Pianist in Motion

Pianist Gerald Wiggins has the kind of schedule these days that most musicians just dream about. He will play solo piano on the Playboy Jazz Cruise this afternoon, work in a duo with bassist Andy Simpkins at Linda’s tonight, and then pop into Paramount studios Monday and Tuesday for a scoring session.

“Right now, I’m working eight days a week,” he said. “Seems like it’s either feast or famine.”

The 67-year-old Wiggins has long been one of the more requested pianists, accompanists and arrangers--particularly for singers--on the Los Angeles music scene and beyond. He’s worked and recorded with the likes of Lena Horne, Kay Starr, Helen Humes, Benny Carter, Ruth Price, Teddy Edwards, Zoot Sims, Cal Tjader, Harold Land, King Pleasure, Joe Turner and Cab Calloway.

He’s made close to a dozen solo LPs, played on 40 others, appeared at such jazz festivals as the Playboy, Newport in New York and Grande Parade du Jazz in Nice, France, and has been behind the scenes on several motion pictures, “Les Girls” and “Some Like It Hot” among them.

“I’ve done OK,” Wiggins said of his career during a chat in the Woodland Hills home he shares with his wife, Lynn. “I find myself in a lot of good situations. I’m not getting rich, but I keep my head above water and that’s what it’s all about. You don’t figure to get rich in this business, anyhow.”

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Of all the configurations Wiggins, a bluesy, swing-oriented pianist, has squeezed into--big bands, horn-fronted quintets, trios behind singers, leading his own quartet, trio or duo--he likes the smallest ones best.

“I think I’ve had more fun working in a duo with bassists like Andy Simpkins, Red Callender, Bob West, Larry Gales or John Clayton,” he said. “A duo gives you a wider scope as far as sound goes. The bassist’s got all the low things and some of the high things and I’ve got the rest of it. And we come up with some pretty tricky things now and then. Not planned, they just happen.”

Though Wiggins makes most of his living working club dates, he writes his share of arrangements for singers such as Ernie Andrews, Price and Sonny Craver. It’s a skill he’s honed since the late ‘40s, when he began studies with Lyle (Spud) Murphy, who arranged for Benny Goodman and Glen Gray and who has taught jazzmen such as pianist Oscar Peterson.

“I had just moved to L.A. in 1948, and I was staying with Benny Carter and I asked him to teach me arranging,” the New York City native recalled. “He said he didn’t have time so he recommended Spud, who’s a genius. I took about four years with him then, and I still go back now and then for refreshers. That’s really paid off. I’ve done a lot of arranging.”

Wiggins also finds now-and-then employment as a rehearsal pianist, such as when he backs Cybill Shepherd. “I’ve been working with her for about a year,” he said. “She wanted a pianist and I was recommended. For these rehearsals, she opens her book, calls a tune and starts singing. I find a key and come in behind her. We do this two, maybe three times a month.”

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The pianist’s current schedule is filled out by jazz record dates. On June 22-23, he’s into the studios to play with saxophonist Red Holloway and trumpeter Clark Terry. Two LPs on which he played an integral part have just been released: jazz/blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon’s “Rockin’ L.A.” (Fantasy) and guitarist Joe Pass’ “One For My Baby” (Pablo).

The man with so much music in his life wasn’t that thrilled when his mother insisted he learn piano as a youngster. “I hated it with a vengeance,” he said. “The guys would be out in the street playing stickball and I’d be upstairs, practicing on the piano. She’d make me practice before I went to school, during my lunch hour and after I got home from school. I didn’t really care that much about piano until the party age, my teens. When they found out you could play piano at parties, you’re in like a thief,” he said with a broad smile.

After completing studies at Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art (not to be confused with the High School of Performing Arts), Wiggins began his professional career working with singer/comedian Stepin Fetchit and then bandleader Les Hite, with whom he traveled to California.

“We were out here during Christmas and it was about 100 degrees and I fell in love with the place,” Wiggins said. “It was beautiful.”

After a stateside stint in the U.S. Army band, Wiggins settled in the Southland in 1947 and was soon heard all over the teeming Central Avenue scene, leading a trio at the Turban Lounge or backing up such saxophonists as Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon. “Those were some wild days,” he said. “L.A. was really jumping then. I met a lot of guys, and we had a ball.”

Wiggins had fond memories of the Gray-Gordon exchanges, which were documented on such records as (Dial-reissued on Savoy).

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“They were amazing players,” he said. “They’d be battling, playing millions of choruses, and the bass player and I would go off and leave ‘em, saying ‘Hey, y’all got it.’ We’d stop playing, but that didn’t phase them at all. They just kept on playing.”

In the ‘50s, after all the Central Avenue hubbub died out, Wiggins backed a number of singers, among them Lena Horne, with whom he made his first European trip. While in Paris, Wiggins played and recorded with the late saxophonist Zoot Sims, an Inglewood native. “Zoot was a funny cat,” Wiggins said. “He and I would hang out all over Paris. After work, we’d find some joint with a piano that was open at 6 a.m. and just drink and play until it was time to go work the next night.”

During the mid-to-late ‘50s, Wiggins was involved in several musical films, among them “No Business Like Show Business,” “Some Like it Hot” and the never-completed “Let’s Make Love.” (The latter was abandoned due to erratic attendance on the set by its star, Marilyn Monroe).

“That was a pleasant period in my life, with good pay, easy hours, not a lot to do,” said Wiggins. “I would teach singers the songs, rough out arrangements. It was OK, but it’s not like playing. You waste a lot of time sitting around. On ‘Let’s Make Love,’ I would spend the day in a bungalow. A maid would bring me breakfast and lunch and I just sat around and read all the time.”

A peak in Wiggins’ career came last year when he was selected by the Los Angeles Jazz Society for its annual Jazz Tribute Award, which resulted in Sept. 11, 1988, being pronounced “Gerald Wiggins Day” by Mayor Tom Bradley. “That floored me,” he said of the award. “There are so many deserving guys. I forget who I voted for, but it wasn’t me.”