Dick Oxtot at ‘The Ordinary’1972-75, Featuring Terry Garthwaite

Dick Oxtot fondly recalled the venue in his 1999 memoir: "The Ordinary was a happy-go-lucky Oakland club which featured a happy-go-lucky clientele, and served New Orleans food, so my four-piece aggregation was selected by the owners to carry on the New Orleans tradition . . .. the personnel would vary so much from weekend to weekend and was so often graced with excellent sitters-in.” Dick’s union contract with The Ordinary  specified a four-piece band plus vocalist, playing Saturday nights from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am, listing Oxtot (banjo, leader), Bill Bardin (trombone), Earl Scheelar (reeds), Walter Yost (tuba) and singer Terry Garthwaite, whom it is safe to say were the core of this group. The gig began around 1972 and lasted until at least mid-1975. At The Ordinary, trombone player Bill Bardin was never more eloquent nor more expressive playing gutty Stomps, lowdown Blues or Classic Jazz. Bill was a stalwart of the Traditional Jazz movement dating back to the 1940s, admired by his peers, fans and jazz lovers. In a 1994 interview Bill recounted: “The Ordinary was a nightclub in a former [electric company] substation.  It was sort of a, I hesitate to say H