Jack Wilson - Days of Wine and Roses

By the mid-1960s, two distinct musical phenomena had firmly captured the American cultural imagination: the cinematic genius of composer Henry Mancini, and the sultry, syncopated sway of the Brazilian Bossa Nova. It took an orchestrator and pianist of Jack Wilson’s immense caliber to realize that these two worlds belonged together. Wilson, a brilliant hard-bop pianist who migrated from the Midwest to Los Angeles at the suggestion of multi-instrumentalist Buddy Collette, quickly became a secret weapon of the West Coast studio scene. Known for his lightning-fast arranging pen and crisp, soulful touch on the keys, Wilson was uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between Hollywood sophistication and authentic jazz experimentation.