You took advantage - Wild Bill Davison

You took advantage of me - Wild Bill Davison 1986

One of my favourite cornetplayers surrounded by some my favourite musicians playing one of my favourite tunes. Taped at the 1986 Bern Jazz Festival we see cornetplayer Wild Bill Davison (1906-1989) play “You took advantage of me” on his new King cornet. Why new? Bill told us once that every year the King Instrument Company would give him a new horn.
Bill is surrounded by a dreamband. On clarinet is Bob Wilber, trombonist Bill Allred, pianist is the great stride player Dick Wellstood, Bucky Pizzarelli guitar, Milt Hinton bass and drummer is Jake Hanna.

Writer and jazz cornettist Richard M. Sudhalter described first seeing Wild Bill at Eddie Condon's Club in New York City in the 1950s:
"Up there, incredibly, is Bill Davison himself, looking like anything *but* the standard image of the cornet or trumpet player. Not like Louis Armstrong, horn tilted up and eyes rolled back as the tone takes flight; not like Maxie Kaminsky, so tiny that his instrument seems gigantic in his hands. Not like Bix Beiderbecke, in some old photo or other, dented cornet pointed resolutely to the floor.
"Nope. This guy is seated, one leg crossed casually over the other, drink on an upended barrel in front of him. He sweeps the cornet into the side of his mouth to expel some supercharged phrase, then jerks it away as if it's too hot to keep there. And I realize, awe-struck, he's chewing *gum*! Where in the world does he *keep* that stuff when he's blowing?
"In short, he looked just the way he sounded - like a guy from Ohio (a town named, aptly, Defiance) with a fierce, uninhibited way of attacking the beat, driving a band of whatever size halfway into tomorrow. The music comes out as from a flame-thrower, but with a density and momentum only suggested by even the best (of his) records".