After more than a half-century of performing ragtime and Dixieland jazz, I thought I’d experienced all of the musical high spots. Among other things, I’d played throughout the USA, plus Canada and London; played over 30 cruises, covering Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Mexican Riviera and the Mediterranean; received a number of awards from various ragtime and Dixieland organizations; placed high on several polls as both musician and critic; was cornetist/ leader of a Dixieland octet that was named one of the top five on the circuit; shared the stage with musical greats in the field, such as pianist Eubie Blake, vocalist Maxine Sullivan, and cornetist Wild Bill Davison; appeared on dozens of recordings; taught the music and its history at Elderhostel/Road Scholar for 22 years, collecting a string of five-star reviews that are still on the program’s website; and played piano for cocktails and sing-a-long at a private party at the U.S. Supreme Court at which I met then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (because former Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy is a personal friend from my law school days). I don’t want to appear to be bragging. I just can’t help feeling some pride when I reflect back on how extraordinarily good this music has been to me.
When the Covid shutdowns hit in 2020, being well into my eighties, I thought I’d hit all the top rungs and decided to retire from public performance on cornet. Nothing left to give me a really big thrill, right? But Fate and WJU had other ideas.
As you all know (see our Member Spotlight profile in Circus Fanfare, Nov-Dec 2023), Nancy and I have been nonplaying WJU members for several years. We sit in the front seats in the rehearsal room, just behind the podium, savoring traditional circus music at the semi-annual meets—pretty much the only places left in the world where this music can be heard live.
That’s where we were the afternoon of Friday, July 18, in Gainesville, GA, as WJU trustees Jeffrey Dent and Jay Kahn started organizing the rehearsal for the Saturday evening concert—which would begin, of course, with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Suddenly, I heard Jay call “Hey, Tex! Wanna conduct the National Anthem?”
Is The Pope Catholic? I whipped off my cap and hastened to the bandstand, realizing en route that my above-listed musical resume was completely useless because I knew less than nothing about conducting a 69-piece band.
“Nervous” does not begin to describe how I felt as I formulated my plan, deciding to try conducting WJU the way I would lead my Dixieland band if The Rent Party Revellers were called upon to play the National Anthem. I crossed my fingers and proceeded to provide a downbeat on each syllable of the lyric. (Someone told me at the banquet that evening that this method is among those used to conduct a chorale.)
Faced with this display of rank amateurism, WJU, being the top-drawer professionals that they are, caught on right away. Though history will not rank the performance as one of the all-time-great National Anthems, we got through it with no obvious clams, providing me with a musical high for which I will always be grateful and will never forget. Some WJUers even were kind enough to reinforce the high by telling me that night that I had done a good job.
“Good Time Flat Blues” (1925), words and music by Spencer Williams, which I have played many times, includes in its lyrics the line “Just say ‘Farewell’ now and get your one last thrill…” Thanks so much, WJU, for that last thrill. Keep swinging.
The foregoing article is gratefully reprinted by permission from the August 2025 issue of Circus Fanfare, a periodical published by Windjammers Unlimited. WJU is an organization dedicated to the preservation of traditional circus music. Its members get together twice a year at various locations to spend four days playing this music, primarily for their own enjoyment, but also in free concerts for the local population. A 42-second clip of the incident described in this article may be found here on YouTube.
From roughly 1970-2010, Tex Wyndham was: (1) one of the best-known revivalist Dixieland jazz musicians in the US, as cornetist, pianist and bandleader, (2) one of the best-known ragtime pianists in the US, and (3) one of the most respected critics in the US of Dixieland jazz, ragtime, and related music. He is the only person about whom all three of those statements can be made. His Texas Shout column, which ran from 1989 to 2004 is archived HERE.
