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Guest Artist, Trombone
Phil Wilson, a resident of Belmont, Massachusetts, is an
internationally renowned musician who has performed with such
jazz greats as Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman. He initially
came to prominence as first trombonist and jazz soloist with the
early ’60s edition of Woody Herman’s
“swinging herd.” Wilson recorded twelve albums during
his stay with the Herman Band. After 3½ years with Herman, Phil
joined the Dorsey Brothers Band. In 1965—after nine
exhausting years of bus tours and one-night stands—he
accepted a faculty posistion at Berklee College of Music in
Boston. During his thirty years at Berklee, Phil has established
himself as one of the pioneers of jazz education. In addition to
being a world-class trombonist and jazz educator, Phil is known
throughout the jazz world as a first-class composer and arranger.
His arrangement of the Joe Zawinul hit, Mercy, Mercy,
which was recorded by the Buddy Rich Band, won him a Grammy Award
nomination.
Phil has appeared as a guest artist at jazz festivals
throughout the world. Recently, he spent two weeks touring the
Netherlands and recorded with the Metropol Orchestra, the radio
orchestra of the Netherlands—a group that Phil has described
as “one of the finest in the world.” He also spent two
weeks touring Sweden with the Northern German Radio Big Band,
featuring music from his latest CD, The Wizard of Oz Suite.
Phil wrote all of the arrangements on the disc, and he is the
featured soloist with the group.
In December of 1995, Phil was honored at the Berklee
Performance Center by former members of the International Dues
Band, which Phil founded many years ago at Berklee. These former
members came to Boston to participate in a tribute concert in
recognition of Phil’s thirty-one years of teaching at Berklee.
Many of them are now celebrated jazz artists.
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