[Dixielandjazz] Pianist's Name

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Robert,

On the topic of bop pianists who were great stride exponents, the late 
lamented Eddie Thompson was given to inserting very fierce stride 
passages into his solos, as indeed does Brian Kellock and as Kenny 
Stewart did in his heyday at Milngavie's Black Bull Jazz Club. Mention 
of Eddie reminds me that he was very disappointed not to get the chance 
to work with Benny when Benny toured the UK with Herb Ellis in 1983, nor 
indeed when Eddie lived for many years in NYC in the 1960s and 70s. When 
I played with Benny and Herb in Edinburgh in 1983 I asked Benny if he 
had run into Eddie on the tour. He answered no, but remembered hearing 
Eddie in NYC in the Hickory House. It turned that when Benny was working 
in NYC he used to go the Hickory House for supper and specifically to 
listen to Eddie. I told Eddie about this when we next worked together 
and Eddie, who was blind from birth, was very touched as had no idea 
Benny had been there frequently to hear him.

Mention of Lennie Felix brings to mind the problem that bassists and 
drummers had when accompanying him: his sense of metre was a bit dodgy, 
so he'd occasionally, but unwittingly, miss a bar or two, or insert an 
extra bar or two, or play a bar with 5,6 or 7, or 9 beats in it without 
warning. It used to drive other musos nuts, but generally the punters 
were none the wiser.

Re actors blacking up to play Othello, why not employ a black actor instead?

Regards,
Ken

On 20/11/2019 21:48, ROBERT R. CALDER wrote:
> 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
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20191120/1b6fea04/attachment.html>