What kind of man was Alec Wilder?

Alec Wilder was a man of many contradictions. He was one of the most prolific American composers, creating hundreds of songs, chamber pieces and multi-movement solo works, but he gave away all of the original manuscripts to friends. In fact, he composed only for friends and angrily refused offers of commissions. He was in some ways intensely private, yet he was so profoundly literate that his thoughts were as moving and evocative in conversation as they were in his writings.

He detested the American media publicity machine and seemed to intentionally derail several projects that would have brought wide recognition, yet he craved validation of his compositions and even his musicianship. He professed to be “a coward” in life, but he had enormously strong convictions about music, art, and society, and he did not hesitate to proclaim them loudly and vociferously. He was often lonely, yet he had a personality that by many accounts could fill a room.

He possessed a charm that he claimed served as a smokescreen for his “terror.” New York’s legendary Algonquin Hotel was his home base for half a century while he traveled the country on the trains that he adored. He was a nomad and a loner, yet his warmth and dedication created a circle of friends, each of which were made to feel as though they were Alec’s closest confidante.
 

15 black & white illustrations
336 pages, Size: 9 x 6 in
ISBN: 978 158046 2082
Binding: Hardback
Publication date: 30/Oct/2005
Price: $29.95 / £19.99

Why did Wilder write these letters, but never mail them?

Wilder’s idea for this book apparently came from a small group of unmailed letters that he found in one of the suitcases he always kept behind the switchboard at the Algonquin Hotel. According to his lifelong friend, photographer Louis Ouzer (whose photos have been included with this new edition) Wilder then created the rest of the letters, addressed usually only by first name, to the people who had populated his truly unique personal and professional lives. These included musicians such as Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra, actors Montgomery Clift and Judy Holliday, authors Graham Greene and Peter DeVries, and dozens more. He created something of his own literary genre, as uncategorizable as the music he wrote. So unique, if fact, that the identities of these addressees was often – purposely or not – lost on readers.

Why did you add the supplementary materials?

I’ve always felt that of the reasons the original edition went out of print so quickly was that it was “in code,” and that readers had to know quite a bit of advance background about Wilder in order to understand the first-name-only identities of all of the addressees. In an effort to bring Wilder’s life story to a wider audience, three elements were added to this edition: a short biographical essay on Wilder’s rather amazing life, and a set of appendices that include a Wilder works list, bibliography, and discography–and, most important, an annotated Addressee List that appears at the back of the book, identifying all possible addressees. In that way, Wilder’s “puzzle” remains to be solved by the reader, but the key is at the back of the book.

Why has this book been reissued now?

The 100th anniversary of Wilder’s birth is coming up in 2007. Although there exists a wonderful Wilder biography, Desmond Stone’s Alec Wilder In Spite of Himself (Oxford, 1996), and Wilder wrote two other incomplete and unpublished autobiographical works, Letters I Never Mailed is the only complete story of Wilder’s life in his own words. We felt that it is important to get this book back in print at this time.

What got you interested in Wilder?

His music immediately attracted me. I am a saxophonist, and as a student I first became aware of the saxophone concert works Wilder wrote for classical virtuoso Donald Sinta, and for jazz masters Stan Getz and Zoot Sims. I’ve always been as involved with jazz as I’ve been with classical music – and Wilder combined these two worlds in a uniquely natural and brilliant way. Anyone that would write concert pieces for Getz and Zoot with orchestra had my immediate attention! I recorded an album of Wilder’s music in 1985 (on Golden Crest, now out of print), including four of his concert saxophone works and a group of his popular songs with jazz quintet.

My wife and her family share Wilder’s home town of Rochester, NY, and it was through my visits there and my doctoral studies at the Eastman School of Music that I grew to know many of Wilder’s closest friends: Lou and Helen Ouzer, Harvey Phillips, Marian McPartland, Wilder biographer Desmond Stone, his executor and local jazz radio host Tom Hampson, and some Eastman faculty who knew him well. Although I’ve always regretted not meeting Wilder before he died, I feel honored to know so many of his close friends, who share many of the wonderful qualities that Wilder had.