Jiggs Whigham

A highly adaptable trombonist of considerable stature, Jiggs Whigham has yet to gain the acclaim he merits, a circumstance that may stem from his extended professional activity in Germany. Upon finishing secondary school in 1961, he entered the Glenn Miller Ghost Orchestra led by Ray McKinley, then joined the Stan Kenton Orchestra in 1963. He relocated permanently to Germany two years later to perform with the Kurt Edelhagen band; once that ensemble disbanded, he remained in the country as a studio musician, an independent jazz soloist, and an educator, attaining a professorship at Cologne Conservatory in 1974. Across subsequent decades he appeared alongside Maynard Ferguson, Count Basie, the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Johnny Griffin, Freddie Hubbard, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Lee Konitz, and Sarah Vaughan, among numerous others, and participated in the late-1970s recording Trombone Summit together with Bill Watrous, Kai Winding, and Albert Mangelsdorff. Beyond his work on albums by Stan Kenton, Johnny Richards, George Gruntz, Bill Holman, and the Brass Connection, Whigham has directed his own dates for MPS in 1971, Telefunken in 1976 (issued in the United States by Pausa), Koala in 1982, and Capri in 1989.