Dick Wellstod(1927-1987)

Dick Wellstood was a boogie-woogie and stride pianist in the 1940s and performed with amateur and professional Dixieland groups with reed artist Bob Wilber, touring Europe with him in 1952. He played under the leadership of Sidney Bechet during the same time period before entering law school in 1953. While in school, he performed intermittently with Roy Eldridge and Conrad Janis's Tailgate Five, and for the next decade he played in New York City as a pianist for swing and Dixieland musicians such as 'Henry "Red" Allen', Coleman Hawkins, Wild Bill Davis, Vic Dickenson, and Buster Bailey. He toured South America and Israel with Gene Krupa's quartet in 1965-66 before concentrating on a career as a solo pianist. A brilliant scholar who was fluent in Latin, he was admitted to the bar but didn't practice law until the 1980s. Dick was at a gig in Palo Alto, California when he died suddenly of heart complications.