WALLACE RONEY JR

WALLACE RONEY JR. PUSHES LEGACY  

by Ronald E. Scott

Young trumpeter and composer Wallace Roney IV – fondly called Little Wally and Wallace Jr. by his family and close friends – would say he grew up in a relatively average household. He carries a name that arrives with both weight and wings. But inquisitive jazz enthusiasts would think otherwise after peering into the windows of his jazz castle: his mother, the legendary pianist and composer Geri Allen; his father, trumpet great and GRAMMY Award-winner Wallace Roney – the only trumpet player Miles Davis ever personally mentored, from 1985 until Miles' death in 1991.  He started on drums. Elvin Jones gave him his cymbals. Then one day – nobody quite remembers exactly when – you looked up and he was playing his father's trumpet.

"There was some pressure and expectations," says Wallace, reached by phone during an engagement in North Carolina. "But I came to the realization that legacy is good, and it will come as long as I'm doing justice to the music by playing the best I can. They would want me to carve my own path – which is what paying homage to my parents and Miles is about. Carrying on their legacy is doing things my way. I am paying homage to them every time I play because their music comes out of me whether I want it to or not."

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