Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Juice Wilson, born on January 21, 1904 grew up an orphan and was raised by his uncle from age three in Chicago. He began playing drums in the Chicago Militia Boys Band, and then switched to violin at age eight. By the age of twelve he was already playing with Jimmy Wade, and at 14 he performed with Freddie Keppard.
Juice worked on steamboats on the Great Lakes and did extended residencies with Jimmy Harrison in Ohio. Early in the 1920s he worked in Erie with Hersal Brassfield, moved to Buffalo, New York to play with Eugene Primus as well as the Buffalo Junior Symphony Orchestra.
By 1928, Wilson moved to New York City and played with Lloyd Scott at the Savoy Ballroom. At the end of the decade he toured Europe with Noble Sissle, and decided to remain there, working in Holland with Ed Swayzee, Leon Abbey, the Utica Jubilee Singers, the Louis Douglass Revue, Little Mike McKendrickâs International Band and Tom Chase.
He made trips to Spain and North Africa before settling in Malta, where he became a local star. He worked there through much of the 1940s and 1950s as a multi-instrumentalist, and made further tours around the Mediterranean before coming back to the United States in the 1960s.
Jazz violinist Juice Wilson died peacefully on May 22, 1993.
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