[Dixielandjazz] Herb Ellis, John Bunch et al

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Hi, Ken et al.,

Francis Cowan indeed. Actually the swine who did for him had been behind the wheel ten hours, as I read in the press report of his trial. I didn't get the paper on the day after he was sentenced, but he seemed to be headed for jail.  Francis and I were always going to exchange tapes because I only caught the broadcast of the first half of the Edinburgh gig, but I also had and presumably still have somewhere a cassette of another performance from the same tour, recorded by the BBC in London, with Dave Green on bass.  Francis was interested to hear the different approach. He had firm ideas about what the bassist should do, and it meant a great deal to him when he was congratulated by Fred Hunt after a trio gig, who had the same ideas and disapproved of what I suppose they thought of as a post-bassist procedure. 

I well remember John Bunch in a fantastic gig in Glasgow, his first, with Rikki Steele on bass and John Rae on drums, and the concluding ironic remarks about extensive rehearsal of the various interactive bits and pieces -- the great man himself somewhat overcome by the quality of the music-making. Of course there had been no real rehearsal, but everything happened as and when it ought to have. When the bass comes in solo where it should, Francis would say, you can tell the quality of the pianist. The late Ken Gallacher, arch-condonite, was over the moon at that set, but John Bunch in live performance was astonishing, Jake Hanna once referred to him, when asked what he was like, as "a sort of Jewish Count Basie."  He was especially astonishing performing Johnny Hodges feature numbers, with the lyrical flow. His records don't always catch him, though with Bucky Pizzarelli he got right into the music. Ken was in the quartet with John and Joe Temperley the
 year Edinburgh also teamed John in duo with Evan Christopher, which was very memorable. They gave a visual impression of having been somehow just thrown together, but musically that would have made it marriage at first sight.  
The man was a delight.