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Alexander Lafayette Chew Wilder (February 16, 1907 – December 24, 1980)[1] was an American composer, author, and radio host. Considered one of the most inventive and lyrical American composers, he wrote thousands of pieces of music across various genres, including American popular song and classical music. Though his musical compositions were not always widely known during his lifetime, he became a notable figure in musical history for his 1972 book, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, which is widely regarded as a definitive work on the subject. He also hosted a Peabody Award-winning radio series, American Popular Song with Alec Wilder and Friends, on National Public Radio (NPR) in the mid-1970s.[2]
Wilder was born in Rochester, New York, United States,[1] to a prominent family; the Wilder Building downtown (at the "Four Corners") bears the family's name and his maternal grandfather, and namesake, was prominent banker Alexander Lafayette Chew. As a young boy, he traveled to New York City with his mother and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel. It would later be his home for the last 40 or so years of his life.[1] He attended several prep schools, unhappily, as a teenager. Around this time, he hired a lawyer and essentially "divorced" himself from his family, gaining for himself some portion of the family fortune.
He was largely self-taught as a composer; he studied privately with the composers Herman Inch and Edward Royce, who taught at the Eastman School of Music in the 1920s, but never registered for classes and never received his degree.[3] While there, he edited a humor magazine and scored music for short films directed by James Sibley Watson. Wilder was eventually awarded an honorary degree in 1973.
He was good friends with Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and others who helped develop the American popular music canon. Among the popular songs he wrote or co-wrote were "I'll Be Around" (a hit for the Mills Brothers), "While We're Young" (recorded by Peggy Lee and many others), "Blackberry Winter", "Where Do You Go?" (recorded by Sinatra) and "It's So Peaceful in the Country".[1] He also wrote many songs for the cabaret artist Mabel Mercer, including one of her signature pieces, "Did You Ever Cross Over to Sneden's?".[4] Wilder occasionally wrote his own lyrics, including for his most famous song "I'll Be Around".[1] Other lyricists he worked with included Loonis McGlohon, William Engvick, Johnny Mercer and Fran Landesman.[5]
In addition to writing popular songs, Wilder also composed classical pieces for unique combinations of orchestral instruments.[1] The Alec Wilder Octet, including Eastman classmate Mitch Miller on oboe, recorded several of his originals for Brunswick Records in 1938-40. His classical numbers, which often had off-beat, humorous titles ("The Hotel Detective Registers"), were strongly influenced by jazz. He wrote eleven operas; one of which, Miss Chicken Little (1953), was commissioned for television by CBS. Wilder also arranged a series of Christmas carols for Tubachristmas. On April 7, 1961, tuba player Roger Bobo performed Alec Wilder's Tuba Sonata at Carnegie Recital Hall in Manhattan. The performance was reviewed in the Time Magazine article "Music: Bobo Among the Barcarolles."[6]
Sinatra conducted the Columbia String Orchestra on Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder, an album of Wilder's classical music (1946). Wilder also contributed two tone poems, "Grey" and "Blue", to the 1956 album, Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color.
Wilder wrote the definitive book American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950 (1972).[1] He was also featured in a radio series based on the book, broadcast in the middle to late 1970s.[7] With lyricist Loonis McGlohon (his co-host on the radio series) he composed songs for the Land of Oz theme park in Banner Elk, North Carolina.[8]
Wilder loved puzzles: he created his own cryptic crosswords, and could spend hours with a jigsaw puzzle.[9] He also loved to talk (he had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world) and most of all, laugh. Displeased with how Peggy Lee improvised the ending of "While We're Young", he wrote her a note: "The next time you come to the bridge [of the song], jump!" Pianist Marian McPartland told the story of this "alleged" comment to Tony Bennett, on her "Piano Jazz" radio show in 2004.
Wilder was known for his unconventional and nomadic lifestyle. He loved trains, kept no real home, and was in a constant state of travel. Despite his constant movement, he maintained a permanent room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, where they kept his clothes and often had a drink waiting for him.[10]
In letters to writer Whitney Balliett, who profiled him for The New Yorker in 1973, Wilder reflected on his personal philosophy. He wrote that his life was "divided between travel and music and my friends and solitude," and that he needed to be alone to "refill my cup." He also expressed a desire to be a "better person and a better creator," and stated, "I hate to see people I love unless I have enough to give them."[11]
Wilder died in Gainesville, Florida, from lung cancer in December 1980,[1] and is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Avon, New York, outside Rochester.
Alec Wilder Octet (Columbia, 1951)
By Jackie Cain and Roy Kral
By Emilie Conway
By Valerie Errante and Robert Wason
By Roland Hanna
By Vic Juris
By Bob Levy
By Dave Liebman
By Mundell Lowe
By John Noel Roberts
By Diana Robinson
By Bob Rockwell
By Ben Sidran
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