[Dixielandjazz] Bud Freeman

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I forget who it was, on the wonderful Jazz Score show on BBC Radio 2, compered by the late journalist-saxophonist Benny Green.  The man in question had had a regular gig with Bud when the gentleman was living nearer Bond Street in London (and presumably his tailor?).  The guy running the establishment had spoken to Bud about the lack of public response, and wanted to end the engagement (so the colleague later discovered) -- and Bud came over to his young English colleague and said, well, the management were "asking whether we wanted to carry on for a few months, but really we're not doing anything, so I said we'd probably better discontinue."  Bud didn't want to dishearten. When playing in a band, he used to time his entry to match the end of applause for the soloist who had preceded him.  An audience which didn't applaud might find him hanging suspended and silent for a bar and a quarter before he started again. 

I must dig out my copy of the wonderful LP of Bud with Bob Wilber and Bruce Turner, and give an extra play to the track with the vocal by him I called Teroy Williamsgarden,  reprising a famous Bud number of about 1940, but suggesting in the revised lyric that it was more like Bud's bicentenary which occurred in the present century. 
And there was another OK UK critic who reviewed a reissue and described the later recording of "The Eel"  as "longer, and conger."




       
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