[Dixielandjazz] BG

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

At one of the last Kenny Davern gigs I attended he reminisced about the night he 
arrived at his New York residency to find a tv cameraman and then discovered BG 
had died and he was expected to comment. He spoke of the remarkable achievement 
of BG,  and enthused as far as to talk of the recording he (or Ruby Braff?)had 
of Benny on a radio show being asked to play in the absence of a clarinet, and 
producing pure BG on a borrowed tenor saxophone.  I've no idea why he was 
talking about Benny on this occasion, but his mood was mellow. Reverence.

Another visitor turned up for the same series and somehow I wasn't informed. The 
less jazz-steeped friend I had been taking to those gigs did get told about it 
and went and regaled me afterward with the BG stories this other young veteran 
of late BG had been retailing.  The effect was a bit like drinking some very 
flavourful poison after having been saturated in the antidote.  Very funny and 
wholly non-toxic.  Entirely detachable from the music. 

Very different, of course, if the man is around and you're liable to be playing 
in a band with him. 

The stories might be a useful distraction and even an anaesthetic against 
irritation. 


Humphrey Lyttelton had this little speculation about Benny turning up for a gig 
to find one musician missing, thinking he'd been given the Ray by Benny the 
night before -- when all that had really happened was that Benny had suddenly 
remembered some uncomfortable fact and frowned with no reference whatever to the 
musician who on seeing the grimace assumed he was fired. 

And Benny next day would have no idea why the guy wasn't there...