Dick Wellstood

Jazz and ragtime pianist.

Beginning in 1946, he played boogie-woogie, swing, stride piano, and dixieland with bands led by Bob Wilber. A year later he began two years of accompanying Sidney Bechet. In 1952 he toured Europe with Jimmy Archey, then worked with Roy Eldridge. Through the 1950s he worked with a band led by Conrad Janis. He also worked with Red Allen, Buster Bailey, Wild Bill Davison, Vic Dickenson, Coleman Hawkins, and Ben Webster He went to school and received a law degree, though thirty years would pass before he spent a brief time practicing law.

In the 1960s he worked with Bob Dylan and Odetta. With Carl Warwick he performed on military bases in Greenland. He toured South America with Gene Krupa, then spent two years with Kenny Davern. During the 1970s he played with Captain John Handy and Punch Miller, then with Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart. For the rest of his career he turned his attention from big bands to small groups and solo piano, performing often at the Newport Jazz Festival and touring with Davern and Bob Rosengarden. In the 1980s he joined the Classic Jazz Quartet with Marty Grosz, Joe Muranyi, and Dick Sudhalter, worked again in a duo with Davern and in a piano duo with Dick Hyman

Birth: Nov 25, 1927 in Greenwich, CT.
Death: Jul 24, 1987 in Palo Alto, CA.