Wilmus Reeves

[paul secor]

I've recently been listening to The Chronological Joe Morris 1946-1949 on Classics, and the pianist on the Morris group's early sides, Wilmus Reeves, caught my ear. The band's recordings were generally jazz influenced r&b - it included at various times Johnny Griffin, George Freeman, Elmo Hope, Philly Joe, and Percy Heath - but Wilmus Reeves plays a couple of bop solos without any r&b influence which are very nice. He sounds like he really had something going then (1946-47). I may be overstating his case, but from hearing these short solos he sounds to me like he could possibly stand with any of the second tier bop pianists of those years (maybe anyone other than Bud or Monk).

I tried a Google search, but came up with nothing much more than the discography for these sessions.

Does anyone have any information on this man? He was a good enough player that I'm going to keep the Morris CD strictly because of his playing, and I'll probably only play it to hear him.

[paul secor]

Up for one last try.

He has two very good but short solos on the Joe Morris set - "Wilma's (sic?) Idea" and "Easy Riff" that make it clear that he was familiar with and fluent in the bop idiom. Hard to believe (but it seems to be true) that this man just disappeared and that no one here knows anything about him.