Joe Wilder symbolised a great deal for young African-American musicians in the 1960s. His achievements as one of the first instrumentalists to break through the racial barrier in the session world are a matter of record, but his inter-racial marriage was of great significance, too.
Both he and his fellow trumpeter Joe Newman met their white wives in Europe while on tour with Count Basie. Other black musicians had married in Europe but they remained there; the difference in the cases of Wilder and Newman was that they took their partners back to the US. The double bassist Art Davis always cited Wilder as an example of racial progress, and continually expressed his admiration for him as a musician and a man. Eventually, I got to know Wilder, and I was delighted to find that he was everything I had been led to believe and a good photographer, too.
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