Early History of the Galvanized Jazz Band

Although I had wanted to play dixieland jazz since I was very young, my first opportunity did not come until the fall of 1961. Wild Bill Davison and Brad Terry were giving an outdoor concert in a Yale courtyard with a pickup band organized by Neil Waterman. I didn’t have the money for admission, so I just showed up carrying my tuba and was admitted without question. I set the tuba down on the grass and sat back to enjoy the music. After a few tunes Davison spotted the tuba and invited me to sit in, as they had no bass player. I had no idea what to do when they asked me to solo, but had a great time and nobody seemed to mind. Shortly after that I met Bob Dunn, a classmate. Bob could play the “Maple Leaf Rag” equally well in Ab or Bb. Just for fun I asked him if he could play the left hand part in Ab while doing the right hand in Bb. He said he had never tried, but then sailed right into it. He remarked that the first part sounded like Honnegger, but the rest sounded “like a doorknob.” I helped Bob round up some musicians (Ralph Faville on trumpet, Bob Flanigan on clarinet, Howard Vidal on trombone, and Mike Waterman on drums) and we started a band which was quite popular on the campus for a time. Ralph and Bob were recruited from the Yale Band, and Howard was a brilliant trombonist still in high school. On one occasion when we couldn’t get a drummer for a job on Long Isla