Dick Gibson; Host of Jazz Concerts

Dick Gibson, the amiable host through three decades of world-famous jazz concerts in which he offered the best musicians in the world in a single venue each Labor Day weekend, has died.

Gibson, who was forced to give up his unique concept of 32 hours of mainstream jamming several years ago because of health and financial problems, was 72 when he died Wednesday of complications of diabetes.

He died in Denver, a city he championed throughout his life and where he staged some of the most acclaimed swinging sessions in the history of modern and old-time jazz.

For $265 a person, Gibson began a series of sometimes rehearsed freestyle concerts in 1963 that attracted the best of the genre: Louis Bellson and his wife, Pearl Bailey; Bob Haggart, Dave McKenna, Benny Carter, Scott Hamilton, Flip Phillips, Buddy DeFranco, Willie “The Lion” Smith and dozens more.

He not only staged concerts but in the 1960s organized the modestly titled World’s Greatest Jazz Band, which included Yank Lawson, Haggart, Billy Butterfield and Ralph Sutton.

Gibson spun off yet another novelty in 1989 with the mysterious “Great American Youth Movement Jazz Band.” Appearing behind the curtain that year were Carter, then 82; Milt Hinton, 79; Marshall Royal, 76; Phillips, 75; Jay McShann, George Chisholm and Sweets Edison, all 74; John Frigo, 71; Panama Francis, 70; and Snooky Young, also 70.

In 1976, he began hosting a winter series of jazz concerts at various theaters.

Gibson and his wife, Maddie, were living the good life in Denver in the early 1960s. He was a World War II Marine hero and a successful investment banker who would say that the only gap in his life was the absence of live jazz. To fill that gap, the Gibsons rented a hotel room in Aspen, hired 10 of their favorite musicians and charged Denver’s hip elite $50 for a solid weekend of music. Two hundred and twelve aficionados answered the call and that initial success lasted 30 years.

Despite his own enthusiasm and overflow crowds of more than 600 per session, he lost money each year. “My best year,” he told Leonard Feather, The Times late jazz critic, “was 1981. I only lost $600.”

In 1993, illness added to his financial woes and he was forced to give up the series, which normally ended with Gibson singing his stentorian baritone rendition of “I Ain’t Got Nobody.”

For a time, he broadcast in the Denver area, playing his favorites: “great jazz but no cocktail music.” He was never able to recapture the splendor of his halcyon days.

His greatest pleasure, he said, was ending the retirement of such jazz greats as violinist Joe Venuti, vibraphonist Red Norvo and singer Maxine Sullivan.

He also recalled the “spellbinding” moment in 1976 when Eubie Blake, then 93, and trumpeter Jon Faddis, 70, played a duet.

The song? Blake’s “Memories of You.”