Hilton Felton Jr., 60; Celebrated Jazz Pianist

Yarborough, director of jazz studies at the District's Duke Ellington School of the Arts, said Mr. Felton mentored several students and helped the school's jazz band rehearse for the performance of one of his compositions, "Be-Bop Boogie," which was a minor hit in Europe.

Mr. Felton was the musical director of several theatrical productions, including Langston Hughes's "Black Nativity" and a touring production of "Five Guys Named Moe," which began its 1993 run at Ford's Theater.

He was the musical director for "Spread a Little Sunshine," a Sunday morning gospel television show produced on what now is WUSA-TV. He also performed at the Kennedy Center and was the "Piano Man" on the Black Entertainment Television talk show "Our Voices."

For a 1985 concert at the Palm Court at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, Mr. Felton performed the ragtime and early jazz of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton.

"It humbled me that they played from sundown to sunup and basically got the money that was in the jar," he said of the early jazz pianists in an interview with The Washington Post. "They just had a love for the music."

In addition to his work in music, Mr. Felton collected stamps and artifacts related to African American history. He was a member of the American Philatelic Society, the American Federation of Musicians and the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

His marriage to Cynthia Hockaday Felton ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife, Imelda Hackett-Felton of Washington; three children from his first marriage, Hilton C. Felton III of Fort Washington, W. Ellington Felton of Washington and Felita Boykins of Norfolk; four brothers; two sisters; and seven grandchildren.