Ladies' Fort

Joe Lee Wilson
Birth name	Joe Lee Wilson
Genres	Bop Hard bop Modal jazz Progressive jazz Mainstream jazz Post-bop
Occupation(s)	Musician, bandleader, composer, educator
Instruments	voice

Joe Lee Wilson (December 22, 1935 – July 17, 2011) was an American gospel-influenced jazz singer, originally from Bristow, Oklahoma, who had lived in Europe since 1977. His voice is best recognized from several Archie Shepp albums recorded for Impulse! Records.

Part African-American and part Creek Native American, Wilson was born in Bristow, Oklahoma, to farming parents Stella and Ellis Wilson.

As his band's name, Joy of Jazz, suggests, Wilson's baritone personified the life-affirming nature of jazz and blues. Seeing Billie Holiday perform in 1951 began his interest in a music-industry career. Moving to Los Angeles at the age of 15, he went to Los Angeles High School, where he majored in music and sang in an a cappella choir. Graduating with honors in 1954, he won a scholarship to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, where he studied opera, leaving after a year and then attending Los Angeles Junior College. He began singing with local bands in 1958 and toured the West Coast, where he sat in with Sarah Vaughan, and down to Mexico. Relocating to New York in the 1962, he worked with Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Freddie Hubbard, and Jackie McLean. During the 1970s, Wilson operated a jazz performance loft in New York's NoHo district known as the Ladies' Fort at 2 Bond Street. His regular band, Joe Lee Wilson Plus 5, featured the alto saxophonist Monty Waters (from Modesto, California) and for several years the Japanese guitarist Ryo Kawasaki, before the latter left to lead his own group. Archie Shepp and Eddie Jefferson were frequent collaborators at these sessions.

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