[Dixielandjazz] good to hear from you again

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

for some time I've received nothing, and when I inquired the mail bounced! 

Very sorry indeed to hear about Johnny Chilton.I met him decades ago in an Edinburgh bookshop, where he was asking the imposing proprietrix, Mrs. MacNaughtan, about jazz books. He explained that he was in town in his capacity as a trumpet player.Mrs. MacNaughtan observed from her lofty height that the son she had borne to the late Major, who gave better prices for second hand books than his wife, was himself principal trumpet of the Scottish National Orchestra. 
The contrast with Johnny's role as Principal Trumpet to George Melly passed over quietly. I'd not known of the gig and was requested to wait outside the nearest pub to the venue prior to being smuggled in, humble and very impecunious undergraduate as I was, plied with pints, smuggled backstage and given a paper cup of champers duly to be touched against George's ...
alas I was unable to direct George afterwards to the semptstress (seamstress) he requested, on account of a button shed by his jacket during the forward somersault he performed from the stage to the auditorium floor (deliberately, and with aplomb, and landing on his feet and he was not then slender) a drop of some two metres. I recall too that prior to the instrumental number with which the quartet warmed up it was perhaps the bassist (wish I had his name) who sagely observed, "our leader is pssst". George did borrow some money from me as we ambled to the door through which I was to pass into the auditorium, and repaid me as soon as the coin had been used to execute a Cocteau-style drawing in the frosting of a glass panel in that door. 

Johnny's lyrical style should be a nice follow-up to Gabriel's!
Robert R. Calder
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