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Press, 15 February 1989, Page 2

“Wild Bill” Davison (above) was 14 years old when he gave his first public performance at a church fair in Defiance, Ohio — three tunes in the band’s repertoire “and all the ice-cream we could eat.” Yesterday, Davison, aged 82, was in Christchurch preparing to play at the Parkroyal Hotel this evening. The legendary jazz cornet player’s career was launched in the age of ragtime, continued in the Jazz Age and into the Big Band Era and still flourishes in the age of the compact disc. The young musician left Defiance for Chicago during the early 19205, playing in the clubs and dance halls of a city controlled by the Mob. His jazz con-

tinued in spite of the violence, prohibition and the Depression. “Jazz doesn’t need defining in any way. It’s a feeling. It’s always been there in me— and that’s the hard part of getting old. The physical side of playing gets tough. But I still practise four hours a day, hell or high water,” Wild Bill said after arriving yesterday afternoon. The contemporary of Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Eddie Condon, still plays with his band and tours internationally, demonstrating that the distinctive Davison sound is still as sweet as it was in the Roaring Twenties.