At 85, jazz legend and UCLA Professor Gerald Wilson is showing
no signs of slowing down.
On Monday, Nov. 3, The Gerald Wilson Orchestra will perform at
The Jazz Bakery at 8 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Despite his already long
and impressive list of accomplishments in the field of jazz, Wilson
remains just as active as ever.
“The sound of my band is different from any other in the
world,” Wilson said. He accredited this to his theory of
eight-part harmony (most use four-part harmony), dubbed the
Diminished Triangle.
“It allows for more power and brilliance and opens up a
more thematic approach to scoring,” he added. Luckily, all
this is explained in a new book he’s working on.
Born in New York City in 1918, Wilson was first exposed to music
at age 5 by his mother, a pianist. By the time he was 7, he could
already read music. At 10 he began playing the trumpet, his primary
instrument throughout his career.
Then, in 1939, Wilson got his break with the Jimmie Lunceford
band. Over the next 60 years, Wilson wrote arrangements and
originals and played the trumpet for greats such as Duke Ellington,
Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Carter, just to name a few. Beyond jazz,
he has received commissions from former Los Angeles Philharmonic
Music Director Rubin Mehta and has written scores for film and
television. Of all these experiences, Wilson named playing for
Ellington and Count Basie as two of the highlights of his
career.
“Duke Ellington was one of my biggest influences,”
Wilson said. “I knew about him from the age of 10 and
followed his career all of my life. I was also a fan of Count
Basie. Playing and writing for him for two years as a member of his
orchestra was one of the happiest times of my career.”
Gerald Wilson’s list of accolades is impressive. It
includes five Grammy nominations, first place in Big Band and
Composer/Arranger honors in the Downbeat International Critics
poll, and the NEA American Jazz Masters Fellowship. In addition,
the Library of Congress archived Wilson’s life’s work
in 1996.
Wilson also carries a lengthy record as an educator, teaching
jazz history since 1970. He spent 13 years at Cal State Northridge,
six at Cal State Los Angeles, three at Cal Arts, and is currently
in his 13th year at UCLA. The cap for his Ethnomusicology 120A
class is at 400 students, which he claims makes it the largest jazz
class in the world. Wilson believes his experience as a musician
aids his effectiveness as an educator.
“I happened to have been there at that time,” Wilson
said. “I’m familiar firsthand with the jazz from that
period. I saw almost all the musicians born after the turn of the
century and knew them.”
In class, Wilson exuberantly displays his love and comprehensive
knowledge of jazz. Over the course of a 110-minute lecture, he has
the class bobscat along with him, demonstrates chords on a piano,
and sings snatches of Buddy Bolden’s “Funky Butt, Funky
Butt, Take it Away.” At 9 in the morning, Wilson carries more
energy than any undergraduate in the room.
“I wake up at 7, eat a big bowl of oatmeal, and come to
work,” Wilson said laughing. “And I’m ready for
the music.”
Much of his lecture is spent playing jazz records for the
students, during which Wilson can’t seem to stay still
““ he appreciatively claps his hands, snaps his fingers, nods
his head and taps his feet with the music.
“You must move,” Wilson said. “If jazz
doesn’t make you move, it’s not really
happening,” he explained. “No matter how much I hear a
recording, I’m always intrigued, appreciating things I
didn’t hear the first time, the second time, the thousandth
time.”
Second-year computer science and engineering student Young Cha,
currently enrolled in the Ethnomusicology 120A class, cites Wilson
as the draw for taking the class.
“He’s just so passionate about it that it makes you
wonder what exactly is so interesting about jazz, and that’s
kind of like the hook,” Cha said. “The sinker being the
fact that he does indeed know so much that you grow to have an
appreciation for it.”
Wilson is still busy traveling the world, receiving praise,
participating in conventions and performing. He recently wore a
“Navy Band Great Lakes” hat to class, of which he was a
member.
He was honored with a citation from President Bush and the Navy
Department in Chicago a few months ago, with a group of black
musicians, for being among the first blacks ever in the U.S.
Navy.
He also performed a concert at the Paris Conservatory earlier
this year and frequents New York to attend conventions. In fact,
his new album, “New York, New Sound,” released this
past August, features some of the world’s greatest jazz
musicians and was recorded during a visit to New York.
As for his personal life, Wilson makes time for his large family
““ his wife Josephina, three daughters, a son (Anthony Wilson,
also a jazz musician and an Assistant Adjunct Professor at UCLA)
and four grandchildren ““ goes to concerts and tries to keep a
household running. But it’s doubtful he’ll settle down
anytime soon.
“There’s always something new to learn about music,
especially jazz. It’s evolution and revolution,” Wilson
said. “Music keeps me going. Jazz keeps me going. It’s
a constant search.”