Gerald Wilson

Gerald Wilson又名Gerald Stanley Wilson，他是美國爵士樂喇叭手，大樂隊(duì)的領(lǐng)隊(duì)，作曲，編曲和教育家。他從20世紀(jì)40年代開始就一直在邁阿密。1918年9月4日Gerald Wilson出生在密西西比的謝爾比，他畢業(yè)于底特律的卡斯工業(yè)高中。1939年參加了Jimmie Lunceford管弦樂團(tuán)。
by Richard S. Ginell
From time to time, Gerald Wilson seems like one of Los Angeles better-kept secrets, an unusually skillful, imaginative and charismatic bandleader who hasnt received his due outside the West Coast. His arrangements have distinctive, often complex voicings and harmonies, rooted in swing and bop yet always forward-looking and energetic in tone. He likes to play around with structures, which contributes to the restless quality in much of his music — and being a bullfight aficionado, he was one of the first arrangers to make use of Spanish influences. He has been consistently able to attract top-rank musicians to his bands, who play with immaculate precision and brio for the flamboyantly gesticulating maestro. Upon moving from Memphis to Detroit with his family in 1932, Wilson studied music in high school and played with the Plantation Music Orchestra before undergoing the formative experience of his life, working with the Jimmie Lunceford band from 1939 to 1942. Replacing Sy Oliver as arranger, conductor and trumpet soloist, Wilson learned his craft in the Lunceford band, after which he took off for Los Angeles to play with the bands of Les Hite, Benny Carter and Willie Smith. Wilson organized his first big band in 1944, which sported an intriguing blend of swing and bop and featured musicians like Melba Liston and Snooky Young. But it only lasted three years, and after playing for Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie in 1947-48, Wilson quit the music business for a while to try his hand in the grocery trade. After a tentative return as a bandleader in 1952, it took awhile for Wilson to gradually ease his way back into jazz full-time; he even made appearances as a TV actor.
In 1961, after experimenting with a workshop band for four years, Wilson formed a new orchestra which made a string of successful albums for the Pacific Jazz label throughout the 60s, featuring soloists like Harold Land, Teddy Edwards, Bud Shank, Jack Wilson and Joe Pass. One tune that he wrote for the Moment of Truth album, Viva Tirado (later reprised on Live and Swinging) became a surprise hit single for the Latin rock group El Chicano in 1970. He scored films and TV programs, worked as an arranger for recordings by singers such as Al Hibbler, Bobby Darin and Johnny Hartman, contributed arrangements to the Duke Ellington band, and wrote music for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He also started a series of hugely entertaining and informative classes in jazz history at California State University, Northridge (then San Fernando Valley State College) in 1970, moving them to UCLA in 1992, and had his own radio program on L.A.s KBCA-FM from 1969 to 1976.
Wilson continued to lead big bands off and on through the 1980s and 90s, as well as running the orchestra for Redd Foxxs NBC shows and serving as one of the Los Angeles jazz scenes more revered elder statesmen. In 1995, he commemorated more than half a century as a leader by releasing State Street Sweet, a vigorous tribute to the durability of his work, and scoring a solid hit at the Playboy Jazz Festival. In 1996 Wilsons lifes work was archived by the Library Of Congress, and in 1997 he completed Theme For Monterey, a piece commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival. In 2003 he recorded New York, New Sound, his debut for Mack Avenue Records, which went on receive a Grammy nomination in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble category.