Teri Merrill-Aarons; Jazz Booster

Teri Merrill-Aarons, founder and only president of the Los Angeles Jazz Society, a group she established in 1980 to honor musicians who have played a seminal role on the Southland jazz scene, has died.

Earl Palmer, a veteran drummer who is vice president of the society, said she was in her early 50s when she died of cancer Sept. 4 in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital.

She was a waitress at Donte’s, the old North Hollywood jazz nightclub, when she met her future husband, Al Aarons, a trumpeter.

After they were married she decided to form an organization that would not only honor musicians who have lived and played in the Los Angeles area for at least 20 years but also promote the distinctly American musical idiom of jazz in the public schools.

Over the years the 400-member society, composed of both musicians and jazz aficionados, has honored such Los Angeles musicians as saxophonist Bob Cooper, pianists Gerald Wiggins and Jimmy Rowles, guitarist John Collins, bassist Red Callender and drummer Shelley Manne.

Mrs. Merrill-Aarons also worked to increase the representation of local musicians at clubs throughout the city, particularly Vine Street Bar and Grill and the Silver Screen Room at the Sunset Hyatt hotel.

In addition to her husband she is survived by a daughter, Teri.

A funeral service has been scheduled for today at 3 p.m. at Church of the Hills, Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills.