[Dixielandjazz] Trumpeter Joe Wilder dies at 92. NY Times MAY 10, 2014

[Norman Vickers]

To:  Musicians and Jazzfans list;  DJML

From: Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

 

Jazz and classical trumpeter Joe Wilder dies at 92.  From NYTimes Sat. May
10, 2014

 

As the NYT story relates, Joe was a wonderful performer and always a
gentleman.  I had opportunity to see/hear him at Dick Gibson Colorado Jazz
Parties and at other events including Carolina Jazz parties in Wilmington.
He was also an avid photographer.  When I’d see him off-stage, he always had
his camera with him.  His photo collection must be fabulous and a who’s-who
of jazz.

 

Joe Wilder figures prominently in Bill Crow’s story about the disastrous
trip  on Russia led by Benny Goodman.  Seems that Wilder made a deal with
Goodman before agreeing to make the trip that he’d have opportunity to take
along extra gear and a relative as an assistant.  Seems that Goodman reneged
on the agreement refusing to pay for the assistant and transportation costs
for  the extra gear.  Wilder took Goodman before the Musicians Union
adjudicating committee and won!  It’s a long read, but if you haven’t done
it already, it’s worth it.  Revealing in many ways, not only about Wilder
and Goodman but about a number of other musicians as well—Zoot Sims, Phil
Woods and others.  Here’s the link:  

 

http://www.billcrowbass.com/billcrowbass.com/To_Russia_Without_Love.html

 


 


 


 


 <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/music/index.html> MUSIC


Joe Wilder, Horn Player, Dies at 92; Elegance Was His Theme Song


By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/j_david_goodma
n/index.html> J. DAVID GOODMANMAY 9, 2014

Photo

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/05/10/arts/wilder-obit/wilder-obit-maste
r495.jpg

Joe Wilder performing at the Village Vanguard in 2006. Although Mr. Wilder
spent decades as a sought-after sideman on trumpet, cornet and fluegelhorn,
this was the first time he led a band on a New York stage.CreditRahav

, a lyrical trumpeter who played with some of the biggest big bands in jazz
and helped integrate Broadway, radio and television orchestras, died on
Friday in Manhattan. He was 92.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Elin Wilder-Melcher.

Mr. Wilder, who played cornet and fluegelhorn as well as trumpet, lent his
elegant tone to bands led by Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford
and Benny Goodman. In 1962 he toured the Soviet Union with Goodman. He also
worked, in concert and in the studio, with Billie Holiday, Harry Belafonte
and many other singers.

A soft-spoken and stately man who never appeared in public without a tie, he
developed a clear and even sound that reflected the years he spent studying
classical performance as a young man. He aspired to a symphonic career but
gravitated to jazz out of necessity.

“The opportunities for black musicians in the concert field were nil,” he
said in an interview for the jazz archive of Hamilton College in 1996. His
interest in classical music, he added, “inhibited my jazz playing a great
deal” early in his career: “I was very stiff.”

Through the 1940s, Broadway was also off-limits to black musicians; few if
any performed in the pit orchestras of musicals. It’s not clear who was the
first, but Mr. Wilder was certainly one of the first — and even after he had
crossed the color line he faced obstacles.

Fresh from stints with Lucky Millinder and Dizzy Gillespie, he was studying
classical performance at the Manhattan School of Music and hoping to join
the New York Philharmonic when he got a call to play in the band for the
1950 musical revue “Alive and Kicking.”

Shortly after that, he joined the “Guys and Dolls” pit band, which included
two other black musicians, Benny Morton on trombone and Billy Kyle on piano.
The three were accepted in New York, but when the show traveled to
Washington it was a different story.

The pit band there consisted of local musicians as well as some key members
of the New York ensemble. The producers had wanted the three black musicians
to be part of the Washington band, but decided to keep Mr. Wilder and Mr.
Morton out when the local musicians refused to play if they were in the horn
section. (Mr. Kyle was allowed to be in the orchestra because, as a pianist,
he did not sit with the other musicians.) Race was not an issue in 1955,
when Cole Porter himself blessed Mr. Wilder’s choice as first trumpet in the
orchestra for his show “Silk Stockings.” And race was rarely if ever an
issue for Broadway pit bands after that.

Mr. Wilder played an equally important role, along with the bassist Milt
Hinton and a few others, in integrating the studio bands of network radio
and, later, television. Mr. Wilder, a member of the ABC ensemble from 1957
until the television networks did away with such bands in the 1970s, was
heard on “The Voice of Firestone,” “The Dick Cavett Show” and other programs
that used live music.

He later became a fixture in New York’s recording studios and on film
soundtracks. In the 1980s he was in the pit band for the hit Broadway
musical “42nd Street.”

Joseph Benjamin Wilder was born to Curtis and the former Augustine Brown
Wilder on Feb. 22, 1922, in Colwyn, Pa., outside Philadelphia. He came from
a family of musicians, and chose the trumpet over the bass, which both his
father and his older brother, Curtis Jr., played professionally.

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He was a regular on “Parisian Tailors’ Colored Kiddies of the Air,” a weekly
Philadelphia radio show that featured young black musicians, backed by
all-star big bands led by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and other stars.
The show was broadcast live on Sundays, when jazz bands were prevented by
Pennsylvania law from playing in public. (Reflecting the de facto
segregation in the music industry at the time, another Philadelphia radio
show featured only young white musicians.)

Mr. Wilder attended Mastbaum Technical High School, which was known for its
strong music program but, like most programs at the time, did not teach
jazz. After graduation he joined Les Hite’s big band as the first trumpet in
a section that also included Dizzy Gillespie.

He worked with Lionel Hampton before serving in the Marines for three years
during
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/w/world_war_ii
_/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> World War II, and rejoined him in 1946
after his discharge. He went on to work with Gillespie and others before
migrating first to Broadway and then to ABC in the 1950s.

Mr. Wilder lived in Manhattan. In addition to his daughter Elin, survivors
include his wife, Solveig; two other daughters, Solveig Wilder and
Inga-Kerstin Wilder; a son, Joseph Jr., from a previous marriage; and six
grandchildren.

Mr. Wilder did eventually achieve his goal of performing in a classical
ensemble. After returning to the Manhattan School of Music and belatedly
earning a bachelor’s degree, he performed occasionally with the New York
Philharmonic in the 1960s.

But he was content to be a sideman for most of his career. He released only
a handful of albums as a leader, among them “Wilder ’n’ Wilder” (1956), “The
Pretty Sound of Joe Wilder” (1959) and “Among Friends” (2003). A week at the
Village Vanguard in 2006, timed to coincide with his 84th birthday, was his
first New York engagement at the helm of his own group.

In 2008 Mr. Wilder was named a Jazz Master by the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nationa
l_endowment_for_the_arts/index.html?inline=nyt-org> National Endowment for
the Arts, the nation’s highest honor for a jazz musician.

Mr. Wilder was often called “the gentleman” by fellow musicians, who
respected both his musicianship and his generous, self-effacing demeanor.
“He was trustworthy and honorable, and he would never curse,” his fellow
trumpeter Warren Vaché remembered. “I once offered to pay him to say ‘damn
it,’ and he wouldn’t take the money.”

Peter Keepnews contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on May 10, 2014

 
-End--

 

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