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Gerald Wilson as born in Shelby, Missisippi in 1918. His mother, a schoolteacher, was also a pianist, and she began teaching her children how to play at an early age. There was always music in the house, from his sister's versions of Rachmaninoff piano preludes to the big bands of Earl Hines and Chic Webb on the radio. Wilson decided at an early age that he wanted to be a musician and he began supplementing his piano lessons with noodlings on the trumpet.
With no high school in his hometown, Wilson left Shelby at age 12 and went to Memphis Tennessee. There he was able to find his first trumpet teacher. On a trip to the World's Fair in Chicago, Wilson got a taste of the desegregated north. He soon made the decision to move Detroit, where he further pursued his musical education at the famous Cass Technical High School.
In 1939, only a few weeks after graduating, Wilson was invited to join the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. Wilson's arrangements of "Hi Spook" and "Yard Dog Mazurka," were big hits for the band. After a few years with Lunceford and a brief tour of duty with the Navy during WWII, Wilson relocated to LA where he played trumpet and wrote charts for the likes of Benny Carter and Les Hite.
In 1944, Wilson formed his own big band, which traveled the country and rivaled the big bands of Lunceford and Ellington in its success. Three years later, Wilson decided to dissolve the group to further his jazz education. He returned to LA to study orchestration and harmony in depth, though he did find time to work with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillspie.
While he continued to devote much of his time to studying jazz, as well as classical music - mining the works of Ravel, Debussy, and Villa Lobos - Wilson also found commercial success writing and arranging with Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin and Carmen McRae to name a few. In the '70s, Wilson began sharing his knowledge of jazz in jazz history classes for Cal State, California State University Northridge and now, at UCLA.
Wilson's work as a bandleader, composer and arranger include five Grammy nominations, the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, The Paul Robeson Award and two American Jazz Awards. He's also been inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame.
Check out this week's Piano Jazz Shorts: the Piano Jazz podcast.
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Set List for Gerald Wilson on Piano Jazz:*Sax Chase (Wilson)
On The Alamo (Jones, Kahn)
*So What (Davis)
*Dorian (Wilson)
Sentimental Mood (Ellington)
Portrait of Gerald Wilson (McPartland)
*Blues For Manhattan (Wilson)
Lonely Town (Bernstein, Comden, Green)
*Jeri (Wilson)
* denotes tunes selections from the latest album by the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, In My Time.
With no high school in his hometown, Wilson left Shelby at age 12 and went to Memphis Tennessee. There he was able to find his first trumpet teacher. On a trip to the World's Fair in Chicago, Wilson got a taste of the desegregated north. He soon made the decision to move Detroit, where he further pursued his musical education at the famous Cass Technical High School.
In 1939, only a few weeks after graduating, Wilson was invited to join the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra. Wilson's arrangements of "Hi Spook" and "Yard Dog Mazurka," were big hits for the band. After a few years with Lunceford and a brief tour of duty with the Navy during WWII, Wilson relocated to LA where he played trumpet and wrote charts for the likes of Benny Carter and Les Hite.
In 1944, Wilson formed his own big band, which traveled the country and rivaled the big bands of Lunceford and Ellington in its success. Three years later, Wilson decided to dissolve the group to further his jazz education. He returned to LA to study orchestration and harmony in depth, though he did find time to work with Count Basie and Dizzy Gillspie.
While he continued to devote much of his time to studying jazz, as well as classical music - mining the works of Ravel, Debussy, and Villa Lobos - Wilson also found commercial success writing and arranging with Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Bobby Darin and Carmen McRae to name a few. In the '70s, Wilson began sharing his knowledge of jazz in jazz history classes for Cal State, California State University Northridge and now, at UCLA.
Wilson's work as a bandleader, composer and arranger include five Grammy nominations, the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship, The Paul Robeson Award and two American Jazz Awards. He's also been inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame.
Check out this week's Piano Jazz Shorts: the Piano Jazz podcast.
Subscribe!
Set List for Gerald Wilson on Piano Jazz:
* denotes tunes selections from the latest album by the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, In My Time.