Ernie Wilkins earned recognition as an agile, fluid bop tenor saxophonist and as the architect of incisive charts for large ensembles rooted in both bop and swing, contributions that shaped the signature sound of Count Basie’s second major band during the 1950s. He remained a constant presence on the domestic jazz circuit until 1979, when he relocated to Europe. His earliest training centered on piano and violin; later he enrolled in music courses at Wilberforce University and entered the Navy during World War II. In 1948 he joined the Earl Hines orchestra and performed throughout the St. Louis region before entering the Basie ranks in 1952. Wilkins stayed with Basie through 1955 yet kept supplying the leader with freelance scores while also writing for and touring with the Dizzy Gillespie band that visited the Middle East and South America in 1956. That same year he composed three of the six movements on the Wilkins/Manny Albam album The Drum Suite (RCA Victor), an effort widely regarded as the first to merge four drummers into a single big-band setting, and he directed his own large-ensemble sessions for Savoy and Everest throughout the decade. From 1958 to 1960 he served as staff composer for the Harry James orchestra and acted as musical director on recordings by Nat Adderley, Sarah Vaughan, Buddy Rich, Oscar Peterson, and Dinah Washington. In 1968 he entered Clark Terry’s Big B-A-D Band as composer and music director, after which he assembled his own ensemble and assumed the role of head of A&R at the Mainstream label from 1971 to 1973. He continued supplying Basie with new arrangements and traveled through Europe with Terry during the late 1970s, ultimately establishing residence in Copenhagen in 1979 and founding the Almost Big Band there. The bulk of Wilkins’s documented tenor saxophone performances appear on sideman dates with Basie and Terry.
