Biography
During the 1970s Joe Lee Wilson emerged as one of the era’s most distinctive jazz vocalists by combining a robust and evocative baritone with clear phrasing, an easy rhythmic swing, and discerning repertoire that earned him steady popularity, above all on college stages throughout the Northeast. He trained in classical voice before enrolling at Los Angeles City College in the 1950s, where he concentrated on jazz. Late in that decade he worked the West Coast and Mexico as a jazz singer, then settled in New York in 1962. The following decade brought associations with Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, and Jackie McLean; in 1971 and 1972 he sang with Archie Shepp. His commanding lead work on the Shepp albums Things Have Got to Change and Attica Blues drew wide attention, as did his own recordings and appearances with Sunny Murray, Mtume, and Billy Gault. Between 1973 and 1978 Wilson ran the Ladies Fort loft in New York and performed at the 1973 Newport in New York festival as well as the 1975 Live Loft events. A 1977 date with Clifford Jordan preceded his relocation to London the next year. From his new base he toured Europe, played London clubs, and returned periodically to New York, yet never restored his earlier momentum. Numerous Wilson albums received compact-disc reissues in the 2000s, while Shepp’s Attica Blues was reissued in 1993.
Albums
