Jan Hammer is a composer, pianist and keyboardist. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s program, Miami Vice. He continued to work as both a musical performer and producer, expanding to producing film later in his career. Hammer has collaborated with some of the era's most influential jazz and rock musicians such as John McLaughlin, Jeff Beck, Al Di Meola, Mick Jagger, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Tommy Bolin, Neal Schon, Steve Lukather, and Elvin Jones among many others. He has composed and produced at least 14 original motion picture soundtracks, the music for 90 episodes of Miami Vice and 20 episodes of the popular British television series Chancer. His compositions have won him several Grammy awards. [More at Wikipedia]

April 17th, 1948 in Prague (Age 76)