[Dixielandjazz] Teddy Buckner

[JazzDiggr at aol.com]

Hey Bob Romans
I'm primarily a lurker on DJML but couldn't resist putting in my $ .02 worth 
on this particular thread. The restaurant in West Covina was probably the 
Huddle if I remember correctly. Well, anyway, to make a long story longer, Teddy 
was a very good friend of my dad's so we would always go see him whenever my 
family vacationed in California. That's how I got started loving Dixieland jazz. 
Then I kinda grew up (loose definition)......... and had a son to whom I 
started teaching trumpet. 
After a while we got some neighbor kids together in my livingroom and put 
together a dixieland/swing/dance band. Called it Rise & Shine. They eventually 
got invited to play the Sacto Jazz Jubilee (5 times) and many, many other 
festivals too. Well, I took my wife and kids on a  Disneyland vacation one summer 
and we stopped by Teddy's house for visit. This was in the mid 1990s. Teddy had 
been retired from horn playing for several years and was in very poor 
health....bed-ridden actually. He asked my son, Mike, to get into his closet and dig 
out his old horn and play something for him. There were 2 cornets in the 
closet.....an old silver Benge that was pretty banged up, and a Selmer K-modified. 
Mike played a bit for us on the selmer and Teddy laughed and really enjoyed it. 
Then he told Mike to take the selmer home and keep it. And to always remember 
that when he plays it Teddy will be "up there watching you". Then we all had 
a little cry together. 
Mike is a trumpet major at the U of Washington and I have the Selmer cornet 
at my house and I dig it out and play it now and then......but it somehow 
doesn't sound quite as good as when Teddy used to play it!!!

Jeff Dorr
jazz diggin' lurker from Seattle