This week: one of the greats of jazz, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and two war heroes immortalised by film and television

THE Grammy-winning jazz singer Al Jarreau, right, who has died aged 76, won seven Grammys over a 50-year career. His biggest single was 1981's We're In This Love Together. He was also a vocalist on the all-star 1985 track, We Are the World, and sang the theme to TV's Moonlighting.

Once described by Time Magazine as the greatest jazz singer alive, Jarreau was one of the few artists to have won Grammys in three separate categories - jazz, pop and R&B and he always relished the crossovers.

"I grew up in Milwaukee, and I took it all in," he once said. "I want it all. Don't cut me off at the pass and say I can't listen to Muddy Waters because I'm a jazzer. Or I can't listen to Garth Brooks because I'm a jazzer. Get out of here."

THERE was a time when Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un who has been assassinated at an airport in Kuala Lumpur, was tipped to succeed his dictator father Kim Jong Il.

However, he reportedly fell out of favour when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland, and he was estranged from his brother at the time of his death. He told medical workers before he died that he had been attacked with a chemical spray at the airport.

Born in Pyongyang, Kim Jong Nam was the son of Kim Jong Il and Song Hye-rim, an actress with whom his father had an affair, and was educated in Switzerland and Moscow. After returning to North Korea, he held several positions in the government but after his arrest on trying to enter Japan, he was deported to China. It is believed that the episode led to Kim Jong Un becoming the presumed heir.

Mark Tokola, vice president at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, said it would be surprising if Kim Jong Nam had not been killed on the orders of his brother, given that North Korean agents have reportedly tried to assassinate Kim Jong Nam in the past. He was believed to have been living recently in Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.

LIEUTENANT General Harold "Hal" Moore, who has died aged 94, was the military hero who saved most of his men in the first major battle between the US and North Vietnamese armies. He was later played by Mel Gibson in the film We Were Soldiers.

Moore was best known for his actions at the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, where he was a lieutenant colonel in command of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment.

The book he co-authored with his friend Joseph Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young, tells what happened to virtually every trooper involved in the 34-day campaign and the climactic four-day battle in which 234 Americans died at landing zones X-Ray and Albany in November 1965.

Mr Galloway, a former war correspondent for United Press International, said Moore was "without question, one of the finest commanders I ever saw in action".

"Those of us who survived Landing Zone X-Ray survived because of his brilliance of command," he said. "I think every one of us thought we were going to die at that place except Hal Moore. He was certain we were going to win that fight and he was right."

Mr Galloway and Moore wrote a second book, We Are Soldiers Still, which he said grew out of a journey back to the battlefields of Vietnam 25 years later.

"We went back and walked those old battlefields. At the end of the day, Hal Moore and Colonel Nguyen Huu An, the North Vietnamese commander, stood in a circle in the clearing and prayed for the souls of every man who died on both sides," Mr Galloway said. He said the two shared an "instant brotherhood that grew out of combat".

ANOTHER war hero Edward Tipper, a Second World War paratrooper who was portrayed in the HBO series Band Of Brothers, has died at 95.

Mr Tipper was a member of Easy Company and parachuted into France as part of the Allied D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.

The company's exploits were retold in Band Of Brothers, based on research by historian Stephen Ambrose. Kerry Tipper said her father was interviewed for the series and was portrayed by actor Bart Ruspoli.

A few days after the parachute drop, Mr Tipper was badly injured by a mortar shell and was in hospital for a year. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart and after the war he worked as a teacher in Iowa and Colorado.