Gerald Wilson, who passed away on September 8, 2014 at the age of 96, was a bandleader, composer, arranger and trumpeter whose career spanned the peak of the swing era to the 21st century. While he's best known for the big bands that he led, he also worked with vocalists such as Sarah Vaughan, Johnny Hartman, Nancy Wilson, Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ray Charles. We'll hear his arrangements and recordings with those artists on this tribute edition of Afterglow.
You can delve deeper into the musical world of Gerald Wilson on the Night Lights program Last Of The Lions, which features his big bands of the 1940s and the 1960s.