[Dixielandjazz] Stan McDonald on the DC scene

[Dick Baker]

At 03:00 PM 7/6/2008, Stan wrote:
>I've been out of touch with the DC scene for a few decades now, but I 
>thought that some guys I played with in DC in 1960 -- when I was at the 
>Navy School of Music in Anacostia -- were going by the name of FJC; but I 
>guess they came along later.

Yep.  The FJC was founded by local trombonist Al Webber (one of the five 
founding fathers of the Potomac River Jazz Club) and Fred Starr, who had 
come to DC to head up the new Kennan Institute for Soviet Studies for 
Advanced Soviet Studies at the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International 
Center for Scholars (whew!), and more recently known as the founder/leader 
of the Louisiana Repertory Jazz Ensemble.  Would have been about 1973.

>The DC group used to play on a mule-drawn barge on a canal near DC.  I 
>fondly remember cornet player, Tony Hagert [still around, living in MD]; 
>trombonist, Walter "Slide" Harris [long gone]; drummer, Beale Riddle; and 
>sitting in at the Charles Hotel, the Mayfair, or Blues Alley (?)

...more likely the Bayou, although Blues Alley was in business...

>with the likes of Danny Barker, Stuff Smith, Willie the Lion, Wild Bill 
>Whelan [died a couple of years ago], and a fine pianist, Johnny Eaton, who 
>used to play in Georgetown....  [and still plays all over the DC area]

>Who was the fine trumpet player in the wheelchair at the Charles Hotel?

Kenny Fulcher.

>And the superb pianist from DC (?) that I used to sit in with at Waikiki 
>when I was sent to Hawaii from the Navy School to play solo clarinet with 
>the 25th Infantry Division Band. I think his name was Booker Coleman.

He was before my time in DC, but that's the right name.  Evidently very 
highly regarded.


--
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      Dick Baker
  djml at dickbaker.org