“There’s no way you can sit in Gerald’s band and sit on the back of your chair,” bandleader/arranger John Clayton told the Detroit Free Press. “He handles the orchestra in a very wise and experienced craftsman sort of way. The combination of the heart and the craft is in perfect balance.” - L A Times

A graduate of Detroit's Cass Tech, Gerald Wilson started to be a force in music when he joined the Jimmie Lunceford band as trumtere/arranger in 1939.  After a stint conducting the U.S. Navy's Great Lakes Training Center band in WWII, he moved to Los Angeles and formed his own band. Despite its success, he disbanded and went on the road with the Count Basie Band and Dizzy Gillespie's group.  During the 1950s and 60s, Mr. Wilson was an important part of the Los Angeles music business,  composing and arranging for jazz and pop singers, big bands, movies and television shows while keeping his own orchestra afloat. He taught at Cal State & UCLA, and hosted a jazz radio program on KBCA-FM.  In later years he was a commissioned composer (notably for the Monterey Jazz Festival) and guest conductor with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, the Lincoln Center Orchestra, various European orchestras and the BBC Big Band.  The National Endowment for the Arts named Wilson an NEA Jazz Master in 1990.  He died in 2014 at the age of 96.