"Everything I write from here on in, is going to be jazz. It's the language I speak and it's my music." –Gerald Wilson
Not many orchestral band leaders would withdraw from New York City’s booming 1940s jazz scene, not at the height of his glory. But Gerald Wilson did, because he believed he needed to learn more. He didn’t see the glory, the fame, the accolades and high-fives, the long lines and celebrity. He saw the music, he loved the music. He gave the music its due.
And when he felt the music he led deserved better, he took time out, to hell with what others – including his apoplectic booking agent – thought.
As a part of his studies, Wilson regrouped in L.A., then joined Count Basie’s and Dizzy Gillespie’s bands. That’s some learning curve.
For Wilson, 92, it’s always been about discovering what else is out there, incorporating sound foundations to an already vast library of musicianship – hence, his kinship with classical composers Stravinsky, Debussy, Puccini, Ravel, Rodrigo – and pushing himself to produce the best he can in the arena of his first love, jazz. "Everything I write from here on in,” he said, “is going to be jazz. It's the language I speak and it's my music."
In his latest CD, “Legacy,” officially released June 21st through Mack Avenue Records (the fifth on this label), multiple-Grammy-nominated Wilson devotes his best to jazz through the creative, collaborative efforts of family (his son Anthony Wilson and grandson Eric Otis contribute key pieces) and his orchestra (including pianist Renee Rosnes, bassist Peter Washington, drummer Lewis Nash, and a full horn and reeds section).
“Legacy” devotes a great deal of musical time to Wilson’s adopted hometown of Chicago, where he once played with the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra starting in 1938, as well as to his favorite classical composers, Stravinsky and Puccini. The Chicago Jazz Festival commissioned a new suite, “Yes, Chicago Is…,” featuring lavish, classically-tinged sketches, from a sweeping “A Jazz Mecca,” and a lively, cacophonous “47th St. Blues,” to the swinging “Cubs, Bears, Bulls, and White Sox.”
Classical music receives the Gerald Wilson jazz treatment in “Variation On A Theme by Igor Stravinsky),” “Variations on Clair de Lune,” and “Variation On A Theme by Giacomo Puccini.” “Clair de Lune” is an especially formidable revelation, in that Wilson takes his piano and honky-tonks it up, to triumphant degree.
In a righteous world, arranger/composer/orchestra leader/trumpeter Wilson would be a household name … right up there with the legends he played with, the Duke Ellingtons, Count Basies, Benny Carters, and Ella Fitzgeralds. But to those from the inner jazz circles, he isright up there, a legend in every way that counts.
This is a much-honored (Downbeat International Critics Poll, Paul Robeson Award, NEA American Jazz Masters Fellowship, American Jazz Awards, Library of Congress life’s work archived), honorable man has never settled for good enough or second best when it came to doing jazz justice. He’s known for the transformative powers of eight-part harmony and polytonality as applied in an orchestral jazz setting, pulling in tremendous classical influences without detraction and with an ease of groove that’s unheard of.
Give his latest release a time-honored listen.
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