Abram Wilson

Abram Wilson (August 30, 1973 – June 9, 2012) was an American-born jazz trumpeter and vocalist raised in New Orleans and based in London, United Kingdom, where he also taught music in schools.

Wilson was born to Willie C. Wilson Jr and his wife Doris in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and had four brothers and one sister. He began playing trumpet at the age of nine, and attended O Perry Walker High School in Louisiana, going on to study at the New Orleans Center For Creative Arts (NOCCA) under the tutelage of Clyde Kerr Jr, Ronald Benko, Dr Burt Breaud, and band director Augustus Walker at O Perry Walker Sr High School.

At 17, Wilson earned a music scholarship to Ohio Wesleyan University, where he studied classical trumpet with Larry Griffin, graduating with a bachelor's degree in music education. He then attained his master's degree at the world-renowned Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, studying jazz performance and composition with Ralph Alessi, Mike Cain, and Fred Sturm, and classical trumpet with Barbara Butler.

After graduating from Eastman, Wilson moved to New York, where he started his own band – the Abram Wilson Quintet – as well as regularly performing with the Roy Hargrove Big Band and with rhythm and blues legend Ruth Brown, appearing on her Good Day for the Blues release in 1999.

Arriving in London in 2002, Wilson performed with the Julian Joseph Big Band before meeting the directors of Dune Records (the record label responsible for producing British Jazz artists such as Jazz Jamaica, Gary Crosby, Soweto Kinch and Denys Baptiste) and signing in 2003 to the label, where he regularly performed with his fellow label-mates as well as leading his own bands.

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