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Dave
Born into a Salvation Army family in July 1942 Dave, together with his twin brother Michael and older brother Brian, had a typical Salvation Army background, with all the music that engenders.
Starting on cornet aged 9, Dave joined the Caterham Citadel Junior Band and, at the age of 14, the Senior Band.
When Dave was 17, Brian came home one day with two 10" LPs - 'Ambassador Satch' by Louis Armstrong and 'Bix and the Gang' by Bix Beiderbecke. Life would never be the same again for young Dave.
Life was turned on its head, and his ears turned inside out.
The love of jazz which arrived that day with those two recordings, and the enthusiasm that they generated, have never left him and keep him 'all fired up' to this very day.
A year later he taught himself trombone, on Michael's instrument. He found the slide positions for himself and never looked back.
Throughout the history of jazz, many great players were essentially self-taught, picked their music up along the way, and developed techniques which may well have been eccentric, but totally at one with the jazz idiom.
Examples are numerous - Vic Dickenson, Dave's all time favourite trombonist; superb cornetist Bix Beiderbecke; Errol Garner, who never managed to pass a musician's union sight reading test; the wonderful tenor saxist Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, featured soloist on Count Basie's Atomic Mr Basie, and so on and so on.....
Dave joined the London City Stompers in 1961, a full pro band, and spent a year or so travelling the M1, as well as a month long engagement in Dusseldorf. He then joined Alexanders Jazzmen from Kingston in 1963. He stayed for some years and his next opportunity came in 1972, when Freddie Randall phoned his fruit shop (Guy Hewett & Sons, Caterham) to say that George Chisholm was leaving the Freddie Randall/Dave Shephard All Stars, and would Dave be prepared to take an audition. Nervous as hell, Dave went along and somehow 'pulled the wool over their eyes' by getting the job.
He stayed for three years, played hundreds of broadcasts, played the Montreux Jazz Festival, which was televised Europe wide, with such guests as Stephane Grappelli, Barney Kessel, Teddy Wilson, and Guy Lafitte.
Dogged by dental problems for some time, and due to the pressure of the family fruit business, Dave left Freddie Randall.
After some dental reconstruction, Dave joined the Alan Elsdon Band for ten years, which included a week at the London Palladium. He left Alan to join Laurie Chescoe's Goodtime Jazz and stayed for thirteen years,
doing numerous European Tours, Sacramento Jazz Festival and the Edinburgh Jazz Festival after which he joined Keith Smith's Hefty Jazz. Hefty Jazz spent four years doing the theatre show 'From Basin Street to Broadway' which starred Georgie Fame.
During 2006 /7 Dave did several cruises on the Q.E.2, with The Ray Terry Band, and Alan Gresty's Society Syncopaters. Destinations included the Carribean, New York, Quebec, the Medi, Norway and Holland. Sylv got quite emotional sailing into Rotterdam harbour, which is her home town. It was from here that she emigrated to Vancouver, Canada at the age of thirteen in 1959.
Also at that time Dave got involved with jazz workshops for young aspiring musicians, together with his long term mate Jonathan Vinten, who is now one of Dave's bandleaders. He also works with The Tony Pitt Allstars, Bob Bates Sousaphonia, and the newly formed Laurie Chescoe's Reunion Band. He is currently involved with the Condonians, a tribute Band to Eddie Condon, together with his great mate Andy Dickens.
Throughout a long career, Dave had the pleasure of working with many famous jazzers, including Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Terry Lightfoot, Wild Bill Davison, Billy Butterfield, Yank Lawson, Kenny Davern, Peanuts Hucko, Danny Moss, Jeanie Lamb, Bette Midler, The Temperance Seven, etc....
What's been said . . .
Freddie Randall - bandleader
Dave Shepherd and I needed a replacement for the great George Chisholm, and set up an audition for Dave Hewett. We'd never heard of him, but he came recommended from "Swing Shop" proprietor Dave Carey. Dave played, and straight away we could tell " 'is ears was in the right places" - We'd found our man.
Ralph Lang - Jazz Critic - CD Review
A devotee of the Condon style trombonists, Dave became one of the heirs apparent to the Roy Crimmins crown when the latter emigrated. Sporting an enviable brass technique fashioned during his youthful Salvation Army musical training, he doubles with astonishing virtuosity on both cornet and baritone horn. "Stardust" features Dave Hewett's excellent Harry James/Ziggy Elman inspired trumpet technique in duet with Benny Cohen. And not since Dick Carey has anyone seriously featured a member of the horn family in a Dixieland format. Hewett roars away with some sparkling solos on 'It's a Sin to Tell a Lie' and 'How Can You Face Me', demonstrating how much more suitable the baritone horn can be than certain other unusual instruments pressed into jazz service - like the harp, oboe, synthesiser, and bagpipes!
Dick Laurie - 'Hot News International'
It is invidious to select any of the band for special mention, but Dave's trombone style really does stand out as totally original, while being completely within the idiom. On one number Dave puts down the trombone and baritone horn for an excursion on cornet!
Alan Tullett - The Jazz Mag
Whilst reluctant to single out individual performances from a septet of first class musicians, I must mention the tone and phrasing of Alan Elsdon's slide and valves man Dave Hewett, best summed up in Pop Larkins terms as 'perfick!'
Dick Sudhalter - Jazz Journal International
Dave was just about resigned to spending the rest of his days selling courgettes and asparagus out Caterham way, when Freddie Randall happened on him. He's a real find: a tasteful and dependable player with enthusiasm and obvious feel for the music. He reflects admiration for the music of Teagarden - Cutshall and McGarity, and surprisingly, even a liberal dollop of Tyree Glen. He's good - watch him!
