Down Beat : 06/29/1955
Nat Hentoff : 3 stars

Wild Bill Davis at Birdland is a fiercely swinging double-set by organist Davis, guitarist Floyd Smith, and drummer Chris Columbus, excellently recorded at Birdland. The rating isn’t higher because Wild Bill’s driving beat on this LP is seldom matched by freshness of conception. With a few exceptions the ideas herein are overfamiliar and often slip into repetition.

The LP, however, is rhythmically a wailer. (I should note in honesty a personal bias here – I just can’t make it with the supermarket sound of a Hammond organ, even though I recognize Bill is one of the more highly regarded jazz practitioners on the instrument.) Basie devotees will recognize the elements on one track here of the high powered April in Paris arrangement Wild Bill wrote for the Count. There are, incidentally, a couple of Davis vocals.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

One of the things about the quondam Great White Way that rarely fails to surprise a first visitor is the almost total absence of nightclubs and jazz joints. There are plenty of places to take pot-shots at mechanical ducks or linger over a fresh-fruit drink, but astonishingly few establishments dedicated to first-rate entertainment. The handful of clubs that operate on the radical proposition of giving the customer a break have prospered, and run up substantial records of longevity in an area where most clubs open and collapse like a cheap accordion.

One of the oldest and most respected clubs is Birdland, an outpost originally dedicated to modern jazz but more recently embracing other forms as long as they are good enough. The results has been a thorough-going success, both commercially and artistically, and has further served the secondary purpose of giving seekers after jazz truth someplace to go, now that Fifty-Second Street has given way to the minor royalty of burlesque. While for Broadway the façade of Birdland is relatively modest, it seems unlikely that a school teacher, as Fred Allen claimed, dropped in for a visit thinking it was a branch of the Audubon Society, and what goes on inside is music of a kind the birds have not developed as yet.

One of the more ebullient occasional residents of Birdland is Wild Bill Davis, whose passing thoughts are recorded in this program. Perhaps the foremost exponent of the swing organ, Wild Bill and his trio were caught in the act by Epic’s technicians, and the result is an edifying and free-wheeling hour at Birdland. Those who think of popular organ-playing as synonymous with ponderous droolings at mighty cinema organs are in for a happy surprise, for in Wild Bill’s hands the organ becomes a light and supple instrument of extraordinary expressiveness.

With Chris Columbus on drums and Floyd Smith on guitar, the trio ambles its way through a fine collection of tunes, interspersing thematic material from every conceivable source as it goes along. Exuberant and wild, as in Jumpin’ at the Woodside or gently swinging, as in April in Paris, a sure balance is set up among the instruments, and, although the organ is of course pre-eminent, both the guitar and the drum come in for their share of attention. An especially happy idea is Wild Bill’s habit of occasionally shouting “One more time!” after a number is finished, and then repeating a sizable chunk of the tune, adding another flourish here and there until everyone is satisfied; note this in the trio’s setting of April in Paris.

The excitement that Wild Bill Davis and his trio provides is of a kind that builds progressively, whipping up the audience as the music rolls along. During an engagement at Atlantic City recently, they produced a jubilee atmosphere night after night that resulted in their becoming one of the most-discussed groups in the country and showered them with offers that kept them busily employed for all the ensuring months.

Some idea of that excitement can be gained from this recording, preserving the incomparable actions of the trio fanning an audience and being fanned right back until the pitch is right. The neat, light swing of Davis’ organ, the expressive counterpoint of Smith’s guitar, and the steady Columbus backing grow and grow, catching everyone up in its gaiety. Apart from a real trip to Birdland, it is hard to imagine anything more convincing than this display, recorded on-the-spot, and demonstrating once more the intangible and irresistible qualities of Wild Bill Davis and his Trio.