Sweet and Lovely

“As much as I like to drive a small band and really get it going,” Will Bill Davison noted, “to play in front of a string section such as the one we used for this album is something else! Besides I love to play ballads and tell a story. And all the songs we did here – Ellington, Gershwin, Carmichael and the others – each song tells a different story…”

Recording a jazz trumpeter, or a jazz cornettist, in front of a large string section is not a new idea. As different players as Bobby Hackett and Clifford Brown have recorded beautifully within this context, and in Davison’s case he had his first go at it as far back as the early 50’s – “Pretty Wild” and “With Strings Attached” both albums recorded by Columbia Records and long since collectors items.

“Will Bill Davison plays a mean concert” – the commercial trumpet-ads used to read, and with a reputition as one of the most temperamental and hard driving cornet players on the scene, his strong paying being heard on recordings by Eddie Condon, Pee Wee Russell and Sidney Bechet, among others, Davison may not initially have been the most obvious choice for the romantic trumpet-with-strings format. But then things are not aleays what they seem to be!