[Dixielandjazz] Dave Stoddard Bio

[dhs at ev1.net]

Howdy Listers:

I was born in Bradenton, FL in 1951, but grew up in and around Kennett
Square, PA, not far from Philadelphia.  When I was in the 4th grade, I
started on cornet, switching to trumpet when I was a junior in high school.
My earliest exposure to dixieland was from two LPs that my brother Ed (now a
fine dixieland trombone player in Venice, FL) acquired: a Pete Fountain
All-Stars album from mid-50s New Orleans, and Rampart and Vine by the
Rampart Street Paraders.  I listened to them over and over.

Ed played in a dixieland group at Kennett High School, but it had disbanded
by the time I came along, and I did not get to play dixieland until I was a
student at the University of North Carolina.  My development was ably
assisted by two people.  Michael Mills, a trombonist who now lives in
Wilsons Mills, NC, had a huge collection of Twenties Jazz.  I had never
heard of Jelly Roll Morton or King Oliver, but in the space of a year I got
to absorb some of their best work.  Michael suggested starting what became
the Imperial Jazz Band.  Michael played trombone, and our banjo player was
Bob Leary, even then a very fine player.  Bob was the glue who held the
group together.

The Imperial Jazz Band played for two years, at which point several original
members were finished at UNC.  Ed was coming back to UNC from the U.S. Army,
and he and the remaining players re-formed the group as the Incredible
Dixieland Band and played two more years.  A few years ago, I looked up a
number of people who had played in one or both bands, and they were all
still playing music of some description.  Bob and Ed went on to play
dixieland full-time, two reed players went on to play full-time in other
kinds of music, and Michael and I have had long tenures as semi-pro
dixielanders.

I developed lip trouble playing in the UNC Marching Band, and although I
could still play trumpet some when I finished at UNC in 1972, it was a
greater and greater effort.  I thought that a larger mouthpiece might help,
and had been greatly impressed by the great tuba players of the Twenties,
especially Clinton Walker, Cyrus St. Clair and Joe Tarto (I also liked
Adrian Rollini a lot on bass sax).  I made the switch to tuba in the summer
of 1973.

Shortly thereafter, I was transferred by my company to Jacksonville, NC
(home of Camp Lejeune, USMC), and I had the good fortune to fall in with
Doug Mattocks, who was living there between bouts of playing on the road.  I
played with a small string group Doug was leading, and the two of us played
duets many an afternoon.  I was a movie theater manager at the time, and
once the theater was open, I could take a few hours off.  The switch to tuba
was a very happy one for me.  My endurance problems disappeared overnight,
and I found that with practice all of my solo ideas translated from trumpet
very well.  Eventually, I became better on tuba than I had ever been on
trumpet.

>From 1974 to 1976, I was a graduate student at East Carolina University.  I
played with the Capital City Jazz Band in Raleigh.  When I graduated and
moved back to Pennsylvania, I didn't play much for a couple of years.  I
couldn't find a suitable used tuba to buy, but eventually found one and got
back into playing just in time to join the Brandywine Revival Jazz Band, a
new band that was being formed.  I played with the BRJB from 1978 to 1986,
and gigged around the Philadelphia area.  It was a good place to be--I got
to play with a lot of very solid players, and played 30-60 jobs a year
through 1985.  My biggest influence in those days was the New Black Eagle
Jazz Band, mostly for their intellectual, historicist approach to old tunes.
During this time I sold my trumpet, and used the proceeds to buy my Conn
Victor valve trombone, a source of much enjoyment in ensuing years.

I would have been happy to stay in the Philadelphia area, but in 1986 I
began my years in the corporate wilderness.  They haven't ended yet, and
have seen me move eight times in seventeen years.  My first move was to
Salisbury, MD as a safety and human resources specialist with Campbell Soup
Company.  All of a sudden, the gigs were 100+ miles away, and there were a
lot fewer of them.  In 1987 I started my own band.  It was called the
Salisbury Stompers, but almost all of the gigs were in the Philadelphia
area--the group never played in Salisbury!  I had some very good players,
including Steve DiBonaventura on banjo, John Weber on clarinet, Cy Platt on
trumpet, and Bud Leonetti on drums.

I kept the Stompers alive through two Campbell Soup plant closings, but when
I left Maryland to take a human resources manager job in Paris, IL, the
Stompers ceased operation.  I spent my two years in Illinois playing with
the New Orleans Jazz Machine, a dixie band in Champaign.  Then it was back
to southeastern Pennsylvania for a year.  I resumed my ties to the
Philadelphia-area jazz community, and became a regular with Tex Wyndham and
his Red Lion Jazz Band, a group with whom I had been a sub over the years.
Steve Barbone is a Red Lion, but he and I had already played together many
times on various gigs.

The job in Pennsylvania didn't last long, and in the spring of 1999 I
returned to Salisbury, MD, this time as Health, Safety and Environmental
Coordinator for Dresser Wayne, a leading manufacturer of gasoline
dispensers.  I got back into the long-distance gig business, heading back to
the Wilmington-Philadelphia or Baltimore-Washington areas.  In 2001, the
Dresser Wayne Salisbury plant closed following a bitter labor strike, and
U.S. production was consolidated in Round Rock, TX, just north of Austin.  I
moved to Texas in May, 2001.

Despite some very good players, the dixieland scene in Austin is not
thriving.  The best local group is Tommy Griffith and the Old Waterloo Jazz
Band.  They don't play all that much, so they don't need substitutes very
often.  Tommy has gotten me some work, and I also appeared in the 2002
Austin Traditional Jazz Society all-star concert.  Rather to my surprise, I
have gotten back into working with novice jazz players for the first time
since 1972.   I have been working with two novice dixieland bands.  Fifteen
novice musicians have played gigs with one or both bands, which have helped
to keep dixieland alive as a commercial music form in Austin.

During my years of gigging around, I have played with about forty different
bands in ten states.  I have carved a niche as a skilled substitute player
over the years.  In addition to the fact that I really enjoy playing jazz,
dixieland has kept me playing musical instruments since 1961.  After 14
years of almost nothing but jazz, I started playing in concert bands in
1987, and have also branched out into brass ensembles and even some
orchestral work.  The rigors of this have helped me as a jazz player, and at
this point I am playing as well as I ever have.

If you are ever in the Austin area, look me up.

Regards,
Dave Stoddard