Devra Hall yesterday posted a charming memory of Alec Wilder on her blog, DevraDoWrite. I recommend that you take a look at it.
Alec and Paul Desmond were friends. Evenings with Alec holding court in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel, his home, were among the highlights of my years in New York. One occasion with Wilder, Desmond, Willis Conover of the Voice of America and the great French horn player Jimmy Buffington may have been the highlight. There was much hilarity and much wisdom.
Alec was not opposed to improvisation, as some have claimed. He was disturbed in his quietly outraged way when jazz players messed with his melodies on the first chorus. After faithful observation of the tune, improvisation was okay with him. In her memoir Marian McPartland’s Jazz World, Marian recalls that Alec was delighted when Desmond told him, “the perfect chorus is the song itself.â€