A uniquely American art form fills the air this month and into September, as Hamptons JazzFest returns. But what casual listeners may not know is just how rich the jazz legacy is here.

Meet Anita Fagan: former pharmacy clerk, James Dean fan, and outsider artist.

Edward Tyler Huntting Jr. of Huntting Lane, East Hampton, grew up playing tennis at the Maidstone Club. He was tall and handsome, graduated from East Hampton High School in 1952, and was a Theta Chi fraternity man at Bucknell University. He was a veteran who did two stints in the Army, then worked as an executive salesman on the road between Chicago and San Francisco. He had an acerbic wit. In the 1950s, he was reportedly voted “Number One Bachelor of Chicago.”

The Wainwrights’ roots run deep on the East End of Long Island. “On my father’s side,” the Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright says, “my family has been in East Hampton for 100 years or something. I have many second and third cousins who live out here.”