LakeNET - Willie Cook

Mr. Cook was a trumpet player and performed in many major American Big Bands during the 50's, 60's, and 70's. He moved to Indiana Harbor when he was six years old. In Chicago he studied and performed with bandleaders Jay McShann (1943), Earl Hines (1943-8), Jimmie Lunceford (under the direction of Eddie Wilcox and Joe Thomas, 1948), Dizzy Gillespie (1948-50), and Gerald Wilson. He served a brief time as Billy Holiday's music director before entering, in 1950, the first of several periods in his life away from the music profession.

In October 1951 he again joined Duke Ellington, with whom he performed until 1958 and again in 1960-61. As a freelance player during the 1960s he worked with various musicians, including Mercer Ellington and Jimmie Jones. Cook distinguished himself as a lead player and also as a soloist, basing his style in the swing era while embracing bebop. In the Ellington band he shared the stage with trumpeters such as Ray Nance, "Cat" Anderson, and Clark Terry, and recorded many of Ellington's most famous compositions.

He performed again with Ellington (1968-70), but then moved to Houston and did not work again as a musician until 1977, when he played with Clark Terry and Count Basie. Eventually he settled in Sweden and in the early 1980s he worked with several Scandinavian bands as well as with Ernie Wilkins.

Source: New Grove Dictionary of Jazz
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