Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Joe Lee Wilson was born on December 22, 1935 in Bristow, Oklahoma of African-American and Creek Native American parentage who were farmers.

Seeing Billie Holiday perform in 1951 began his interest in a music-industry career. Moving to Los Angeles, California at the age of 15, he went to Los Angeles High School, where he majored in music and sang in an a cappella choir. Graduating with honors in 1954, Joe won a scholarship to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, where he studied opera, leaving after a year and then attending Los Angeles Junior College.

He began singing with local bands in 1958 and toured the West Coast, where he sat in with Sarah Vaughan, and down to Mexico. Relocating to New York City by 1962, he worked with Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham and Jackie McLean. During the 1970s, Wilson operated a jazz performance loft in New York’s NoHo district known as the Ladies’ Fort at 2 Bond Street. His regular band, Joe Lee Wilson Plus 5, featured the alto saxophonist Monty Waters and for several years the Japanese guitarist Ryo Kawasaki. Archie Shepp and Eddie Jefferson were frequent collaborators at these sessions.

Wilson had a minor radio hit on New York jazz radio in 1975, a rendition of Norman Mapp’s Jazz Ain’t Nothing But Soul. In 1977 he and his English wife Jill Christopher moved to Europe and settled in Brighton, Sussex. He recorded regularly with pianist Kirk Lightsey, including the Candid recording Feelin’ Good. One of his last albums was an Italian recording with Riccardo Arrighini and Gianni Basso, Ballads for Trane.

Inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 2010, he gave his last public performance at the event. He is the subject of a documentary film, Around Joe Lee, by Yves Breux and Brad Scott. Vocalist Joe Lee Wilson transitioned from congestive heart failure at his Brighton home on July 17, 2011, aged 75.

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