Joe Wilder


Joseph Benjamin Wilder was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. His Grandchildren are Bleu Roberson, Lilly Townsend and Grey’cia Roberson
Wilder was awarded the Temple University Jazz Master's Hall of Fame Award in 2006. The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with its highest honor in jazz, the NEA Jazz Masters Award for 2008.

Biography

Wilder was born into a musical family led by his father Curtis, a bassist and bandleader in Philadelphia. Wilder's first performances took place on the radio program "Parisian Tailor's Colored Kiddies of the Air". He and the other young musicians were backed up by such illustrious bands as Duke Ellington's and Louis Armstrong's that were also then playing at the Lincoln Theater. Wilder studied at the Mastbaum School of Music in Philadelphia, but turned to jazz when he felt that there was little future for an African-American classical musician. At the age of 19, Wilder joined his first touring big band, Les Hite's band.
Wilder was one of the first thousand African Americans to serve in the Marines during World War II. He worked first in Special Weapons and eventually became Assistant Bandmaster at the headquarters' band. Following the war during the 1940s and early 1950s, he played in the orchestras of Jimmie Lunceford, Herbie Fields, Sam Donahue, Lucky Millinder, Noble Sissle, Dizzy Gillespie, and finally with the Count Basie Orchestra. From 1957 to 1974, Wilder did studio work for ABC-TV, New York City, and in the pit orchestras for Broadway musicals, while building his reputation as a soloist with his albums for Savoy and Columbia. His Jazz from Peter Gunn, features ten songs from Henry Mancini television score in melodic and swinging fashion with a quartet. He was also a regular sideman with such musicians as NEA Jazz Masters Hank Jones, Gil Evans, and Benny Goodman. He became a favorite with vocalists and played for Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte, Eileen Farrell, Tony Bennett, and many others. Wilder earned a bachelor of music degree in 1953, studying classical trumpet at the Manhattan School of Music with Joseph Alessi, where he was also principal trumpet with the school's symphony orchestra under conductor Jonel Perlea. In the 1960s, he performed on several occasions with the New York Philharmonic under Andre Kostelanetz and Pierre Boulez and played lead for the Symphony Of The New World from 1965 to 1971.
He appeared on The Cosby Show episode "Play It Again, Russell", and played the trumpet in the Malcolm X Orchestra in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X". Since 1991 he returned as a leader and recorded three albums for Evening Star. He died on May 9, 2014, in New York City, of congestive heart failure.

Discography

As leader

As sideman

With Trigger Alpert
With Count Basie
With Louis Bellson and Gene Krupa
With Ruth Brown
With Benny Carter
With Al Cohn
With Tadd Dameron
With Gil Evans
With Dizzy Gillespie
With Jimmy Giuffre
With Urbie Green
With Johnny Hartman
;With Coleman Hawkins
With Johnny Hodges
With J. J. Johnson
With Etta Jones
With Hank Jones
With Quincy Jones
With Yusef Lateef
With John Lewis
With Mundell Lowe
With Herbie Mann
With Les McCann
With Oliver Nelson
With David Newman
With Houston Person
With Oscar Pettiford
With A. K. Salim
With Shirley Scott
With Rex Stewart and Cootie Williams
With Sonny Stitt
With Ernie Wilkins
With Anita O'Day
With Donna Hightower
With others