Gestern abend war es noch ein Gerücht – leider hat es sich wie befürchtet über Nacht bestätigt: Gerald Wilson, der Trompeter, Bandleader, Komponist und Arrangeur, ist im Alter von 96 verstorben:
Wilson’s mastery of the rich potential in big jazz band instrumentation was evident from the beginning. Although he was not pleased with his first arrangement — a version of the standard „Sometimes I’m Happy“ written in 1939, when he was playing trumpet in the Jimmie Lunceford band — he was encouraged by Lunceford and his fellow players to write more. „Hi Spook,“ his first original composition for big band, followed and was quickly added to the Lunceford repertoire. Soon after, Wilson wrote a brightly swinging number titled „Yard Dog Mazurka“ — a popular piece that eventually became the inspiration for the Stan Kenton hit „Intermission Riff.“ It was the beginning of an imaginative flow of music that would continue well into the 21st century.
Always an adventurous composer, Wilson’s big band music often had a personal touch, aimed at displaying the talents of a specific player, or inspired by many of his family members. After marrying his Mexican American wife, Josefina Villasenor Wilson, he was drawn to music possessing Spanish/Mexican qualities. His „Viva Tirado,“ dedicated to bullfighter Jose Ramon Tirado, became a hit for the Latin rock group El Chicano and was one of several compositions celebrating the achievements of stars of the bullring.
„His pieces are all extended, with long solos and long backgrounds,“ musician/jazz historian Loren Schoenberg told the New York Times in 1988. „They’re almost hypnotic. Most are seven to 10 minutes long. Only a master can keep the interest going that long, and he does.“
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„I may have done more numbers and orchestrations than any other black jazz artist in the world,“ he told the Los Angeles Sentinel. „I did 60-something for Ray Charles. I did his first and second country-western album. I wrote a lot of music for Count Basie, eight numbers for his first Carnegie Hall concert,“ he said.
He also provided arrangements and compositions for such major jazz artists as Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson and others, as well as — from various genres — Bobby Darin, Harry Belafonte, B.B. King and Les McCann.
http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-gerald-wilson-20140909-story.html
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #151: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv – 09.04., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba