Wild Bill Davison, one of the wildest

Joe Delaney

Friday, Sept. 12, 1997 | 10:16 a.m.

Hal Willard's "The Wildest One: The Life of Bill Davison" (Avondale Press), is a well-documented, very obvious labor of love by the one-time writer and editor at the Washington Post.

Davison's musical instrument was the cornet, forerunner of the trumpet. Unlike his earlier contemporaries, Bix Beiderbecke and Bunny Berrigan, both of whom died very young, Wild Bill continued playing his horn for 69 years, right up to his final hot chorus at age 83, Nov. 14, 1989.

Born in Defiance, Ohio, as Midwest as one can possibly get, William Edward Davison was the little boy who blew his horn, sitting on the old cannon in the square, just outside the Defiance Library, on the site where storied Fort Defiance once stood. His horn was destined to be heard throughout the world.

Musicologist Bill Ritchie once said, "Wild Bill Davison got to be 25 years old, liked it, and just stayed there."

Married five times, a wild man onstage and off, a hard-drinking workaholic, Davison owed his exceptional longevity to the love, tolerance and patience of his wife of 38 years, Anne. Once a promising movie starlet, a classic beauty, she loved him madly and kept him alive, mostly well, and playing music far longer than might have been imagined.

During my own New York City period, especially 1953-1962, I was able to enjoy Will Bill, live at Nick's in Greenwich Village and at the Eddie Condon nightclubs I, II and III.

Many of the mainstream greats who worked with Wild Bill -- such as clarinetists Kenny Davern and Edmund Hall, pianist Gene Schroeder, bassist Bob Casey, and drummers Barrett Deems, Cliff Leeman and George Wettling -- also worked as part of the original Dukes of Dixieland. They're all in the book.

Those halcyon New York City days are thoroughly chronicled by Willard. Other jazz greats, part of Wild Bill's prolific life, include Louis Armstrong, Muggsy Spanier, Pee Wee Russell, Ralph Sutton and that master of the jazz hounds, Eddie Condon.

Jazz fans can relive the hectic existence of one of the major jazz contributors, warts and all, unexpurgated. Willard's book is also a great reference source for historians and teachers of jazz appreciation.

Favorite personal memory: We were told there would be a jam session by members of the Dublin, Ireland, Jazz Society at a pub on the quays on the south side of the River Liffey that evening. Back then, in the early 1970s, one could walk anywhere in Dublin at any hour in complete safety.

Nevertheless, as we walked farther and farther away from O'Connell Street, our concern grew. It was dark and deserted, growing even more so, when suddenly we heard the unmistakable sound of Wild Bill's horn, sitting in with the Dublin Jazz Society and joined by another good friend, the great saxophonist Bud Freeman, a fellow Zen Buddhist student.

Wild Bill, Bud and the group played well past the 11 p.m. closing hour, thanks to the presence of two garda (policemen) who saw to it that the place would not be cited by other garda. Davison drank and Freeman didn't. Wild Bill drank for both of them. Both played equally long and equally well on a night to remember.

Wild Bill Davison's story deserved to be told. Hal Willard was qualified in every respect to write the often sodden saga of "The Wildest One." Highly recommended.