[Dixielandjazz] New Member Harry Salotti

[Steve barbone]

Hey Harry:

Welcome.

For those who don't know him, Harry is an excellent tubist here in the
Phila/SE New Jersey area, a pro. Good friend of fellow NJ tubist John
McClernan.

Harry, where you been? Feel free to tell the DJML about your self, where you
played, by way of introduction to list members.

Regarding your father-in-law Jerry Verbel:

The band that started the Bix Memorial was evolved from members of the
Southampton Dixie Racing & Clambake Society Jazz Band, based in Long Island
NY. The SDRCS JB started in the 1950s. I played with the band from about
1957 or so to 1963 when I moved to California. Joe Ashworth replaced me and
got to go to the first al fresco, Bix concert in Davenport.

I think I remember Jerry Verbel but that memory is dim. We had wanted to
record and I think Jerry was putting it together. We did some demos etc.,
but never finished the project before I moved away. He might have also
recorded us with a group of bagpipers circa 1961 or so. Just not sure.

We had a lot of fans/followers in those days, among the music world of CBS,
NBC, et al. Drummer Stan Levine worked for one or the other. Trombonist Skip
Strong worked for Movietone News. Piano Teddy Prochazka, worked for the
Schirmer Music publishing Co. The sousaphone player was Barbara Dreiwitz,
Banjo was Connie Worden, and cornet was my old college roommate, at Duke,
Billy Barnes. We first played together there in 1953 in the "Symphonic Six".
It seems to me that Jerry Verbel was one of our SDRCS JB fans and a friend
of washboardist Bill Donahoe.

Lots of great gigs back then from playing parties for Henry Ford II, and
Nelson Rockefeller, to some wild and crazy College gigs, and summers at the
famed Tiana Beach Club in West Hampton, winters at the Village Gate, NYC.
The money from those gigs put me through law school. Busy times, lots of
gigs, lots of booze, chasing women etc, studying, hence the hazy memory.

Cheers and welcome,
Steve Barbone