Tuesday, July 15, 2008

R.I.P.: Gerald Wiggins

Gerald Wiggins
(12.May 1922, New York;
d: 13.Jul.2008, Tarzane/CA)

The pianist Gerry Wiggins died July 13th in Tarzana, California, at the age of 86. Wiggins who was born in New York, and played at Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem in the 1930s before moving to California in 1942 to play with the band of Les Hite, but also with musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Benny Carter. In the 1950s he was one of the busiest musicians on the American West Coast, playing with other instrumentalists such as Zoot Sims, Roy Eldridge and others just as well as accompanying singers such as Eartha Kitt, Dinah Washington, Lou Rawls, Pearl Bailey, Ernie Andrews, Lena Horne or Nat King Cole. He was Marilyn Monroe's vocal coach. Obituary: Los Angeles Times.

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