Don Wilson, 76, a former Philadelphia police officer and a leader of The Big Band at the Clef Club in Philadelphia in the 1990s, died of pneumonia on Thursday, May 17, at Chestnut Hill Hospital.
Mr. Wilson joined the police force in August 1959 and retired in August 1981. He played trumpet with a police department band, as well as piano for the Police Pastimers Band until it disbanded in the early 1990s.
For the last two years, Mr. Wilson played piano with the Tony Williams Trio on Monday nights at LaRose Jazz Club in Germantown, and he was a solo pianist on Thursday nights at the Warrick Hotel in Center City, said his sister, Ursula Hendricks. During his career, Mr. Wilson played with, among others, the late Sonny Stitt and the late Art Farmer when they performed in the Philadelphia region, she said.
