Wild Bill Davison
With Ralph Sutton, Albert Nicholas, Baby Dodds
Produced by Bill Grauer
Notes by Robert Parent
Re-Mastering by Reeves Sound Studios
Contemporary Series
Riverside RLP 12-211
Available from online vendors so I will not be posting a sample. Presented here to share the original cover art and jacket notes excerpt.
From the back cover: Bill Davison was born in January, 1906. This simple statistic takes on significance when you start adding on your fingers and note that he was therefore in his forties when these recordings were made and is at this writing (1956) at the mid-century mark. Nevertheless, there is more than enough fire and strength in his horn to arouse considerable envy in even the most spirited performer half his age. Davison's birthplace was Defiance, Ohio (a place name that can lead searchers after symbolic coincidence and/or puns to draw all sorts of parallels with the usually wild sound of his horn).
His first instrument was the banjo; as a banjoist and when he first switched to cornet, he was a member of assorted undistinguished bands in Cincinnati and thereabouts. According to some accounts, Bill was at first no better than his surroundings called for, but by the mid-'20s he had (like a good many other young horn men) heard Armstrong and Beiderbecke, and had fallen under the spell of honest creative jazz. He has been playing, ever since then, in much the same full and aggressive style he displays here.
But it took Davison a while to make his presence really felt on the jazz scene. Later in the '20s he played with such midwestern bands of those of Chubb Steinberg and Benny Meroff, which have been described as "genuinely corny." His earliest recordings were with these groups, and a couple of them do manage to testify rather clearly that Bill deserved to be in better company. He did work briefly with the Chicago jazz crowd, but did not record with them. (It might as well be set down here, as it is in most accounts of Davison's career, that for quite some time he was identifiable to jazz fans only as their driver of the car at the time the brilliant clarinest Frank Teschebacher met his death in an auto accident).
Bill led groups in Milwaukee throughout the '30s and it was not until 1942 that he first struck New York. "Struck" is no exaggeration. A long stand at Nick's established his reputation with local fans; he recorded with George Brunis, Eddie Condon and others; and when Condon's own club was opened just after the end of World War II, Davison became just about a staple item there and – along with Condon – just about a living symbol of latter-day Dixieland.
During 1947, Wild Bill was a mainstay of the series of weekly Mutual Broadcasting System programs, produced by Rudi Blesh under the overall title of "This Is Jazz," that marked the only serious inroads made by unadulterated jazz into commercial (even though unsponsored) network radio. The personnel consistently represented the best available talent of its kind, and the lineups on the selections issued here are typical: Albert Nicholas, Edmond Hall, and on occasion their great New Orleans colleague, Sidney Bechet; Harlem trombonist Jimmy Archey; pianists like Ralph Sutton and Jimmy Johnson; and usually a solidly traditional Danny Barker-Pops Foster-Baby Dodds rhythm section. Quite often, as here, the group was lifted and driven by the fierce Davison horn. The Side 2 selections are from the following 1947 broadcasts #1 - July 26; #3 - June 21; # and 4 - September 27; #5 - July 5; #6 - August 2.
The more unusual examples of the richly romantic potentials of the Davison horn are from a recording session that also featured Sutton, Archey and Garvin Bushell, a skilled and versatile reed-man whose credits range from playing with Jelly Roll Morton to playing with symphony groups. All twelve of these selections originally appear on the Circle label.
Why Was I Born?
Just A Gigolo
Yesterdays
A Ghost Of A Chance
She's Funny That Way
When Your Lover Has Gone
Hotter Than That
St. Louis Blues
Swinging Down The Lane
Avalon
Shimmeshawabble
As Long As I Live
I cannot get enough of these album covers. So great.
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