[Dixielandjazz] The Life & Music of Kenny Davern - Just Four Bars

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Aug 5, 2010, at 4:23 PM, Ken Mathieson wrote: (polite snip)

> Hi Folks,
>
> I love the Mickey Mouse announcement and can just see Kenny doing  
> it. I worked with Kenny a lot over the years when he toured in  
> Scotland and witnessed both sides of his character as he worked an  
> audience. As Steve says, he could get them  the palm of his hand at  
> the beginning of the first set, but he was just as likely to  
> estrange them with some pretty blatant time-filling during his  
> "requests" routine. . . . .;
>
> I haven't seen the book yet, but would be interested to know if the  
> discography includes any of the sessions done at concerts in  
> Scotland. They were all private recordings and I've got copies  
> (mainly on tape or casette, but some have been converted to CD) of  
> some of the gigs I was on, including one in Inverness where the band  
> was Kenny, pianist Stan Greig (ex Lyttelton etc) and me on drums.  
> Before the gig Kenny said "there's only three of us, so everyone has  
> to solo on everything." That was fine until he called Mood Indigo at  
> a tempo so slow it was almost becalmed, and then demanded a 2-chorus  
> drum solo! While I struggled to play something meaningful and  
> musical at approx 45bpm, Kenny made encouraging gestures from the  
> wings while laughing himself silly. It wasn't fun for me at the  
> time, but I sure miss him now he's gone.

Dear Ken:

Kenny usually carried a tune list of songs to play. During his  
requests routine even if one of those songs was mentioned he would  
ignore it. Then say something like like. "We're not going to play them  
(requests). I just wanted to see where your heads were."

He would ask the sidemen what they wanted to play. Then say "I hate  
that tune." Some of the regulars got wise to that and would pick tunes  
from his own tune list. Kenny finally caught on that they were  
requesting his tunes, but still often declined to play them.

The sidemen started using that routine on their own. I hired Randy  
Reinhart for a few gigs shortly after his album with Kenny at the Mill  
Hill playhouse. I would ask Randy if he wanted to play any special  
tunes. His response; "I hate them all." Cracked me up because I knew  
where that came from.

Let me know the date (year) of your gigs with Kenny. I did not see  
them in the book discography first time around, but if I know the year  
I can easily check again as they are in chronological order. I suspect  
private tapings etc., are not in the discography, only the Issued  
Recordings.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband