Jazz & Ragtime:  D

Pete Dailey

Pete Daily (b. Portland, Indiana, May 5, 1911 – d. 1986) – Multi-instrumentalist (primarily cornet/trumpet with secondary work on baritone/slide trombone and the bass saxophone).  Born in Portland, Indiana, and raised in Hammond, young Peter Daily explored the jazz scene of the Chicago area early on and landed a gig with Jack Davies’ Kentuckians when he and a friend ventured across the state line to the Cottage Inn in Calumet City, Illinois.  While playing the cornet and the bass saxophone, he recorded several records with the Kentuckians at Gennett in 1930.  For the next twelve years, he worked around Chicago playing in groups with Frank Melrose, Bud Freeman and Boyce Brown.  In 1942, he moved to California and played briefly in Ozzie Nelson’s band; however, he spent most of his remaining professional years as the front man in Dixieland groups.  Following military service in WWII, he founded the Chicagoans, a California-based group that recorded several records with Capitol.  In the 1960s, he spent some time playing the valve trombone back with an Indiana-band led by Smokey Stover.  His long career came to end in 1979, when a serious stroke limited his playing abilities.      

David Darling

David Darling (b. Elkhart, March 4, 1941 -    ) – Cellist and composer.  Born in Elkhart, Darling started on piano at age four and at age ten took up the cello, which became his principal instrument.  (He also played saxophone in high school.)  After receiving a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music education from Indiana University, he taught instrumental music at the elementary and secondary levels in Evansville and later taught music education at Western Kentucky University.  From 1970 to 1978, he was a member of the Paul Winter Consort, and from 1970 to 1987, he played cello with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.  For the past twenty years, he has pursued a solo career and has been involved with various education projects (Young Audiences and Music for People, in particular).  Through these endeavors, he exposes children to a wide range of musical traditions and engages them in improvisation.  With over twenty albums to his credit (some solo and some collaborative), his music represents a wide range of genres including classical, jazz and various ethnic traditions.  Of particular note, he was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Age Album in 2002 for Cello Blue.      

Charlie Davis

Charlie Davis – A native of Indianapolis and son of trombonist Abijah Davis, Charlie Davis caught the dance band bug after arriving at Notre Dame in 1917.  With classical piano training under his belt, Davis also learned to play the trumpet and eventually made his mark as a bandleader.  The Charlie Davis Band (sometimes called The Joy Gang) formed in Indianapolis in 1923 as a combo and developed into a big band, which played thoughout the 1920s and into the 1930s.  Known for their “sweet style,” the Charlie Davis Band was a popular attraction at the Casino Gardens, a hot dance spot near the White River in Northern Indianapolis.  Their success at the Casino Gardens led to a recording date at Gennett Records.  While in Indiana, the band’s activities intersected those of Hoagy Carmichael and Bix Beiderbecke’s Wolverines, who shared gigs with the Davis Band at Butler College and Marion’s Luna Lite Theater in 1924.  Also in 1924, the Wolverines made a Gennett recording of Davis’s own “Copenhagen,” which became a jazz standard along with “Jimtown Blues” (co-written by Davis with Fred Rose).  Starting about five years later, the Davis Band got bookings in New York along side such talents as Rudy Vallee, the Duke Ellington Band, Cab Calloway, Bojangles Robinson, and Ethel Merman.  One of the highlights was sharing a Paramount Theatre marquee with the name “Duke Ellington.”  International tours included widespread travel throughout Russia, Mexico, Spain, France, Holland, and South Africa.  After the band dissolved in the 1930s, Davis worked in the furniture and linoleum business in Oswego, New York, while some of his former band members went on to successful music careers.  For example, Arkansas-born Dick Powell was the band’s featured vocalist and became a well-known Hollywood actor and singer.  Immediately after the band’s break-up, Earle Moss, who played clainet and sometimes trumpet with the Joy Gang, became an arranger for CBS radio and Radio City Music Hall.  After relocating to New York, trombonist Phil Davis went on to run the Phil Davis Musical Enterprises, which produced jingles for radio and television.    

Johnnie “Scat” Davis 

Johnnie "Scat" Davis (b. Brazil, May 11, 1910 – d. Pecos, Texas, May 28, 1983) – Trumpeter, singer, and comedian.  Born into a musical family, Johnnie’s grandfather, John Davis, was a director of the Royal British Navy Band, and his grandfather and father led the Brazil Concert Band (possibly the oldest continously-active community band in the country, 1863-   ).  At age thirteen, Johnnie played with the Brazil Band, and, for several of his teen years, he played trumpet in the theaters and ballrooms of Terre Haute.  After graduating from Brazil High School, he joined Jimmy Joy’s Orchestra in Louisville, and employment in Cleveland and New York City soon followed.  In the mid-1930s, Davis made it to Hollywood, where he joined Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians and developed a reutations as a fine scat singer.  It was only fitting then that he would become famous for his vocal rendition of "Hooray for Hollywood" (with the Benny Goodman Band) in the movie Hollywood Hotel (1937).  (Davis made fourteen other appearances in motion pictures.)  After a stint with Bob Crosby’s band, Davis formed his own big band in 1939.  Although his own talents were well received, the group didn’t have much staying power.  In the early 1950s, he led a small ensemble, which appeared on Detroit’s WXYZ TV.  Later, he headed up a group in Texas, where he retired in the late 1960s.   

Spanky Davis

Ronald J. “Spanky” Davis – (b. Indianapolis, March 6, 1943 -   ) – Trumpet player.  Davis has played with a vast array of jazz legends including Benny Goodman (1982-83), Al Cohn (1983-84), Buddy Tate (1986-90), Buck Clayton (1986-92), Ruth Brown (1990), and Frank Sinatra (1991-93).  Throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s, Davis led the Jimmy Ryan All Stars, originally the house band at Jimmy Ryan’s in New York until its closing in 1983.  (The previous leader of the group was Roy Eldridge.)  Since 1997, Davis has played in Chuck Fold’s group at New York’s Sweet Basil. 

Carrol DeCamp

Carroll DeCamp – Composer, arranger, guitarist, and pianist.  After teaching himself how to arrange, he earned a B. M. at Butler’s Jordan College of Music.  Early in his career, he played piano on recordings of local artists like Al Kiger.  Represented by FJH Music and a member of BMI, Carroll DeCamp has published over 120 arrangements and compositions.  He has composed works for major orchestras, choirs, and TV shows and has arranged for Stan Kenton, Les Elgart, and Eddie Daniels.  Also known for influencing his nephew Royce Campbell (see above), DeCamp now lives and works in Southern Indiana.       

Sidney DeParis

Sidney DeParis (b. Crawfordsville, May 30, 1905 – d. New York City, September 13, 1967) – Trumpet player.  The brother of trombone player Wilbur DeParis, Sidney grew up in Crawfordsville playing with his father’s circus band in Vaudeville shows.  Adept at both the New Orleans style and swing, DeParis went on to play with Charlie Johnson’s Paradise Ten (late 1920s), McKinney’s Cotton Pickers (around 1930-31), Don Redman (1932-36, 1938), Zutty Singleton (1939-41), and Benny Carter (1940-41).  His discography also includes sessions with Jelly Roll Morton (1938) and Sidney Bechet (1939) in addition to two albums by groups that he lead (Commodore 1944, and Blue Note, 1951).  During the 1940s and 1950s, he played with his brother’s New Orleans group until poor health put an end to his career in the 1960s.       

Wilbur DeParis

Wilbur DeParis (b. Crawfordsville, January 11, 1900 – d. January 3, 1973) – Trombone player.  After growing up in the same setting as brother Sidney (see above), he went on to play with Noble Sissle, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington.  In the 1940s, he started a New Orleans band, which became a leading throwback group in New York in the 1950s and toured extensively starting near the end of the decade.  While the band’s studio recordings are available on the Collectibles label, their radio performances are on Jazz Crusade. 

Dick Dickinson 

Dick Dickinson (b. Emory, Georgia, January 2, 1928 – d. Indianapolis, December 1, 2008) – Drummer and Jazz Radio Host.  Although born in the Atlanta area, Dick Dickinson grew up in Petersburg, Indiana.  After serving in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948, he completed a music degree at Indiana University.  In the early to mid 1950s, he played with the local Fred Dale Orchestra, which recorded some sides in New York for Decca Records.  Around the same time, he started playing in the clubs of Indianapolis and eventually led his own groups.  For twenty-two years, the Dick Dickinson Jazztet had a Wednesday night gig at the Chatterbox until he retired in April of 2008, about seven months before his death at age eighty.  Dickinson was also well known as a radio host, working out of Bloomington and Indianapolis.  His popular shows included “Explorations in Jazz” on WFIU (1970-72), “Just Jazz” on WIAN (1985-86), and “All That Jazz” on WIAN (1986-1990).  His “Just Jazz” show was re-aired on WFYI from 1986 to 1990.  In 1998, Dickinson was inducted into the Indianapolis Jazz Foundation Hall of Fame.         

Rob Dixon  

Rob Dixon – (b. Georgia -   ) – Saxophonist, composer, arranger, and producer.  A native of Georgia and a graduate of Hampton University, Rob Dixon is currently one of Indy’s brightest stars in the jazz world.  Dixon first came to the Hoosier state to study jazz at Indiana University, where he spent two years.  Following his education, he lived in Indianapolis and New York for two years and six years, respectively.  In 2002, he returned to Indy, although he never really left the local performance scene.  While living in the Big Apple, he found freelance work with the Count Basie Band, the Ellington Band, the Smithsonian Jazz Orchestra, and the Maria Schneider Orchestra.  He also played with groups fronted by Rufus Reid, Slide Hampton, Ray Charles, and Tony Bennett.  Back in Indianapolis, he leads a quartet with Melvin Rhyne, which plays every Wednesday night at the Jazz Kitchen, and a funky jazz group called Trilogy + 1.  This year, Owl Studios is releasing Dixon’s latest recording with Rhyne (the Dixon/Rhyne Project, Reinvention).  His most recent recording with Trilogy + 1 was What Things Could Be (2006).  In addition, he has also appeared on recordings with the following Owl Studios artists:  trumpet player Derrick Gardner, vocalist Cynthia Layne, and the Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra.             

Steve Dokken

Steve Dokken – Bassist.  Raised in Minneapolis, Dokken established himself as a leading bass player in the Indianapolis area after moving there in the late 1970s.  Along with local drummer Jack Gilfoy, Dokken played with the Henry Mancini band from 1979 to 1994 (the year of the leader’s death).  For the past decade, he has worked locally with violinist Cathy Morris.  Throughout his career, he has performed with Rod Stewart, the Moody Blues, Natalie Cole, and Johnny Mathis.  

Carolyn Dutton

Carolyn Dutton (b. Indiana, 1930s -   ) – Violinist and writer  Raised in Martinsville, Dutton was originally trained as a classical violinist but at the time was more intent on a writing career.  Following training at Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, and an eight-week course at Radcliffe College, she was a feature writer for two years for the Indianapolis Times and then moved on to New York, where she became a publicity writer for Seventeen magazine.  In New York, she studied acting on the side and later combined those skills with her music prowess.  Thriving in New York’s rich cultural life, Dutton soon found various acting and musical outlets.  She also wound up working on theatrical productions with Meryl Streep.  In 1990, she was the on-stage violinist of a 1990 Tony Award winning production of the Grapes of Wrath.  Even though her primary music focus in her thirty years in New York was learning the jazz style of Reinhardt and Grappelli, she also recorded and toured with rock musicians, whom she met while hanging out in Woodstock (upstate New York); they include John Sebastian, Paul Butterfield, and Eric Anderson.   Currently, Dutton enjoys living in peaceful Brown Country and has become involved with various artistic ventures in her native state.  In addition to serving as Vice President for Jazz from Bloomington (a non-profit organization), she performs with various groups around central Indiana, including Blue Django, the Hot Club of Naptown, and B.G. McPike and the Haute Club.  She also records with notable Bloomington-area folk singers—Carrie Newcomer, Krista Detor, Tim Grimm, etc.            

Reginald DuValle  

Reginald DuValle (b. Indianapolis, 1893 – d. Indianpolis, 1953) – Multiple Instrumentalist (banjo, accordion, and piano).  Known mainly through his associations with Hoagy Carmichael, DuValle was an accomplished pianist and bandleader in Indianapolis.  Referred to as “the elder statesman of jazz” and “the rhythm king,” DuValle taught Carmichael what jazz and the blues were all about.  More specifically, he taught him how to improvise at the piano in 1916.  After playing piano with the bands led Noble Sissle and Russell Smith, DuValle formed his own group called the Blackbirds around 1920.  In addition to being the houseband at the Madame Walker Theater (opened 1927), the Blackbirds played for dances throughout the city as well as at Indiana University and Purdue University.  During the Depression, DuValle continued to lead a band but also had a day job with the Linco Gas Company.  He also toured with his accordion on the Ohio Gas Company’s promotional Lincoln Safety Train.  Born in 1928, his son Reggie DuValle is also an Indianpolis jazz musician of merit.  A noted trombone player, the younger DuValle taught instrumental music for the Indianapolis Public Schools for thirty-seven years and has played trombone with Lionel Hampton, Marvin Gaye, Dizzy Gillespie, and Slide Hampton. 

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