Biography

Wilber's career as a musician, composer, arranger and jazz educator spanned an impressive 75 years. His fascination with jazz began at the age of three after listening to a recording of Duke Ellington's 'Mood Indigo'. Learning clarinet as a child, he then became adept at the soprano saxophone while studying under Sidney Bechet. In 1945, at the age of 17, Wilber set up a revivalist jazz combo, the Wildcats. This trio later expanded into a full orchestra and played night clubs in Boston and New York for several years. Though he was primarily an exponent of traditional jazz, Wilber went on to explore other forms of the genre while honing his expertise under the tutelage of the progressive pianist Lennie Tristano and the saxophonist Lee Konitz. Having returned from military service (1952-54), he subsequently incorporated modern concepts into his second organisation, The Six. The band recorded an album which was released in 1954 by Norman Granz. Their credo (according to the magazine Down Beat) was "to play without regard to restrictions of schools or styles."

During the remainder of the decade, Wilber gigged and recorded with Eddie Condon, Jack Teagarden and Bobby Hackett and twice toured with Benny Goodman. By the late 60s, having added the alto sax to his repertoire, he became a founding member of the World's Greatest Jazz Band (a famous 'super group' which specialised in both Dixieland and mainstream jazz and included such outstanding jazzmen as Yank Lawson,Bud Freeman and Billy Butterfield). Wilber stayed for six years before moving on to establish, respectively, the Soprano Summit quintet with Kenny Davern in 1975 and the Bechet Legacy in 1981 (recording extensively under his own record label, Bodeswell). He formed and led an orchestra for the 50th anniversary of Benny Goodman's legendary concert at Carnegie Hall and the following year organized and performed a Royal Ellington concert for the Queen. As arranger, he effectively recreated Ellington's music for the motion picture The Cotton Club (1984), winning a Grammy Award in 1986. In 2003, Wilber conducted the all-French Tuxedo Big Band in Toulouse, France, playing previously unrecorded Fletcher Henderson arrangements for Benny Goodman. Released by Arbors Records, the resulting album featured many superb tracks (with Wilber performing the clarinet solos), including "Blue Interlude", "I'm Coming Virginia", "All The Things You Are", "Some Of These Days" and "Benny's Bugle".

Maintaining a high profile in jazz education, Wilber served on the board of the New York Repertory Orchestra and was the inaugural musical director of the Smithsonian Jazz Repertory Ensemble. His co-authored autobiography, "Music was not enough", appeared in 1987.
- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis

I said, "Well, Dad, I just want to hang around and listen to all these great musicians, maybe meet them, maybe get a chance to sit in and play with them." He says, "Son, you want to spend the rest of your life blowing your lungs out in smoky dives?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, that's what I want to do."

Sidney [Bechet] was a very articulate man, with a real sense of the importance of what he was doing, and of the necessity to pass it on. He discussed the whole artistic idea of what you do as a player - the idea of telling a story, of how to approach theme and variations, and how important it was to convey a feeling.