Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014)

Kenny Wheeler

After Kenny Wheeler passed away last Thursday, the outpouring of admiration and pure love for his music and himself as a person has been astonishing. I never met the man, although I saw him a few times playing live — the last one with an all-star cast at the London Jazz Festival 2012, another wonderful show of love, admiration and great music.

Wheeler is one of those characters that just don't fit in your typical jazz history. From the same generation as Clifford Brown, Bill Evans, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer and all those guys, he was a Canadian who emigrated to the UK in 1952 (the beginning of the Gerry Mulligan-Chet Baker quartet, for instance). He was a late bloomer, his career moved back and forth from large ensemble compositions to free improvisation, not something you'd expect from such a retiring, quiet, sweet man, who once explained his method as "what I like doing best is writing sad tunes, and then letting wonderful musicians destroy them".

RIP Joe Wilder (1922-2014)

Joe Wilder at IJS
(Photo by Ed Berger)

Ed Berger, his good friend and biographer, reports the passing of Joe Wilder earlier today. Wilder, somehow like Hank Jones, was a gentleman, a dedicated craftsman in his instrument, from which he extracted the most beautiful sound, soft yet slightly brassy. With him gone, yet another window to the past is closed, but at least we have Berger's biography, which is already available. And we'll always have the records.

This is an article about Wilder by Berger. Here, he's at Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on NPR.

This is Wilder taming an old warhorse.