RIP Bob Wilber (1928-2019)

By londonjazz on 6 August 2019 • ( Leave a comment )

Sebastian writes: Reports reach us that clarinettist, saxophonist, arranger and educator Robert Sage (Bob) Wilber died on Sunday 4 August at the age of 91.

Bob Wilber at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the 1970s. (Photo: René Speur/Creative Commons)

This biography on the Stanford University website sums up the main points of a long and illustrious musical career, from meeting Sidney Bechet as a teenager…Wilber’s Rainbow Room residency in the 1980s is the stuff of legend. Dizzyfingers, a 1980 tribute to Benny Goodman, is a fetish album for clarinettists. Soprano Summit with Kenny Davern also produced some very strong albums. His Ellington re-creations for Coppola’s film Cotton Club are masterly and he was invited to run projects in his later years by the Smithsonian Institute and Lincoln Center, notably a centenary tribute to Benny Goodman in May 2009 Reviews: With Fapy Lafertin in Wimbledon in 2012 .

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