[Dixielandjazz] Memorable requests

[Don Ingle]

While playing at Chicago's Jazz Ltd. in the '60's, I was on hand for some
customer requests that are locked in memory.
1.  Carl Sandberg, who requested Battle Hymn of the Republic -- twice in a
set, and twice again in the next set.
2.  Eddie Condon on a visit enroute to a Pacific tour requested Bessie
Couldn't Help It, and Ain't no Man Worth the Sweat of My Tears. He grinned,
when Bill said we didn't have in our book, and said "nobody else has either,
but there's always hope!"
3.  Dan Daily asked to sit in, did, and asked what we wanted to play. Bill
said whatever you want. Dan said,"anything but the Saints!" The band
cheered. (By the way he could play pretty decent drums for a tap dancer.)
4.  Then one night some drunk (he was not all the way there or Ruth wouldn't
have let him in, but he made up for it soon after) demanded that we play
some current rock tune nobody heard of and got loud and bellicose when we
didn't, running his mouth on the obscene side...until Ruth came up, all 5'
2" of her, and grabbed him by the ear and marched him out of the club and
out onto Grand Ave. before the lush knew what hit him.
Dave Rasbury (trombone) started playing "Gone with the Wind and the band
picked it up to the applause of the whole house and wait staff. (Ruth was
the wife of  Bill Reinhardt, the club owner and clarinetist and was half
Japanese and half Irish and put up with no s*** in her club. "No shirt, no
tie, no service. No unescorted women seated and no women served at the bar.
"
If it wasn't her love for playing the ponies she would have made a great
Mother Superior!!)
Both Bill and Ruth are gone now, but that old club was the scene of some of
the best trad jazz ever played.
Don Ingle