing any bright spotlight on herself.

She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009, but opted to keep working while she underwent treatment. Her disposition, fortitude and stamina kept her going for well over a year and a half. At length she decided to step down from her position at BMI so that she might keep traveling as long as she could. But she assiduously maintained her ties to the Workshop, and was most recently in attendance at its annual Showcase cabaret in November 2011. Perhaps her most meaningful post-retirement action was helping pave the way for her successor, Patrick Cook, best known as the lyricist-librettist of the musical Captains Courageous.

Maury Yeston, composer-lyricist of Nine, Titanic, Grand Hotel and Death Takes a Holiday, also a former Workshop Faculty-Committee member, said: “Jean Banks was, for 30 years, a path-breaking woman music executive, nurturer of talent, de facto manager, adviser, loving mother and friend to countless writers who are now household names. She dispelled any bad day with a laugh, and regularly obliterated anyone’s tough moment with a smile that could light up the moon.”

And Frederick Freyer, a current Workshop Faculty-Committee member, added: “She was the dearest soul, a true New Yorker, a person of such culture and class, and I was convinced she was invincible. I'll miss her always.”

Jean Banks is survived by her husband Morty. A viewing will be held in New York on Tuesday, February 7, between 5 and 9 p.m. a the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, located at 1076 Madison Avenue.

There will also be a memorial to Jean on March 8 at the Snapple Theatre on West 50th Street at 5:30 p.m.

The celebration also marked the 30th anniversary of the NEA Jazz Masters Awards, recognized as the country’s highest honor for jazz artists. “Jazz has been in BMI’s DNA since we opened our doors in 1940,” said Charlie Feldman, BMI Vice President, Writer/Publisher Relations. “Support for jazz became an important part of BMI’s mission in those early days, and led us to sign a group of immensely talented young composer/artists who would define this art form for the ages, including Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Miles, Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, among many others.

“We are immensely proud that BMI represents more than 80 of the jazz legends who have been named Jazz Masters, and we are particularly proud that BMI represents the works of each and every one of the JazzMaster Class of 2012.”

The event served as a reunion for NEA Jazz Masters past and present, as legends including David Baker, Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Curtis Fuller, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Heath, Ahmad Jamal, Muhal Richard Abrams, Annie Ross, Günter Schuler, Frank Wess, Gerald Wilson and others filled the room.

New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center hosted an all star concert offering a musical tribute to the new class of Jazz Masters the evening following the BMI-hosted awards luncheon. At the gala concert NEA Chariman Rocco Landesman acknowledged BMI for its significant role in fostering jazz, and thanked the company for its tradition of partnership with the NEA in hosting the awards luncheon. A webcast of that concert, featuring more than a dozen BMI Jazz Masters, as well as the artistry of rising BMI star Kris Bowers, can be found at www.jalc.org.

Visit www.nea.gov for more information.

Congratulations to the 2012 NEA Jazz Masters:

Jack DeJohnette - Drummer, Keyboardist, Composer

Von Freeman - Saxophonist

Charlie Haden - Bassist, Composer, Educator

Sheila Jordan - Vocalist, Educator

Jimmy Owens - Educator, Trumpeter, Flugelhorn Player, Composer, Arranger

For more information, click here.

Brookmeyer, a valve trombonist, played with groups led by the saxophonists Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan and the clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre in the 1950s, as well as a quintet with trumpeter Clark Terry in the 1960s. His writing in the 1960s for Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra helped invigorate the big-band genre. He was also a highly respected teacher at the New England Conservatory of Music and founded a music school in the Netherlands.

Brookmeyer undertook full-time studio work after moving to Los Angeles in 1968, returning to New York in 1978, where he became musical director for a big band led by drummer Mel Lewis after the departure of co-leader and cornetist Thad Jones.

He traveled extensively in Europe in the early ’80s, writing for and performing with jazz ensembles in Germany, Denmark and Sweden and forming an ensemble of his own, the New Art Orchestra.

In 1988, Brookmeyer, composer/educator Manny Albam and author/jazz authority Burt Korall founded the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, which is dedicated to fostering the musical growth of the individual composers, and to creating a body of work that helps to extend the language of composition for the jazz orchestra.

Brookmeyer was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2006. He recently received his eighth Grammy Award nomination, this one for an arrangement from the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s album Forever Lasting. His latest album, Standards (ArtistShare), was released last month.

In addition to his wife Janet, Brookmeyer is survived by four stepsons, Ben, Greg, Scott and Cary Bahora; and eight step-grandchildren.

In its original, exquisite, instrumental form, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Christmas Time is Here” communicates with an emotional language that transcends words. What began as a groovy theme for a children’s classic has become a holiday staple known and loved by everyone, everywhere – an intrinsically personal but universally shared connection to time and place and memory that could only have been crafted by a uniquely brilliant composer.

Vince Guaraldi

The son of Italian immigrants, Vince Guaraldi was born in San Francisco in 1928. He grew up in an arts-loving family, and his mother and uncles nurtured his early love for music. After a few pit stops including one stint as a cook in the Korean War, Guaraldi pursued music full-time, making his first professional recording in 1954. He soon became a respected figure in the West Coast vein of cool jazz – the dreamy, mellower counterweight to rip-roaring bebop. Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” a b-side that charmed DJs and became a grassroots sensation, garnered the Grammy for Best Original Jazz Composition in 1962. In 1964, San Francisco's Grace Cathedral commissioned a contemporary jazz composition from Guaraldi for the choral Eucharist. Guaraldi rose to the challenge, stunning critics when his religious masterpiece debuted in May of 1965.

But it was Guaraldi’s unforgettable music for Peanuts specials that sealed his artistic immortality. A Charlie Brown Christmas was the first-ever television feature for Charles Schultz’s beloved comic strip, which premiered in 1950 and ran in more than 2,600 newspapers at the peak of its popularity.

Television writer, producer, director and longtime friend of Schulz Lee Mendelson had wanted to create a Peanuts television special for years, but network executives didn’t buy the idea. Then, in the April of 1965, Time magazine put the Peanuts characters on its cover, recognizing and feeding the comic strip’s growing reach. Doors opened, and that year, Mendelson called Guaraldi and asked him to compose the music for a new CBS special called A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Written by Guaraldi and Mendelson, A Charlie Brown Christmas’ musical theme “Christmas Time is Here” is sweet, sad, hopeful – not unlike Schulz’s beleaguered protagonist Charlie Brown. Guaraldi, a top notch jazz pianist, enlisted bassist Puzzy Firth and drummer Jerry Granelli for the recording, and together, the three delivered an immediately likeable and accessible little piece that treads so lightly, its slow-building, poignant punch ultimately feels like a surprise attack. Hushed brush-fueled percussion and walking bass back the blues-inflected piano, and the song benefits as much from its performers’ power as it is does from their restraint.

Guaraldi went on to write music for 15 successful Peanuts specials, but the first remains especially beloved. Guaraldi’s music and Mendelson’s writing come together to weave a subversive mainstream assault on holiday commercialism with two unlikely leads: bright-eyed kids and jazz. It’s a message that still hits home. A Charlie Brown Christmas has aired on network TV for 46 consecutive years, not missing a single holiday season.

Check out previous entries in the BMI Holiday Countdown:

James Brown, “Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto”
Buck Owens, “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy”
Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
Mariah Carey, “All I Want for Christmas is You”
Clarence Carter, “Back Door Santa”
Run-D.M.C., “Christmas in Hollis”

Performances by:

Devious Angels (www.facebook.com/pages/The-Devious-Angels)

Uncle Skeleton (uncleskeleton.com)

Chancellor Warhol (chancellorwarhol.com)

Colorfeels (www.colorfeels.com)

The Kicks (thekicksrock.com)

Toy (toymusicbox.com)

Yellowire (www.yellowire.co.uk)

Brandon Jazz & His Armed Forces (www.brandonjazz.com)

The CO (www.thecomusic.com)

Read Jon Burligame’s comprehensive Pete Rugolo tribute in Variety.

Rugolo released his own acclaimed recordings and crafted arrangements for other artists such as Peggy Lee, Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, June Christy, The Four Freshmen, Patti Page and Mel Torme, and others. Rugolo produced Harry Belafonte’s first singles, and produced and titled the legendary Miles Davis/Gil Evans/Jerry Mulligan "Birth of the Cool" sessions.

His contributions to television include the iconic theme and additional music for The Fugitive, as well as music for Run for Your Life, The Thin Man, The Twilight Zone, The Outsider, Leave It to Beaver, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Family, and more.

Also adept at writing for film, Rugolo crafted orchestrations for pictures such as Kiss Me Kate and Skirts Ahoy, and composed original scores for Jack the Ripper, The Sweet Ride, and more.

He was born in Italy in 1915, and when he was five years old, Rugolo and his parents immigrated to California, where he spent most of his life. He is survived by his wife Edye, as well as three children and three grandchildren.

“I feel a lot of dreams getting closer to com[ing] true, to really materialize a lot of those dreams," Prieto told NPR, explaining that the award will allow him the "freedom to focus on my own music and my own projects.”

Each year, the MacArthur Fellowship offers no-strings-attached support to between 20 and 30 selected scientists, artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, and others who have exhibited “exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.”

The honor is often referred to as the “genius grant,” and one need only examine Prieto’s work for evidence why.

Afro-Cuban grooves and progressive percussion inform Prieto’s acclaimed jazz compositions, which critics praise as revolutionary. After studying at the National School of Music in Havana, the Cuban native emigrated to New York City in 1999, and in addition to touring and recording, he has served as an adjunct instructor in the Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions at New York University since 2005.

For more information on Prieto, other 2011 MacArthur Fellows, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, visit macfound.org.

Klein’s latest musical theater work Flambé Dreams recently enjoyed a sold-out debut run in New York City. But the story of his career as a songwriter begins in 1977, when the Berklee College of Music grad was playing keyboards for raunchy r&b diva Millie Jackson. One afternoon he slipped her a cassette of a tune he’d penned called “Feelin’ Like a Woman.” The song landed on her gold album Feelin’ Bitchy.

“Once I started writing it became a monkey on my back and I couldn’t stop,” Klein says from his office in New York City. “I have over 1,000 copyrights now. I’ve learned that the many genres I’ve written in — it’s like having a command of different dialects in a language.”

The tongues he’s mastered include r&b, soul, pop, rock, jazz, musical theater and modern classical composition. And along the way he’s scored films, earned two gold records and four Emmys, recorded over 10 albums, produced more than a dozen other artists and become president of his own Jazzheads record label that — contrary to his disciplined approach to songwriting – embraces improvised music…at which, of course, he also excels.

Klein’s other recent accomplishments include the premiere of his work-in-progress Lineage — The Margaret Walker Song Cycle, based on the Civil Rights poetry of the African-American author and composed for a 52-voice chorus. Part of the Cycle debuted on April 11, 2011, at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Then there’s Sunday Morning, the first album in Klein’s “Two Duos” series on Jazzheads, featuring duets by the pianist with trombonist Chris Washburne and saxist Oleg Kireyev. Two more discs are due this spring. And Flambé Dreams, a comedy about a young man’s ambition to become a great maitre d’ like his father, who was killed in a bananas foster accident, remains on his front burner.

Klein has a deep passion for musical theater, instilled by trips he made with his pianist mother from their home in Fort Lee, New Jersey, to Broadway from 1960 to 1967 to see classic productions like Fiddler On the Roof and Hello, Dolly!

“In 1982, when I was asked to join BMI’s Lehman Engle Musical Theater Workshop here in New York, the first musical we analyzed was ‘Fiddler,’ ” says Klein, “and I knew every word!

“The workshop is the best environment I know to learn to write songs. That room has some of the best songwriters around, and you learn by getting feedback. Writing a song for musical theater is much more difficult than writing a pop song. A theater song has to move the action from ‘A’ to ‘B’; a pop song can be stagnant. All you have to do is repeat the chorus and if the hook is powerful enough it will attract the listener’s ear. You need to be careful not to make your pop songs sound theatrical, which theater writers tend to do. But if you can write a good theater song, you can write a pop song pretty easily because you’ve learned about perfect rhymes and craftsmanship.”