[Dixielandjazz] Dave Shepherd

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I once had an e-row occasioned by Dave Shepherd's reminiscences of Teddy Wilson.

An e-row meaning e-mail controversy.
The late John Farrell, whom Bill Haesler told me was a decent bloke two pints below the mark at which some Englishmen cease being too argumentative, a condition neither hard nor painful to cure, "hotly disputed" Dave as quoted by me, to the effect that Teddy Wilson could span a twelfth on piano.
Dave described, in print, how Teddy would of a morning, when staying with him and having read his way through a bale or acre of daily newsprint, go to the piano and apply thumb and little finger to the verticals of the white keys on the piano, to get his span at full stretch. 


Nobody could play a twelfth, John Farrell insisted. 

If it could be done, another person suggested, it would be pretty well pointless.
an octave and a third. 

not far off two metres in height, I can just about manage a twelfth myself though my hand has to be so flat its thumb-tip and pinkie-tip and utterly impossible to time. I have tried to do some of the Teddy left hand stuff of tenth gliding speedily and easily upon tenth, even with benefit of John Mehegan's transcriptions. The idea that Teddy couldn't manage a twelfth as a mere physical feat seems ridiculous given the manouevres just to play one of those progressions out of tempo. I seem to recall I had the support of Butch Thompson in this, himself the son of a Teddy Wilson enthusiast.  

Dave's reminiscence of Teddy Wilson was of considerable interest, alas the nearest I came physically to Dave was at the 1987 Edinburgh dry run of the Carnegie Hall concert where Bob Wilber marked fifty years since Benny Goodman/ John Hammond SOME YEARS AFTER JAZZ COULD BE SAID TO HAVE HIT NEW YORK 1938. Dave and Brian Lemon and Roger Nobes (apology to the rest of the rhythm) were lined up ready to go on stage, and I and some others were waiting for chairs to be set up in the auditorium since the seats we'd paid for had had to be removed from where we should have been up beside the performers. This was an ensemble which could play like a Goodman ensemble, more or less as they wanted to. Playing more rather than less like a BG5 was an option but hardly a matter of imitation. I only ever heard Dave live fronting a quintet with Benny Waters. 


A more amusing recall of John Farrell followed from mention of the stock account of Milt Buckner's block-chords approach to the piano -- which I noted with less than a smile Dick Hyman missed during one history of jazz piano broacdcast recording, leaping to George Shearing (who included Milt in his autobiographical reminiscences). I mentioned the tale that Milt's hands had been too small to let him play stride. Farrell was furious, Milt and he had been friends for years, Milt visited him when in England and there had been one gig when Milt climbed to the height of the piano stool (is this politically incorrect heightism?) and delivered himself of some romping stride which impressed everybody. Milt didn't devise his approach because he had to, but because he was creative. Correct your reference works!

And if you had the creative and organising ability and mastery of clarinet, and were Dave Shepherd, you could achieve decent depth conserving Goodman within your larger repertoire, depending on the availability of the hands and the pianist,

Robert R. Calder