Jack Wyatt
Jack Wyatt
Bass
1986 to 1990

Jack Wyatt grew up on a farm in East Texas. He played a Jacobus Hornsteiner bass using gut string to get that great acoustic sound and started out playing with Peck Kelly in Houston. He was a terrific, irreplaceable bass player who worked with many great performers including the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra and Ella Fitzgerald. He was in a quartet with Flip Phillips in the 1950s in Miami where he lived for several years before moving back to Texas. He and John Sheridan played together in 1975 in Fort Worth and also with Charlie Byrd in Washington DC. He played an amazing bass solo on Johnnie ‘Scat’ Davis’ version of the Johnny Mercer tune “Hooray for Hollywood” used in the film Hollywood Hotel. Bandleader Jim Cullum Jr tells the story of the time Jack’s bass got smashed to pieces by a construction vehicle. “Allan and Warren Vache’s father took 2 years to put it back together. He had it in his basement. It was in little pieces and he glued it together like a jigsaw puzzle and it played just fine.” Band mate John Sheridan recalls that Jack sang the blues too. He admired Jimmy Rushing and Walter Page and the Blue Devils that included Count Basie before Basie started his own band.