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Phil Wilson/Focus on Emotion, page 2
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The biggest obstacle that Phil Wilson had to overcome in his own musical apprenticeship stemmed from a physical problem. A piano teacher discovered that Wilson, at the age of 10, had dyslexia, a reading impairment that was causing him problems at school and during music lessons. Wilson had been studying piano since he was four, but came to realize that he was depending on his ears almost exclusively.
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Trombonist Steve Turre (left) and Phil Wilson strategize during a rehearsal at Berklee in 1996. |
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"My teacher noticed that I couldn't see blocks of notes, and she suggested that I take up a single-line instrument," Wilson says. He soon picked up the trombone and became proficient enough to land a job at 15 with the Ted Herbert Band, a group based near his home in Belmont, Mass.
Herbert loved Wilson's playing, but he didn't know the teenaged trombonist was learning most of the music by ear. During rehearsal one day, the bandleader asked Wilson to play a particular riff from a tune. He played the same riff he had been playing all along, but it differed from the written melody. His suspicions confirmed, Herbert fired Wilson.
"The embarrassment was mortifying," Wilson says. "It forced me to find a way. I worked and got an ability to focus. I forced myself to turn my ears off the first two times through and just focus on reading. It was my own way of figuring out how to deal with it."
Wilson has been dealing quite nicely ever since. He left New England Conservatory after two years to go on the road with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, and later played with Woody Herman, Louis Armstrong, Louis Bellson, Clark Terry, Buddy Rich, and Herbie Hancock. Several bandleaders hired him as a composer and arranger, and he won a Grammy Award nomination in 1969 for his arrangement of "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," as recorded by the Buddy Rich Big Band.
The international character of Wilson's life at Berklee has also found its way into his own projects. He recorded two recent records, his 11th and 13th as a leader, with the Hamburg, Germany-based NDR Big Band. On "Pal Joey Suite" (Capri, 2000), Wilson reworks Rodgers and Hart songs from the popular Broadway show, which opened in 1940. On his prior NDR-backed record, "The Wizard of Oz Suite," (Capri, 1993), Wilson creatively refashions the Harold Arlen songbook that scored the 1939 film.
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| The Rainbow Band runs through a chart. |
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| Photo by Liz Linder |
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His composition, arranging, and teaching talents notwithstanding, it is perhaps Wilson's trombone sound that most strikes people who go to his concerts. Writing for The Boston Herald in 1993, music journalist Harvey Pekar described Wilson's playing as "lush" with a "well-controlled vibrato, lyricism, incredible high note playing," and "fresh and unusual" melodic lines.
Wilson's trademark sound on his instrument has turned out to be one of his most valuable teaching tools.
"You've got to make students aware of the sound, how important it is, and you do that by being an example yourself," Wilson says. "You can tell my sound from other trombone players, and you can't miss it if you hear it week after week."
While Wilson demands that each of his private students work on what he calls "trombone aerobics," he also pushes them to develop muscles for musical creativity, chiefly by having them write a 32-bar composition every week.
"Sometimes they won't be able to control the horn enough to show melodic ability," Wilson says. "But when they have time to write it out, you can see what's going on melodically and harmonically in their heads. It can also really help them gain confidence."
When saxophonist Bill Pierce was a skinny teenager in the early 1970s, long before he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers or became Berklee's Woodwind Chair, he thought of himself as one of the "worst guys" in Wilson's Dues Band.
"Phil was the first guy to give me the opportunity to do anything," Pierce said during an 1995 interview before a concert he and other alumni gave in tribute to Wilson. "I didn't know anything,but I guess he heard something in me that he really wanted to do something with, to see if I could do something with it, and I'm really grateful for that."
Back in the rehearsal room, Wilson is urging on the next generation of jazz messengers. On the third try, the band successfully twists its way through the head of "Kilgore Trout," and now players are taking turns standing and soloing. As his trombone player begins his improvisation, Wilson also stands, listening intently and keeping time with his entire body, moving his head from left to right, chopping his left arm through the air, and stamping his feet. As the solo nears its end, a large grin settles on Wilson's face and he yells out those words of clear affirmation:
"Yeah Babe!"
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