Today we’d like to introduce you to Roger Wilder.
Roger, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in a musical family in Rochester, NY and started standard classical piano lessons at age 8. My big brother Chris started bringing home jazz albums a few years later, and I got more and more drawn to jazz starting around age 11. I attended some jazz camps at the Eastman School of Music and took jazz piano lessons one summer, but mostly spent a lot of time listening to recordings and experimenting at the piano. There was no jazz band in my high school.
I progressed a lot as a player at the University of Miami, and after graduating, I started playing gigs around Miami. In church in 1987, I met Simone Briand, a Kansas girl; we married two years later, moved to the New York city suburbs in 1995, and had two daughters there. In 2000 we moved to Kansas City for the proximity to my wife’s family while still living in a healthy jazz scene.
I’ve immensely enjoyed the Kansas City jazz scene for the warmth of the community, the deep pool of talented players, and the opportunities to play music I love. I currently play jazz gigs, teach jazz at the UMKC Conservatory, and host a weekly jazz show at KKFI 90.1 FM.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’ve had some physical challenges to face. In High School, I developed chronic back pain due to tension in my playing; as a result, I decided to concentrate on trombone, which wasn’t painful to play. In college, I switched back to piano as my principal instrument. The pain came back when I was 29, and it took a lot of searching to finally find relief from a body worker and author Meir Schneider in San Francisco.
In 1996 I came down with bacterial meningitis, which put me in the hospital for a few weeks and took me off the scene for two months; I’m fortunate to have survived that one, but it seems it wasn’t “my time.”
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Since moving here in 2000, I’ve played jazz piano around Kansas City, mostly in clubs including The Blue Room, The Majestic Restaurant, and the Westport Theater. I’ve been on the jazz faculty at UMKC for the last 15 years. I host a jazz radio show at KKFI as “The Jazz Geek” every Friday.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Good ears, a thorough knowledge of jazz recordings and repertoire, easy to get along with, reliable.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rogerwilderjazz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roger.wilder/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roger.wilder.71
