Gerald Wilson (1918-2014)

Even if you were chronologically decades or maybe generations younger than Gerald, you always felt that he was the youngest person in the room. He had none of that feeling that you were hanging out with a guy from the 1930s or 1940s.

                                                                      Loren Schonberg, National Jazz Museum

The versatile jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer and arranger Gerald Wilson died on September 8 in Los Angeles at the age of 96, after a brief bout with pneumonia. His career spanned eight decades; he was active well into his nineties. He was known for his complex, multi-textured but swinging arrangements, and for his active style of conducting. With his flowing mane of white hair, his flamboyant gestures served to cue the audience to what to listen for.

Gerald Stanley Wilson was born in Shelby, Mississippi on September 4, 1914. He learned piano from his mother, a music teacher in the public schools. After a brief stay in Memphis, he moved to Detroit when he was 16, where he graduated from Cass Technical High School. After playing briefly with local bands, he was hired by Jimmie Lunceford to replace trumpeter Sy Oliver. It was there he learned composing and arranging. One of his songs was the 1941 Lunceford standard, “Yard Dog Mazurka.” The song was later stolen by Stan Kenton and recorded under the title “Intermission Riff.”

Wilson served in the Navy during World War II. He first formed his own big band in 1944. Featuring such musicians as trumpeter Snooky Young and trombonist Melba Liston, the band combined swing arrangements with bebop solos. He recorded many single records between 1945 and 1954, but they are hard to find. Here he is doing a version of “One O'Clock Jump” for the Black & White label in 1946.

At a time when big band bookings were hard to come by, he broke up and reformed the group several times. During hiatuses, he played with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie and accompanied Billie Holiday on tour of the South in 1949. After he finally disbanded the group, he studied classical music. Beginning in the '50s, he relocated to Los Angeles and did free lance arranging and studio work for both jazz and pop artists. He wrote arrangements for Basie, Gillespie, Benny Carter, Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Ray Charles, B. B. King and Nancy Wilson, among others. He composed and conducted TV and movie scores.

Gerald Wilson is best known for ten highly acclaimed albums he recorded for Pacific Jazz in the 1960s, beginning with You Better Believe It! in 1961. Here he is on TV's Frankly Jazz performing the second-best-known version of Miles Davis's “Milestones.” (The soloists are identified after the performance. The intro and outro is "Blues for Yna Yna.")

Many of Wilson's compositions had Spanish or Mexican themes. His wife, Josafina Villasenor, is Mexican, and he was a bullfighting afficianado. “Viva Turado," featuring guitarist Joe Pass, was named for a Mexican bullfighter. In a different vein, one of my favorites, "Lighthouse Blues," features Roy Ayers on vibes.

Toward the end of his time with Pacific Jazz, he began recording pop hits in the hope of attracting a younger audience to jazz. 1969's California Soul charted the highest of any of his albums, but to most jazz fans, the quality had declined. All his Pacific Jazz recordings are collected on an out-of-print Mosaic box set released in 2000 which is well worth seeking out.

During the ensuing decades, Wilson remained active, recording occasional albums for the Trend and Discovery labels. He taught jazz composition at Cal State and UCLA. He composed for and conducted the LA Philharmonic in 1972. He hosted a jazz radio show on KBCA in Los Angeles from 1969 to 1976. 

He had a comeback of sorts with the critically-acclaimed CD State Street Sweet on the MAMA label in 1995. Beginning in 2003 with New York, New Sound, he recorded five CDs for Mack Avenue. The most recent was Legacy in 2011. Here he is, in the studio, recording "Before Motown" from the 2009 CD Detroit.

Gerald Wilson was nominated for six Grammy Awards but never won. He was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1990. Wilson's son is jazz guitarist Anthony Wilson and one of his daughters is married to Johnny Otis's son, guitarist Shuggie Otis.

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