Jay Wieder, who had one of Denver’s best-known dance bands for years, died Jan. 6. He was 78.
“In his day and his niche, he was like a rock star here,” said Rich Gabriel, a Denver lawyer who often played trumpet in the Jay Wieder Orchestra.
Wieder, who started leading his own band in high school, had a slogan: “Music designed with you in mind.” He was a stickler for how the band played and he knew his audience well, Gabriel said.
Wieder’s band played at the Trocadero Ballroom at Elitch Gardens, the El Patio Ballroom at Lakeside, the Rainbow Ballroom, country clubs, the Brown Palace and other hotels, as well as venues in several surrounding states. In his heyday, in the 1960s and 1970s, Wieder could put three bands on stage on the same night in different venues.
“He had a gruff, impatient exterior, not your warm and fuzzy kind of guy,” Gabriel said at the funeral last week. “But he loved the music and his band. Fans followed him everywhere.”
Wieder had an extensive collection of band music – perhaps one of the largest in this part of the country, said his son, Lee Wieder of Sidney, Neb.
His father often did special arrangements of the music, always with his audience in mind.
And if the band members weren’t in black tuxedos, they were in the current style of the day, such as powder-blue tuxes, Gabriel said.
Wieder led an Air Force orchestra when he was stationed at Lowry Air Force Base, and the orchestra was used as Glenn Miller’s orchestra in the 1953 movie “The Glenn Miller Story.” Wieder played sax in the film’s orchestra, which was led by Jimmy Stewart, who portrayed Miller.
Jay M. Wieder was born Sept. 16, 1928, in Iowa City, Iowa, and graduated from high school there.
He began playing the clarinet when he was 11 and added tenor and alto saxes later. He started his fist band in high school and had one in college that played in Iowa and Illinois. In high school, he and his friends would sneak off to Chicago, 300 miles away, to hear big bands, Lee Wieder said.
Jay Wieder married Wanda Mae Coursey on July 12, 1951. She preceded him in death. As a young man, Wieder got a job with a local moving and storage company, and later went to Amick North American Moving and Storage. Eventually he became a partner in the company, working there in the daytime and leading his orchestra at night.
The moving business came in handy, said Lee Wieder, because his father had to haul around so much music and equipment for performances.
“For all his success in that (moving) industry,” Gabriel said, “he will be remembered for his magnificent music. He was one of the last of an era in which society bands were the rule, not a mere novelty.”
In addition to his son, he is survived by three daughters: Cyndi Croft of Denver, Kitti Sallee of Weatherford, Texas, and Judi Lombardi of Lakewood; another son, David Wieder of Fort Collins; 10 grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and his sister, Jeanette Wieder of Denver. A son, John Wieder, preceded him in death.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
