Bill Ramsay Plays a Tribute to Judge James A Hovis
It will be old home night for Bill Ramsay when he brings a band of his Seattle Jazz Repertory Orchestra colleagues to the Seasons Saturday night. The nationally known saxophonist and his wife lived in Yakima from 1962 to 1974. He is dedicating the April 9 concert to the memory of Judge James A. Hovis, who died on January 6. Ramsay says that Hovis, the late Judge John Nicholson, attorney Kent MacLachlan and he were among a group of friends who met each Friday at 5:00 p.m. at the lounge in the Chinook Hotel to discuss the week’s events. “We called ourselves The Knights Of The Roundtable,” he says. Ramsay has written a special arrangement of “Old Folks” as a remembrance of Judge Hovis, who liked jazz.
Ramsay, whose day gig was as a food manufacturer’s representative, played regularly at the Four Winds on North First Street. He worked frequently with Yakima trumpeter Bob Mitchell, who went on to play with Count Basie. After he moved back to the Seattle-Tacoma area, Ramsay moved into music full time as a baritone and alto saxophonist and arranger. In 1984, he got a call to replace the baritone player in the Basie band. “It turned out,” he recalls “that the first gig was in Yakima, at the Capitol Theater. I thought it was for just one night. All I had was my horn, a change of underwear and a toothbrush. When I got there, Basie’s road manager told me they needed me for three weeks. The next night we played in Boston. My wife packed a suitcase for me, drove all night and got here just in time to tell me goodbye.”
Ramsay has played off and on as a substitute with the Count Basie band ever since. He is a founding member of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, which was organized in 1995. His septet on Saturday includes musicians who have become favorites of Seasons audiences. They are Travis Ranney, Alto/tenor sax; Jay Thomas, trumpet; Gary Shutes, trombone; Bill Anschell, piano; Chuck Deardorf, bass; and Greg Williamson, drums. “There’s a lot of talent and a lot of flexibility,” Ramsay said. “We sound bigger than seven pieces.”
- Written by Doug Ramsey