[Dixielandjazz] Re: Bob Kerr.

[John Ding]

From: "Bill Gunter" (getting his Dings mixed up with his Farrells)

: It was a wonderful band  but I would hate to have to haul around  all of
:the props  Kerr used in putting on a performance. Incredible!  How did he
:manage that?

Simple Bill .......... he didn't.......... I did ;-))

Now let me think ......

...... Three shipping trunks, four large suitcases, electrics box, four
speakers, mixer, amp, 8 mike stands. Vernon's pram (baby buggy), 7ft
plastic palm tree, screens (for changing behind at small venues without
without dressing rooms) and all the instruments. These varied depending on
who was in the band but could include four banjos, bass banjo, sousaphone,
clarinet, bass clarinet, c-melody sax, tenor sax, baritone sax, (sometimes
a couple of bass saxes) pocket cornet, musical saw, slide trombone,
(sometimes a valve one too) electric piano, small xylophone (sometimes also
a vibraphone), violin, stroh-viol (sp ?), electric guitar, small amp for
same. Then there were them drums. One drummer used an early thirties
console - the snare, toms, sculls, cymbals/stands etc packing into about
four cases. Another, later drummer, had a modern kit (two rows of rota-toms
etc) which, IIRC, altogether had 22 hitting surfaces !!

Oh yes ..... forgot the soprano sax and, er...... the teapot. There was
also another hernia box which, fortunately, only came out at Xmas gigs.
This contained a load of those clacky things known over here as football
rattles. Instead of having a wooden 'leaf' which the ratchet hit against to
produce the 'clack' sound, the leaves in ours were metal and all tuned
differently and gave off the sound of what can best be described as a
stacatto bell ........ we also had a set of framed chimes for awhile.

 John,
        Suffolk, England.
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