[Dixielandjazz] Trad Jazz (British) and the piano

[Jerry Brown]

A reverse story on bad pianos. A number of years ago Art Hodes and Wild Bill Davison were playing a venue here in Norwich. The piano had been tuned a couple of days before but looked as though it had been through several world wars. Battered to put it mildly and well marked with many beer glass rings. Before the gig and whilst the place was still empty Art looked very worried but walked over sat down, lifted the lid and started to play. After  a few moments he put the lid down, got over and walked back towards us still looking concerned. Thankfully his first words were, "that's about the best piano I have played all tour." Relief all round! During the evening he even played duets with his wife.

Jerry

Sent from my iPad

> On 21 Feb 2014, at 22:58, "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I've never been a fan of pianoless rhythm sections, but in the days before electric pianos, a trad jazz gig was always a lottery given the shocking state of the majority of pianos encountered in pubs and clubs. One disastrous piano gig above all sticks in my mind: it was a rugby club dance and the piano was BAD. In the main it was a semi-tone out, but of course not consistently so across the 88 keys. Our pianist tried bravely to play everything a semi-tone different from normal, but eventually retired to the bar at the first interval a defeated man.
> 
> There he had a heated conversation with the organiser, who asked him if the piano just needed a "bit of tuning or a full overhaul." The pianist's reply was "What it needs is a (expletive deleted) Viking Funeral!"
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Ken
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