[Dixielandjazz] My Wife's Funeral

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

I would like to thank everyone who sent their condolences on my wife's death.  We were just a couple of months short of our 50th anniversary.

I was having difficulty finding a friend to play piano for the memorial service.  All of my friends were working that night.

My good friend Gary Dammer whom I have played with for 50 years was at a restaurant gig with a former student of mine, Tony Simmons.  Gary told him that I had lost my wife.

Time was getting short and so I told the funeral director to have one of their regulars play it.  Gary called me the day of the memorial and told me Tony was coming.  I paid the guy that came to the funeral home and thanked him.  Tony, Gary and I played Amazing Grace and Summertime which were some of my wife's favorites.

We started the tunes with Solo Soprano then moved into an easy Jazz style from there with Gary on Fluegel horn finishing up.

Memorial day, Gary dedicated the big band jazz concert and those same two tunes to my wife.

Looking back on everything almost everyone my wife and I knew are jazzers.  What a wonderful tribute they  made to her.  I mentioned to someone that you can say things through jazz that you can't express in words and I think that's true.  It just somehow reaches deeper.

I started dating my wife when we were 15 and that was the time when I started playing on a fairly regular basis.  She always accepted my sometimes quirky way of life and that I might be working when others were having a good time.  She was willing to let me do this and built her life around my way of life.  Over the years I have seen many good musicians give it up because their wives just weren't able to cope with it.  She always, from day one, knew that I was a musician and that this was my job.  I will always be grateful for that.

Again thank you all for your kind thoughts.
Larry
St. Louis