Birthday profile

Jamey Aebersold

Jamey Aebersold, American saxophonist and educator

Born
July 21, 1939
Age in 2026
87
Zodiac sign
Cancer
Birth year
1939

About Jamey Aebersold

Wilton Jameson "Jamey" Aebersold (born July 21, 1939) is an American publisher, educator, and jazz saxophonist. His Play-A-Long series of instructional books and CDs, using the chord-scale system, the first of which was released in 1967, are an internationally renowned resource for jazz education. His summer workshops have educated students of all ages since the 1960s. == Career == Aebersold was born in New Albany, Indiana. When he was fifteen, he played with local bands, then attended Indiana University in Bloomington while leading bands in southern Indiana and Kentucky. During the late 1960s, he taught at Indiana University Southeast and in the 1970s and 1990s at the University of Louisville. He began weeklong summer workshops for students which have spread throughout the world into countries such as Canada, England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, and Australia. Aebersold plays saxophone, piano, banjo, and double bass. == Play-A-Long series == Most of the volumes in Aebersold's Play-A-Long series feature a selection of ten to twelve jazz standards, though some focus on scales, standardized chord progressions (like the blues), or original compositions by Aebersold's collaborators. The books contain charts for the tunes in question, transposed as necessary for instruments in C (treble and bass clef), as well as transpositions for B-flat and E-flat instruments.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Jamey Aebersold timeline

  1. His Play-A-Long series of instructional books and CDs, using the chord-scale system, the first of which was released in 1967, are an internationally renowned resource for jazz education.
  2. Borgerson and Schroeder (2024) discuss Aebersold and reproduce one of the Play-A-Long records, You Can Play.

The world when Jamey Aebersold was born

Jamey Aebersold was born in 1939. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1939

  • #1 song"Over the Rainbow" – Judy Garland
  • Top movieGone with the Wind
  • Best-selling bookThe Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentLou Gehrig delivers his "Luckiest Man" farewell speech
  • Top headlineGermany invades Poland — World War II begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst regular television broadcasts in the US (NBC)
  • Defining fadThe Wizard of Oz mania
  • Notable inventionNylon stockings
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population130.9M

1939 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jamey Aebersold's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19392026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,200$435,000
Average income$2,900$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population130.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.