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| 4.331 Ft
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| 1. | Blues on Belle Isle
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| 2. | Cass Tech
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| 3. | Detroit
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| 4. | Miss Gretchen
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| 5. | Before Motown
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| 6. | The Detroit River
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| 7. | Everywhere
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| 8. | Aram
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Jazz
Detroit is Mr. Gerald Wilson's fourth release on Mack Avenue Records, and the follow-up to his critically acclaimed Monterey Moods. Commissioned by the Detroit International Jazz Festival to celebrate it's 30th anniversary, Detroit is a six part suite that evokes both the edge and the ambition of this blue collar city. An iconic Big Band composer, arranger and leader, Gerald gathers his bi-coastal roster of musicians together into one true House of Jazz.
Detroit comprises a six-composition suite commissioned for the 2009 thirtieth anniversary Detroit International Jazz Festival, played in the studio with musicians from composer/arranger Gerald Wilson's Los Angeles home or New York City area. Curiously, there are no Motor City-based players on the disc, but the themes are based in certain locales from the industrial Midwestern City that has fallen on hard economic times but played a pivotal role in the development of Wilson's highly developed skills as a composer, arranger, and bandleader. A quite spirited and energetic music is heard here from the 90-year-old Wilson, whose charm and wit would rival anyone many decades his junior. It's a swinging affair molded in the traditional big-band visage of Count Basie, Ernie Wilkins, or early Quincy Jones, with Wilson's deft touch for embellishing the blues. Players like trumpeter Sean Jones, son/guitarist Anthony Wilson, violinist Yvette Devereaux, the fine pianist Brian O'Rourke, and particularly L.A. alto saxophonist and flutist Randall Willis or Kamasi Washington on tenor sax, spice up the band's ensemble and solo contributions. The suite begins with "Blues on Belle Isle," a bopping tribute to the riverside playground and picnic area Detroiter's depend on to relax and escape from their troubles. The vaunted school for many jazz legends over the years, a dedication to "Cass Tech" is based on the changes of Benny Golson's "Along Came Betty," and swings along quite nicely with a reharmonized melody. The title track is a ballad for the sprawling metropolis that reflects both its jewels and rundown buildings, while "Before Motown" is a regal and tough Spanish-flavored piece, and the finale "The Detroit River" goes from hard bop right into solos, with Jones as the strongman. In the middle is "Miss Gretchen" for Mack Avenue founder and festival financial supporter Gretchen Valade; it's a midtempo swinger reflecting Charles Mingus' start-stop, pedal-point slow downs and speed ups paired with Duke Ellington's elegance. The two pieces not a part of the suite are the near-13-minute "Everywhere," a unified, powerful, and modal retro-jazz piece reflective of the '70s à la Frank Foster's Loud Minority. The held tension and release of the sprightly waltz "Aram" differentiates from the other selections in that the band cuts loose a bit more, features brief solos from trumpeter Terrell Stafford or alto saxophonist Antonio Hart, and more accurately reflects the personality of the author rather than the city he loves and owes respect to. Making this joyous music, and getting paid well for it, must be extremely gratifying to Wilson and his bandmates, but what it really does show off is Detroit in a positive light, something it desperately needs considering all of the negative press it receives for non-cultural stories. Detroit, in fact, remains a great American city, persevering and enduring through ignorance and abandonment, and those who live and work there will be pleased that Wilson's music perfectly represents their shining spirit and swinging souls. ~ Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
Gerald Wilson
Active Decades: '40s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Sep 04, 1918 in Shelby, MS
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Big Band, Progressive Big Band, Post-Bop, Hard Bop, Progressive Jazz, Traditional Pop, Interview, Orchestral Jazz
From time to time, Gerald Wilson seems like one of Los Angeles' better-kept secrets, an unusually skillful, imaginative and charismatic bandleader who hasn't 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 Foxx's NBC shows and serving as one of the Los Angeles jazz scene's 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 Wilson's life's 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.
---Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide |
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