Wilbur De Paris

Wilbur De Paris was a trombonist, bandleader, and Broadway performer born on January 11, 1900, in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Known for blending Dixieland jazz with swing, he built a career spanning several decades in American music. He died on January 3, 1973, at Beekman Downtown Hospital in New York, survived by two sons and two daughters.

De Paris came from a musical family. His father, Sidney De Paris Sr., was a musician who taught both Wilbur and his brother Sidney to play. De Paris initially performed on alto saxophone in his father's circus band before eventually making a permanent switch to trombone. He launched his professional career in Philadelphia in 1919, working with a small band, and traveled to New Orleans in 1922, where he performed alongside Louis Armstrong and Armand J. Piron.

Through the 1920s, De Paris worked across Philadelphia and New York, taking on roles both as a sideman and as a bandleader. During this period he performed with musicians including Stuff Smith, Dave Nelson, Noble Sissle, and Edgar Hayes. He toured Europe with Sissle. From 1936 to 1937 he traveled with Teddy Hill's orchestra and recorded with the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. He rejoined Louis Armstrong at the end of 1937 and continued performing with him through the close of that decade.

In 1942, De Paris appeared on Broadway in the comedy The Pirate. In 1944, he and his brother Sidney recorded together for the first time under the name The DeParis Brothers for Commodore Records, producing four songs. He subsequently toured briefly with Ella Fitzgerald and Roy Eldridge before forming his own small band. In late 1945 he disbanded that group to join Duke Ellington, remaining with Ellington until 1947.

In 1957, De Paris toured Africa under the sponsorship of the U.S. State Department as part of the President's International Program for Cultural Relations. His recordings also reached film audiences through the work of director Woody Allen, including the track "In a Persian Market," which appeared in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.