Gerald Wilson

Back in 1939, Gerald Wilson joined the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra as a trumpet soloist and an arranger. 66 years later, Wilson is still very active, having long been considered one of the top arrangers, composers and big band leaders in the history of jazz. 86 as of this writing, he has lost none of his enthusiasm, skills or creativity, and still manages to sound quite modern.

Throughout his career, Gerald Wilson has received incredible acclaim, including winning the Downbeat International Critics Poll both as a composer/arranger and for his big band, and winning the Paul Robeson Award, the NEA American Jazz Masters Fellowship, and a pair of American Jazz Awards. He has been elected to the Mississippi Jazz Hall of Fame, has had his life's work archived by the Library of Congress and has earned six Grammy nominations. But his real legacy is his music itself.

Gerald Wilson, jazz’s reigning composer/orchestrator pays homage to his adopted hometown, Chicago on his fifth Mack Avenue Records release, "Legacy." Composers Igor Stravinsky and Giacomo Puccini also receive Wilson’s musical tips of the hat. Wilson’s son, guitarist/composer Anthony Wilson, and grandson Eric Otis are also represented by a composition/orchestration apiece, thus extending Gerald’s musical legacy.

In 2011The Gerald Wilson Orchestra assembled for Legacy comprises many of the great jazz artists who've been Gerald's collaborators for the lion’s share of his Mack Avenue canon. A first-class rhythm section of pianist Renee Rosnes, guitarist Anthony Wilson, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Lewis Nash anchors the group. Trumpeters Sean Jones, Jeremy Pelt, Tony Lujan and Mike Rodriguez and trombonists Dennis Wilson, Douglas Purviance, Luis Bonilla and Alan Ferber stud the brass section. Antonio Hart Dick Oatts, Kamasi Washington, Ron Blake, Jay Brandford and Gary Smulyan comprise the reeds. Al Pryor continues as Wilson’s producer for this collection of tributes and portraits.

"The musicians in the band were really into the music and they are brilliant players," enthused Wilson. "They are at home everywhere they are, in every bar of music." The same can be said for the veteran bandleader.

Born in Shelby, Mississippi in 1918, Gerald Wilson knew early on that he was going to be a musician. While living in Detroit, he studied harmony and orchestration at Cass Tech in addition to working on his trumpet chops. In 1939, when he got the call to join Jimmie Lunceford's orchestra, he was ready. "When I got a chance to join them," remembers Wilson, "I was thrilled to death. The Jimmie Lunceford band was at the top of the heap at the time and they could outdraw everyone. They had such creative arrangements by Edwin Wilcox, Sy Oliver and Eddie Durham, and their musicians were very good. I made my first arrangements for them, "Yard Dog Mazurka" and "Hi Spook."

After a few years gaining recognition for his work with Lunceford and after serving a stint with the U.S. Navy, Wilson settled in Los Angeles. He wrote and played trumpet for Benny Carter and Les Hite and led his own big band during 1944-47, making his first recordings as a leader. Despite the success of the first Gerald Wilson Orchestra, he decided to break up the band in 1947 and further his musical studies. Wilson knew that there would be time for other big bands, and he has always wanted to learn as much as possible about harmony and orchestration, and developing his own writing style.

In 1948 Wilson joined the Count Basie Orchestra for two years, and in 1950 he joined the Dizzy Gillespie big band as a trumpet player and arranger, where his contributions included his composition "Couldn't Love, Couldn't Cry." In the 1950s he became very active as an arranger and orchestrator not only in jazz, but also for popular singers of the time and in commercial music. Among those he wrote for were Duke Ellington (including a classic arrangement of "Perdido" in 1951), Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Julie London, Bobby Darin, Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson and countless others. He also wrote symphonic compositions that were performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta, including the extended work "5/21/72," and was the conductor and music director for the ABC variety program The Redd Foxx Show. "I did so much commercial work for so many years. I can't even count the amount of arrangements that I wrote. It's just in the last few years that I stopped doing commercial work altogether and have stuck completely to jazz. It takes a lifetime to be a jazz musician."

Gerald Wilson, who eventually gave up playing trumpet to concentrate on his writing, became particularly famous in the jazz world through his series of classic big band recordings for the Pacific Jazz label in the 1960s including “You Better Believe It,” “Moment Of Truth,” “Portraits,” “On Stage” and “The Golden Sword.” His catchy "Viva Tirado" became a top 40 pop hit in 1970 when recorded by El Chicano. He also hosted a daily jazz program on Los Angeles' KBCA in the early 1970s and taught jazz history for 13 years at California State University Northridge, and for six years at Cal State L.A., and now still teaches at UCLA. His 1980s recordings for the Discovery label further solidified Wilson's musical legacy, as have his regular appearances with his longtime L.A.-based orchestra. "My band in Los Angeles has been together for decades and I have some players who have been with me for more than 15 years. We always enjoy performing around town at concerts and festivals."

Wilson clearly revels in his working relationship with Mack Avenue Records. His previous releases for the label are: "New York, New Sound" (2003), "In My Time" (2005), "Monterey Moods" (2007) and "Detroit" (2009). “They’re so nice to me and our arrangement is so comfortable,” he says. His albums receive maximum exposure..."in the press, on radio and on Internet sites like YouTube.

“I’ve had a very fulfilling career,” he maintains. “I’ve reached all of my goals. I’ve played and written for all of the greatest jazz orchestras (Lunceford, Ellington, Basie, and Benny Carter among them), I’ve written for movies and television, I’ve written for concert orchestras and I’ve maintained my own band for many decades.

“Everything I write,” Wilson asserts, “from here on in, is going to be jazz. It’s the language I speak and it’s my music.”
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Large Jazz Ensembles: Gerald Wilson, Sun Ra and Others

by Jerome Wilson
August 2, 2023

From June of this year, this is a show that features a varied selection of large jazz ensembles that delve into traditional and contemporary styles and sometimes even travel to the outer reaches of this music. Bandleaders and arrangers heard on the program include Gerald Wilson, Christine Jensen, Sun Ra, Bob Crosby, and Maria Schneider. There is also a mini-tribute to the then-recently deceased Astrud Gilberto. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from ...

Album Review

Leroy Vinnegar: Leroy Vinnegar Walks

Read "Leroy Vinnegar Walks" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
July 6, 2023

Chances are good that the name of bassist Leroy Vinnegar does not ring much of a bell among contemporary audiences. He does not have the cachet of a Ray Brown or an Oscar Pettiford, two names that a lot of professional bassists will instantly recognize, along with Scott LaFaro, with whom Vinnegar all too briefly overlapped. It is a bit surprising, although no one ever claimed that Vinnegar was a revolutionary. He was clearly in the ...

Interview

Ricordiamo Gerald Wilson

by Angelo Leonardi
October 27, 2014

Era rimasto l'unico grande bandleader della Swing Era, Gerald Wilson, e la sua recente scomparsa (l'8 settembre scorso, a 96 anni) è stata ricordata dai principali media statunitensi con ampi necrologi. Purtroppo in Italia è rimasta quasi inosservata. Superato il picco di popolarità dei primi anni sessanta, con un orchestra che vinse prestigiosi referendum, Wilson ebbe una seconda giovinezza dopo i 75, realizzando vari album e tornando di nuovo sotto i riflettori. A partire da State Street Sweet (Mama Foundation, ...

120

Live Review

Gerald Wilson: New York, NY, September 30, 2011

by Louis Heckheimer
October 22, 2011

Gerald Wilson, Anthony Wilson, Eric Otis and the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, New York, NY September 30, 2011 There are jazz players who've had extended careers, and then there's Gerald Wilson. The veteran composer, arranger and big band leader might well be able to claim the longest major recording career in jazz. First recorded in 1939 as a member of Jimmie Lunceford's Orchestra, Gerald Wilson celebrated the release of his most recent CD, ...

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Album Review

Gerald Wilson Orchestra: Legacy

Read "Legacy" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
July 16, 2011

The beauty of listening to an orchestra in fine form is like being treated to an oceanic swell of music that rises and falls, creating great harmonic waves of sound. This further regales the intellect with the swish of brushstrokes as the music changes in color, from sometimes thick, dark dripping shades, evoking brooding emotion to the pale and moist shades of elation in an ever-changing palette. Then there are the timbres that refresh the soul and the rhythms that ...

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Album Review

Gerald Wilson Orchestra: Detroit

Read "Detroit" reviewed by Robert J. Robbins

by Robert J. Robbins
November 28, 2009

Commissioned by the Detroit International Jazz Festival and premiered on the occasion of the composer's 91st birthday, Gerald Wilson's six-movement “Detroit Suite" demonstrates that after nearly seven decades in the music business, the nonagenarian composer and arranger still has a great deal to offer in terms of musical creativity. Wilson spent the latter part of his teen years in the Motor City, where he studied trumpet, piano, percussion, and composition at Cass Technical High School from 1934-39, and he still ...

372

Album Review

Gerald Wilson Orchestra: Monterey Moods

Read "Monterey Moods" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 18, 2007

A decade ago, when he was commissioned to write music to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Monterey Jazz Festival, Gerald Wilson produced the memorable, double Grammy Award-nominated Theme for Monterey (MAMA Records,1998). Now the 89-year-old dean of American Jazz composers has scored another triumph, saluting the festival's golden anniversary with a picturesque seven-part suite, Monterey Moods, that musically epitomizes the scope and character of that annual event.

The motif is deceptively simple: a three-note idea used in various ways ...

Obituary

Gerald Wilson dies at 96; multifaceted jazz musician

Source: Michael Ricci
September 9, 2014

Gerald Wilson, a bandleader, trumpeter, composer, arranger and educator whose multifaceted career reached from the swing era of the 1930s to the diverse jazz sounds of the 21st century, has died. He was 96. Wilson, who had been in declining health, died Monday at his home in jny: Los Angeles, two weeks after contracting pneumonia, said his son, jazz guitarist Anthony Wilson. In a lifetime that spanned a substantial portion of the history of jazz, Wilson's combination of articulate composition ...
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Obituary

Gerald Wilson, 1918-2014

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
September 9, 2014

Word has come that Gerald Wilson died today in jny: Los Angeles. A swing eratrumpeter, he became the pioneering leader, composer and arranger of a modern big band that was a significant presence for more than sixty years. Wilson enriched the language of large ensembles by employing expanded harmonic structures. He was noted for, among other things, his colorful music inspired by Mexican bull fighting. For an obituary, see Don Heckman’s article in today’s Los Angeles Times. In a post ...
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Interview

Gerald Wilson is 95

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
September 6, 2013

Gerald Wilson celebrated his 95th birthday yesterday. He looks back on a career studded with achievement as a trumpeter, bandleader, composer and pioneering arranger. Early on in his writing Wilson achieved the unexpected, incorporating daring classical harmonic techniques in his big band arrangements and making them accessible to general audiences. He is the personification of a lifelong learner. Following big successes capped by a sold-out tour with Ella Fitzgerald, Wilson dissolved his successful post-World War II big band because he ...
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Recording

The Gerald Wilson Orchestra - Monterey Moods (2007)

Source: Something Else!
September 14, 2011

By Mark Saleski Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Carter, Jimmie Lunceford, Ella Fitzgerald, Sam Cooke, Sarah Vaughan, Bobby Darin, Julie London, Nancy Wilson, Ray Charles. That's the short list ... of artists that Gerald Wilson has been involved with during his long and storied musical life. A trumpeter, composer, and arranger, Wilson has just about done it all. Heck, he was the musical director for the Redd Foxx Show during the late 1970s. Now that's what I call ...
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Interview

Interview: Gerald Wilson

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
July 20, 2011

In today's Wall Street Journal (go here), I write about the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra and a fabulous new box set from Mosaic Records: The Complete Jimmie Lunceford Decca Sessions, featuring material recorded between 1934 and 1945. What makes this box special is that you get to hear swing's ascension before Benny Goodman gave it a mass-market spin in 1935 with the help of arranger Fletcher Henderson. With this new box, you also get to hear the maturation of an astonishing ...
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198

Recording

Gerald Wilson Orchestra - Legacy (2011)

Source: Something Else!
June 21, 2011

He's conducting an all-star band, featuring the likes of Antonio Hart, Luis Bonilla, Renee Rosnes, Lewis Nash and Peter Washington. Yet the star of the show on Gerald Wilson's brilliant new release remains his adopted hometown of Chicago. Legacy, due on Tuesday from Mack Avenue Records, actually opens with five ingeniously performed ensemble pieces, each boasting the coloring and dexterity of the best small-band jazz outings. That includes a trio of historical pieces, each of which has been transformed into ...
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250

Interview

Composer and Arranger Gerald Wilson: The Big-Band Sage

Source: All About Jazz @ Spinner
November 6, 2009

By Tad Hendrickson

It's not often that you get to talk to someone 91 years old, not to mention one who has played, written or arranged for Duke Ellington and hundreds of other jazz luminaries. So when Gerald Wilson is on the telephone from his home in Los Angeles, you generally let the man talk without interruption. Not that it was necessary to interrupt Gerald Wilson: For a guy his age, his ability to recall names and dates was pretty ...
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Recording

Mack Ave Records Presents "Detroit" by the Gerald Wilson Orchestra

Source: DL Media
July 23, 2009

MACK AVENUE RECORDS PRESENTS DETROIT, THE LATEST RELEASE BY THE JAZZ WORLD'S GREATEST LIVING ORCHESTRAL COMPOSER, GERALD WILSON A SIX-PART SUITE COMMISSIONED BY THE DETROIT INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL; TO BE PERFORMED AT THE 30TH ANNUAL DIJF ON WILSON'S 91ST BIRTHDAY To commemorate its 30th anniversary, the Detroit International Jazz Festival called on Gerald Wilson, the preeminent jazz orchestra composer and bandleader, to write a suite for Detroit. He recorded the piece with both his Los Angeles and New York orchestras ...
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Music Industry

Last of the Lions: Gerald Wilson

Source: Night Lights Classic Jazz
September 2, 2008

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Event

Jazz Great Gerald Wilson to Speak at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

Source: JazzStage Productions
November 21, 2007

DETROIT--The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in partnership with Detroit Jazz Fest will present “A Conversation with Gerald Wilson" in the General Motors Auditorium, Saturday, December 1, at 3pm, as part of the Noel Night festivities in the University District. The event is free and open to the public. Joining Gerald Wilson in a walk through his life and music will be WDET/Detroit's own “voice of jazz" Ed Love, and attorney Jeff Collins. The presentation is the ...
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"The legacy of Gerald Wilson and the Monterey Jazz Festival are closely linked. From his first visits to Monterey in the early 1960's playing and hanging out with Diz and Monk to his commission pieces for our 25th, 40th and now 50th anniversary, Gerald's spirit has infused the festival with his unique brand of artistry, humanity and pure, swingin' fun. Gerald Wilson and the Monterey Jazz Festival have helped create a vibrant and long-lasting west coast musical spirit. It's a great partnership and we are honored to be associated with him!" —Tim Jackson, General Manager, Monterey Jazz Festival