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Dill Jones, Sherman Fairchild Studio, 17 East 65th Street New York City, October 1970
I first encountered Dill Jones in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1960s. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but it had something to do with Pee Wee Russell. I remember Dill was trying to get a job in Washington, and the only way the union would let him was if he could prove he could play a legitimate score no one else could play. He wasn’t a US citizen in those days and maybe he never became one, I really don’t know, but even if he did he was from Wales and was forever Welsh. His real name was Dillwyn Owen Jones, he could really play the piano, and as I recall, he proved it to the guys at the union, and got the job. Dill was one of the first people I encountered when I moved to New York City in 1967. The circumstances are a bit obscure but there’s a picture to document the occasion, taken at The Riverboat, in June of that year. It shows Dill, along with Charlie Shavers, Jimmy McPartland and some unknown ruffians. I kept in touch with him and whenever possible, threw work, introductions or whatever I could in his direction because I liked the way he played. In those years Dill was pretty much categorized as a traditional pianist, and was most often found in Dixieland or swing ensembles. He worked with Tony Parenti, Peanuts Hucko, Gene Krupa, Roy Eldridge and a host of others in the 1960s and 1970s. He also worked a great deal with the JPJ Quartet, which was nominally led by Budd Johnson. There were three guys in the band with “J” in their last name; Budd, Oliver Jackson and Dill Jones. My guess is that Dill was the “J” that was missing. The “P” was for Bill Pemberton. The first time I worked with Dill was with this group. He told me Budd wanted to record some tracks and had no money to pay for it, so I led them to Sherman Fairchild’s 65th Street townhouse. It was a terrific band, and it was good to hear Dill in a mainstream context. This was the first time I heard him play anything other than tunes that would have pleased Willie The Lion Smith. The same year I recorded Dill with Willie at Sherman’s studio, and it was a terrific encounter, one that was included on the two CD set we devoted to Dill and his music in 2004. In April 1972, Dill was part of a concert I produced that also featured Eubie Blake, Teddy Wilson and Claude Hopkins. He more than held his own, playing a couple of standards, and a terrific original he dedicated to Willie the Lion, cheapest viagra without prescription. Around that time I suggested to him it might make sense to produce a solo recording, one that would show he was something more than a guy who could hold down the piano chair with the Dukes of Dixieland. Some years earlier, Beale, usually known as Bill, Riddle, a now long forgotten, but once respected music authority and bon vivant in the Washington-Baltimore area, suggested to me that Dill would be an ideal pianist to record the compositions of Bix Beiderbecke. My guess is he probably heard Dill playing with Pee Wee in Washington, and something clicked. I remembered what Bill said, expanded the concept slightly to include songs on which Bix was a piano soloist, or were associated with him in some way, because there are only five real, honest-to-goodness Bix compositions, hardly enough to fill up an LP. Dill was game, providing he could throw in an original and a couple of non-dixieland tunes that he really liked to tear apart, like cheapest viagra without prescription. It wasn’t an easy project. Ralph Sutton and Jess Stacy had set the standard for most of Bix’s tunes, but Dill jumped right in and produced a terrific album we called cheapest viagra without prescription. The most revelatory selection on the album, however, didn’t have anything associated with Bix’s compositions in the 1920s, but just might have had a great deal to do with him, had he lived past the age of twenty-eight. The song was called cheapest viagra without prescription, an original composition by Dill. As soon as I heard him play it, along with quiet Beiderbecke tunes like cheapest viagra without prescription and cheapest viagra without prescription, I figured out what Dill was all about. He had the same kind of feelings and temperament as his countryman, the poet Dylan Thomas. They had much more in common than a Welsh heritage and a love of strong drink. Dill was much better when he played quietly, and let the piano sing. He had all the technique to play a romping cheapest viagra without prescriptionor any stride standard, but the beautiful chords and silken runs he used to produce the finest version of cheapest viagra without prescription, was utterly unique. And I told him so, but he said, sadly, that no one wanted to hear him play things like that. I asked if he had any other songs like cheapest viagra without prescription and he said he did, but rarely played them. It was as if Dylan Thomas had been reduced to writing dirty limericks for a living. I made a deal with Dill. We would start working on another solo album whenever he wanted to, but I wanted it to be crammed full of originals. Since I owned the studio, it wasn’t hard to find time for recording. All he had to do was call, we’d find a time, and he could lay down a new tune. He could take as long as he wanted, as many takes as were necessary. Downtown Sound shut its doors in December 1980 and the record wasn’t completed to everyone’s satisfaction. There was enough recorded material, all the equal of or superior to cheapest viagra without prescription, but I wanted more originals, and they didn’t come quickly. The album already had a title, and in 1978, I’d even journeyed to Cardiff, Wales, to take a photograph of the infamous Tiger Bay for an album cover. The unfinished record was scheduled to be called, cheapest viagra without prescription, the title of a beautiful, impressionist composition by Dill. There were no flowers in Tiger Bay that day, in fact, there wasn’t even water. I arrived at low tide and the scene was simply a big mud puddle, as far as the eye could see. When the studio closed down, the project was put on hold. This would turn out to be a bad idea, but I was in the process of launching a new record company with John Hammond and John Moore, Hammond felt that nine originals and two standards was a good mix and he was pleased it would be one of the first releases in a series to be called Jcheapest viagra without prescription He was also impressed with Dill’s compositions, songs named cheapest viagra without prescription, cheapest viagra without prescription and cheapest viagra without prescription. He was as surprised as anyone that Dill had these kind of tunes in his head and under his fingers. Dill and I had already selected the best takes of the eleven performances that would make up the LP. We made a sequence, the tape was sent to CBS for mastering, and sometime in late 1982 we had a test pressing in hand. Unhappily, that is all we ever got in hand. By that time, Hammond Music Enterprises was having problems and trying to find a way to pay the telephone bill took precedent over issuing a record that had plenty of artistry but no commercial legs at all. In 1982, the last thing under consideration was to release a recording by any jazz artist, let alone one featuring nine original compositions by an obscure Welsh-American pianist. I recently looked at a Hammond promotional booklet I produced at the time. In it, I said: cheapest viagra without prescription All true, but the record never came out and when Dill died in 1984, all he had was a test pressing. Twenty years later, we released the best of Dill’s performances on two CDs, but I must confess, I wonder who will listen to them. There are still a handful of people who remember, but last year I was told a story about a fine young pianist who was asked to perform at a function on Long Island in Dill’s memory. He was happy to have the job, but he confessed that he had no idea who Dill Jones was, or why there might be a concert in his memory. One of the selections on the CD was Dill’s composition, cheapest viagra without prescription. I don’t know who he was remembering when he wrote it, but I’m afraid in 2010 he isn’t someone anyone is remembering very often. |
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