Jazz musician Gerald Wilson dies at 96

In this Feb. 12, 2012 file photo, Gerald Wilson arrives at the 54th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Wilson, the dynamic jazz big band leader, composer and arranger whose career spanned more than 75 years, died Monday, Sept. 8, 2014. He was 96. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File) (Chris Pizzello/AP)

Derrik J. Lang AP Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gerald Wilson, the dynamic jazz big band leader, composer and arranger whose career spanned more than 75 years, has died. He was 96.

Wilson's son, jazz guitarist Anthony Wilson, said his father died Monday at his Los Angeles home from pneumonia.

The big band leader began his career in the late 1930s as a trumpeter for Jimmy Lunceford's band before forming his own big band in 1944 featuring female trombonist Melba Liston. He played and worked as a composer-arranger with the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Carter and Dizzy Gillespie, and he arranged music for Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae and Bobby Darin.
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