1. Robert Sage Wilber was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and band leader.
16 Facts About Bob Wilber
1. 2.
Bob Wilber played with many distinguished jazz leaders in the 1950s and 1960s, including Bobby Hackett, Benny Goodman, Sidney Bechet, Jack Teagarden and Eddie Condon.
3.
Bob Wilber was active in jazz education, including working as director of the Smithsonian Jazz Repertory Ensemble.
4.
Robert Sage Bob Wilber, a "superb soprano saxophonist, a classic clarinetist, a gifted arranger and composer, and an invaluable preserver and enhancer of jazz tradition", was born in New York City on March 15,1928.
5.
Bob Wilber became interested in jazz at the age of three when his father brought home a recording of Duke Ellington's song "Mood Indigo".
6.
At the age of thirteen, Bob Wilber began formal clarinet study under his first teacher, Willard Briggs.
7.
Bob Wilber began listening to jazz from New Orleans, Kansas City, and Chicago by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Eddie Condon, and Frank Teschemacher.
8.
Bob Wilber played jazz in high school and with his friends formed a "hot club", listening and jamming to records.
9.
Bob Wilber attempted to compromise with his parents by attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, in the fall of 1945.
10.
In 1944, Bob Wilber had become fascinated with Bechet's sound, and later that year, when Bob Wilber was sixteen, he was introduced to Bechet through Mezz Mezzrow.
11.
Bob Wilber found out there was an opening for a pupil out at Bechet's house in Brooklyn, and so he became a Bechet pupil.
12.
Bob Wilber often sat in with Bechet at Jimmy Ryan's and they often performed duets.
13.
At the festival, Bob Wilber's group shared the bill with Louis Armstrong and his Allstars.
14.
Bob Wilber recorded for Columbia Records, Commodore, and Circle with Bechet and with his own group in the late 1940s.
15.
In 1948, Bob Wilber formed a trio to play at intermissions at the Savoy Cafe in Boston.
16.
Bob Wilber gained a strong following in Boston and the Savoy gig lasted through the better part of 1949.