Each January in the 1980s and 1990s, the Miami Design Preservation League celebrated Miami Beach Art Deco weekend with a lavish black-tie fundraising gala that evoked a 1930s nightclub atmosphere and featured many of the biggest names in swing and jazz, among them Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton.
The main attraction of the 1981 edition of the Moon Over Miami Ball, held in the Hotel Victor in South Beach, was singer, songwriter, and actress Eartha Kitt. Her set list is lost to history, but not the name of band backing her up.
The Swing Classics was a 17-piece swing and jazz band led by William Waid, a self-professed “southern gentleman” from Virginia who graduated from the University of Miami in 1952.
Waid’s degree was in business, and he was part of the Band of the Hour as an undergraduate. He also served in the U.S. Air Force, but music was his true vocation. He nurtured an abiding passion for what he called “America’s classical music,” big band swing and jazz.
Shelton G. Berg, dean of the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music, knew Waid well and has vivid memories of spending afternoons at Waid’s Miami home hearing about his experiences as a bandleader and the music he loved.
“I saw the trailer that [Waid] hauled his music equipment in, his instruments, and his large library of big band music,” Berg recalled. “He gave the music library to the Frost School, and our jazz department uses it to play for dances.”
Waid passed away in 2021 at the age of 94, but his passion for music lives on in a bequest to the Frost School, to benefit the Department of Studio Music and Jazz.
“Bill Waid was very concerned that people might forget about the music he loved, and he made his significant bequest because he knew the Frost School was a leading jazz program in the world,” Berg said.
“Resources from the Waid gift have empowered the Department of Studio Music and Jazz to do things that would have been difficult or unattainable otherwise. The gift has funded recording and video equipment to document the big band music Waid loved. Also, the gift has helped to fund student travel for life-changing performance and mentoring activities,” Berg added.
John Daversa, professor and chair of the studio music and jazz department, echoed Berg, noting that Waid’s bequest will have a lasting and meaningful impact on the studio music and jazz programs.
“This gift strengthens our ability to support students, invest in artistic excellence, and highlight the art of big band—ensuring transformative musical experiences that prepare young artists for meaningful, creative lives,” Daversa said.
