[Dixielandjazz] Pianist's Name

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

 I couldn't remember whether the name was Stephens or Stephenson, not to be confused with Robert Stephens the actor, whom oddly enough I saw much around the same time as the Benny gig, in the same venue, the Theatre Royal, and in Blackface, though that is still and quite properly not frowned on, when on the face of an actor in the role of Othello. 

Pepper was really enchanted by the burst of stride piano, fairly rare then other than from Jaki Byard, or Roger Kellaway, around now celebrating his eightieth birthday. I saw him again a few years later, before he went to Sweden and had the bad news when a local colleague had taken him to see a medic. I'd been astonished to see Pepper standing at the back of us people at the Queen's Hall bar during the intermission of his later, Edinburgh, gig, so I sort of shovelled some of the queue out of the way and directed a barmaid's attention to the little man on whose account we were all there. And I was repaid with reminiscences of Art Tatum and his pal Wendell Hawkins, not far behind Tatum as a sheer virtuoso, said Pepper, though the other guy who has like me heard a track and a half of that Hawkins's one LP mentions Tommy Flanagan as having played similar... 

Oddly enough I've been sending things to a pianist friend in the Detroit region (Pepper. Flanagan, Roland hanna etc.) whom I met years ago 
all in a non-music context. The man who really impressed him, and he knew Marian McPartland's playing of old, and not playing stride, was Lennie Felix. Lennie had this wonderful art of opening out a trill, unwinding a chord into an extending line.  

all the very best, 

Robert 



    On Wednesday, 20 November 2019, 21:05:35 GMT, Ken Mathieson <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk> wrote:  
 
 Hi Robert et al,

The pianist in Benny Carter's Scottish Big Band at he 1987 Glasgow Jazz 
Festival was Bob Stephenson. He was an experienced MD as well as the 
pianist of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra (a victim of BBC cut-backs) 
and brother of the wonderful drummer Ronnie Stephenson.

Cheers,

Ken

  
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