Jack Wilson (jazz pianist)
Encyclopedia
Jack Wilson was an American
jazz
pianist
and composer
.
on August 3, 1936, moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana
at age seven. From 1949-54, he studied piano with Carl Atkinson at the Fort Wayne College of Music. It was during this time that he was introduced to the music of George Shearing
.
Later picking up tenor saxophone, Wilson played in the Central High School band and began performing locally as a leader of small combos. By his fifteenth birthday, he had become the youngest member ever to join the Fort Wayne Musicians Union (Local 58). At the age of 17 he played a two-week stint as a substitute pianist in James Moody
’s band.
After graduating from Central High, Wilson spent a year-and-a-half at the Indiana University, encountering Freddie Hubbard
and Slide Hampton
. Touring with a rock ‘n roll band, he wound up in Columbus, Ohio
, connecting with the then unknown Nancy Wilson
and Rahsaan Roland Kirk
.
to his musical arsenal. At the Club he encountered Dinah Washington
, with whom he worked from 1957-58.
Returning to Chicago, Wilson played with Gene Ammons
, Sonny Stitt
, Eddie Harris
and Al Hibbler
. His longest gig there was at the Persian Lounge with bassist Richard Evans, with whom Jack made his recording debut as a sideman on Richard’s Almanac (July 21–23, 1959). Drafted into the Army, he went to Fort Stewart, GA. and became the first Black music director for the Third Army Area, playing tenor saxophone in the army band.
In 1961, Wilson received an honorable medical discharge (because of diabetes). He returned to Dinah Washington’s band from 1961-62. Encouraged by Buddy Collette
, he moved to Los Angeles
.
In Los Angeles, Jack Wilson worked for Gerald Wilson
, Lou Donaldson
, Herbie Mann
, Jackie McLean
and Johnny Griffin
. Frequently in and out of the studio for recording, film and television work, he did stints with Sammy Davis Jr., Sarah Vaughan
, Lou Rawls
, Eartha Kitt
, Julie London
, as well as Sonny & Cher
.
He appeared on and wrote the title track for Earl Anderza
's debut album Outa Sight! (1962).
In 1965, Jack Wilson recorded the album Jack Wilson Plays Brazilian Mancini together with Antonio Carlos Jobim
.
Jack Wilson was part of the Ike Isaacs trio and is a strong presence on several of Lambert Hendricks and Ross recordings including "LHR sing Ellington".
for Atlantic Records
(January 24 & February 6). An impressive debut by any standards, the session kicks off with Jack’s blazing Jackleg which gallops ferociously from the starting gate. This lively session would be followed by another Atlantic date fifteen months later, three sessions for Vault (Atlantic’s subsidiary) and then the coveted invitation to the Blue Note
label, the results of which produced three records, including the classic Easterly Winds in 1967.
After his final Blue Note session in 1968, Jack Wilson focused on work with vocalist Esther Phillips
until 1977, when he recorded Innovations, the first of three record dates for the Los Angeles-based Discovery
label. This also brought about a return to sideman work with Lorez Alexandria
, Tutti Camarata
and Eddie Harris
well into the 1980s.
In 1985, Jack relocated to New York City with the help of jazz pianist, Barry Harris, and appeared in duo performance with Harris at the Jazz Cultural Theater 368 Eighth Ave. (between 28th and 29th Streets) New York, NY, February 1, 1985, a club operated by Harris. Wilson continued to work for several years in New York City. Among his many appearances are a duo with bassist Boots Maleson at Joanna's restaurant, 18 East 18th Street, on August 30, 1986 and at Bradley's bar and restaurant (University & East 12th Street) in duet with jazz bassist, Peter Washington, March 3, 1989, each of these gigs advertized in the Village Voice, a local New York City newspaper.
Jack’s final recording session (for the Japanese DIW label), simply titled In New York, took place on June 4, 1993 and featured legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb
.
Jack Wilson died on October 5, 2007. His death, at the Northport Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, was caused by complications of diabetes, according to his wife, Sandie Boerum-Wilson, of Sayville, NY.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Early life
Wilson was born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
on August 3, 1936, moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne, Indiana
Fort Wayne is a city in the US state of Indiana and the county seat of Allen County. The population was 253,691 at the 2010 Census making it the 74th largest city in the United States and the second largest in Indiana...
at age seven. From 1949-54, he studied piano with Carl Atkinson at the Fort Wayne College of Music. It was during this time that he was introduced to the music of George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
.
Later picking up tenor saxophone, Wilson played in the Central High School band and began performing locally as a leader of small combos. By his fifteenth birthday, he had become the youngest member ever to join the Fort Wayne Musicians Union (Local 58). At the age of 17 he played a two-week stint as a substitute pianist in James Moody
James Moody (saxophonist)
James Moody was an American jazz saxophone and flute player. He was best known for his hit "Moody's Mood for Love," an improvisation based on "I'm in the Mood for Love"; in performance, he often improvised vocals for the tune.-Biography:James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia...
’s band.
After graduating from Central High, Wilson spent a year-and-a-half at the Indiana University, encountering Freddie Hubbard
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
and Slide Hampton
Slide Hampton
Locksley Wellington "Slide" Hampton is an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.He was a 1998 Grammy Award winner for "Best Jazz Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist", as arranger for "Cotton Tail" performed by Dee Dee Bridgewater...
. Touring with a rock ‘n roll band, he wound up in Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, connecting with the then unknown Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...
and Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...
.
Professional musician
After a year in Columbus, Wilson moved to Atlantic City, leading the house band at the Cotton Club, now adding organOrgan (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
to his musical arsenal. At the Club he encountered Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
, with whom he worked from 1957-58.
Returning to Chicago, Wilson played with Gene Ammons
Gene Ammons
Eugene "Jug" Ammons also known as "The Boss," was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, and the son of boogie-woogie pianist Albert Ammons.-Biography:...
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Eddie Harris
Eddie Harris
Eddie Harris was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ...
and Al Hibbler
Al Hibbler
Albert George "Al" Hibbler was an American baritone vocalist, who sang with Duke Ellington's orchestra before having several pop hits as a solo artist. Some of his singing is classified as rhythm and blues, but he is best classified as a bridge between R&B and traditional pop music...
. His longest gig there was at the Persian Lounge with bassist Richard Evans, with whom Jack made his recording debut as a sideman on Richard’s Almanac (July 21–23, 1959). Drafted into the Army, he went to Fort Stewart, GA. and became the first Black music director for the Third Army Area, playing tenor saxophone in the army band.
In 1961, Wilson received an honorable medical discharge (because of diabetes). He returned to Dinah Washington’s band from 1961-62. Encouraged by Buddy Collette
Buddy Collette
William Marcel "Buddy" Collette was an American tenor saxophonist, flautist, and clarinetist. He was highly influential in the West coast jazz and West Coast blues mediums, also collaborating with saxophonist Dexter Gordon, drummer Chico Hamilton, and his lifelong friend, bassist Charles...
, he moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
In Los Angeles, Jack Wilson worked for Gerald Wilson
Gerald Wilson
Gerald Stanley Wilson is an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer/arranger, 8 time Grammy nominee, and educator. He has been based in Los Angeles since the early 1940s....
, Lou Donaldson
Lou Donaldson
Lou Donaldson is a jazz alto saxophonist. He was born in Badin, North Carolina. He is best known for his soulful, bluesy approach to playing the alto saxophone, although in his formative years he was, as many were of the bebop era, heavily influenced by Charlie Parker.His first recordings were...
, Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
, Jackie McLean
Jackie McLean
John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...
and Johnny Griffin
Johnny Griffin
John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...
. Frequently in and out of the studio for recording, film and television work, he did stints with Sammy Davis Jr., Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
, Lou Rawls
Lou Rawls
Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls was an American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game"...
, Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
, Julie London
Julie London
Julie London was an American singer and actress. She was best known for her smoky, sensual voice. London was at her singing career's peak in the 1950s. Her acting career lasted more than 35 years...
, as well as Sonny & Cher
Sonny & Cher
Sonny & Cher were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife team Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple started their career in the mid-1960s as R&B backing singers for record producer Phil Spector....
.
He appeared on and wrote the title track for Earl Anderza
Earl Anderza
Earl Anderza was a West Coast jazz alto saxophonist who recorded only two albums, Outta Sight which features pianist Jack Wilson and drummer Donald Dean. The bassist is either Jimmy Bond or George Morrow....
's debut album Outa Sight! (1962).
In 1965, Jack Wilson recorded the album Jack Wilson Plays Brazilian Mancini together with Antonio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim , also known as Tom Jobim , was a Brazilian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and pianist/guitarist. He was a primary force behind the creation of the bossa nova style, and his songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within...
.
Jack Wilson was part of the Ike Isaacs trio and is a strong presence on several of Lambert Hendricks and Ross recordings including "LHR sing Ellington".
Bandleader
With an enviable list of credentials for someone who was only 26, Jack was given the opportunity to take center stage. The year of 1963 would yield his first recording as a leader, The Jack Wilson Quartet featuring Roy AyersRoy Ayers
Roy Ayers is an American funk, soul, and jazz composer and vibraphone player. Ayers began his career as a post-bop jazz artist, releasing several albums with Atlantic Records, before his tenure at Polydor Records beginning in the 1970s, during which he helped pioneer jazz-funk .- Biography :Ayers...
for Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
(January 24 & February 6). An impressive debut by any standards, the session kicks off with Jack’s blazing Jackleg which gallops ferociously from the starting gate. This lively session would be followed by another Atlantic date fifteen months later, three sessions for Vault (Atlantic’s subsidiary) and then the coveted invitation to the Blue Note
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
label, the results of which produced three records, including the classic Easterly Winds in 1967.
After his final Blue Note session in 1968, Jack Wilson focused on work with vocalist Esther Phillips
Esther Phillips
Esther Phillips was an American singer. Phillips was known for her R&B vocals, but she was a versatile singer, also performing pop, country, jazz, blues and soul music.-Early life:...
until 1977, when he recorded Innovations, the first of three record dates for the Los Angeles-based Discovery
Discovery Records
Discovery Records was a United States-based record label known for its recordings of jazz music.Discovery was founded in 1948 by jazz fan and promoter Albert Marx...
label. This also brought about a return to sideman work with Lorez Alexandria
Lorez Alexandria
Lorez Alexandria was an American jazz and gospel singer....
, Tutti Camarata
Tutti Camarata
Salvador "Tutti" Camarata was a composer, arranger and trumpeter.-Early life and career:Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Camarata studied music at Juilliard School in New York - a student of Bernard Wagenaar, Joseph Littau, Cesare Sodero, and Jan Meyerowitz...
and Eddie Harris
Eddie Harris
Eddie Harris was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ...
well into the 1980s.
In 1985, Jack relocated to New York City with the help of jazz pianist, Barry Harris, and appeared in duo performance with Harris at the Jazz Cultural Theater 368 Eighth Ave. (between 28th and 29th Streets) New York, NY, February 1, 1985, a club operated by Harris. Wilson continued to work for several years in New York City. Among his many appearances are a duo with bassist Boots Maleson at Joanna's restaurant, 18 East 18th Street, on August 30, 1986 and at Bradley's bar and restaurant (University & East 12th Street) in duet with jazz bassist, Peter Washington, March 3, 1989, each of these gigs advertized in the Village Voice, a local New York City newspaper.
Jack’s final recording session (for the Japanese DIW label), simply titled In New York, took place on June 4, 1993 and featured legendary drummer Jimmy Cobb
Jimmy Cobb
-External links:* - includes full discography* * * * * * *...
.
Jack Wilson died on October 5, 2007. His death, at the Northport Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, was caused by complications of diabetes, according to his wife, Sandie Boerum-Wilson, of Sayville, NY.
Discography
- The Jack Wilson Quartet featuring Roy Ayers (Atlantic RecordsAtlantic RecordsAtlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
, 1963) - The Two Sides Of Jack Wilson (Atlantic Records, 1964)
- The Jazz Organs (Vault, 1964)
- Jack Wilson Plays Brazilian Mancini (Vault, 1965)
- Ramblin (Vault, 1966)
- Something PersonalSomething PersonalSomething Personal is an album by American jazz pianist Jack Wilson featuring performances recorded and released on the Blue Note label in 1966.-Reception:...
(Blue Note RecordsBlue Note RecordsBlue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
, 1966) - Easterly WindsEasterly WindsEasterly Winds is an album by American jazz pianist Jack Wilson featuring performances recorded and released on the Blue Note label in 1967.-Reception:...
(Blue Note Records, 1967) - Song for My DaughterSong for My DaughterSong for My Daughter is an album by American jazz pianist Jack Wilson featuring performances recorded in 1968 and 1969 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:...
(Blue Note Records, 1969) - Autumn Sunset (Discovery, 1977)
- Innovations (Discovery, 1977)
- Margo's Theme (Discovery, 1979)
- In New York (DIW, 1993)
- The Clak Terry Five - Memories of Duke (Pablo Today, 1980)