Mel Lewis – “The Tailor”

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Every time I hear him I am amazed at the influence he has on the sound and performance of a band.  I've got LP's of him in a small group too and he's just as influential despite the restraint.”

 – Brian Hope, Cambridge, England

“One thing about Dave Tough: he always was Dave Tough, just as Buddy Rich always was what he was. Tough realized we are what we are. The important thing is to be put into a musical situation where what you are can ‘happen.’ Tough found his place with Woody Herman.”

- Mel Lewis

“Mel and I first worked together years ago in Boyd Raeburn’s Band. His playing might seem laid back, but the time is always going on underneath, like a drone – it’s fantastic.”

- Eddie Bert, trombonist

“The one drumming intangible that no teacher can give to a pupil, regardless of investment, is time. This oft-misunderstood term is the fundamental standard by which musicians judge the quality of a drummer, and without it much of the studied rudiments are for naught. … Because of his innate time sense, Mel Lewis is one of the most over-worked drummers in the country.”

- Joe Quinn

“He is the antithesis of flamboyance and unnecessary aggres­sion. He plays what is necessary and relevant, adding an edge of adventure and individuality. Lewis allows the music and his gifts to couple in the most loving way possible."

- Burt Korall, author of Drummin’ Men: The Heartbeat of Jazz

Over the years, I’ve seen and heard Mel Lewis play in a variety of settings.

Night after night, I’d run around town to listen to him play drums in an assortment of big bands: the Terry Gibbs Big Band, the Marty Paich Tentette [recording sessions], and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra. And, although I never saw him in-person with Bill Holman's big band, Med Flory's big band or Stan Kenton's Orchestra, I memorized all of his performances on their recordings.

And when he wasn’t playing in big bands, I’d go hear him in small groups like the one he co-lead for a while with baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams, or the quintet he co-led with Bill Holman or as a member of pianist Claude Williamson’s trio.

In 1963, when he permanently moved to New York to continue as a member Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band, I caught him in concert in The Big Apple with Gerry’s marvelous band. Thereafter, I heard him play with the orchestra he co-led with Thad Jones. And when Thad left to go to Europe and Mel headed up his own orchestra until his death in 1990, I also checked out that band on a number of occasions.

During each of his performances, I’d stare a lot trying to figure out how he did it what he did.

But he “did” so little that while watching him all I actually saw was the minimalist action of his hands barely moving above the drums while he popped the accents, dropped bombs and drove the band mercilessly in what drummer Kenny Washington once described as Mel’s “rub-a-dub style.”

There was no flurry of technique on display in his drumming, no aggravated animation in the motion he used in getting round the drums, no complicated fills, kicks and solos.

Watching Mel as closely as I did for as long as I did, I came away with the same impression as the one that Burt Korall formed in the following description after seeing Davey Tough with the Woody Herman band perform its famous arrangement of Apple Honey at New York City’s Paramount Theater, in 1945:

“He went about his business with little of the grace of a Krupa and Jones, and none of the fireworks of Rich. But the excitement built as Tough, without physically giving the impression of strength, manipulated the band much as an animal trainer would a beautiful hard-to-control beast, making it respond to him. He cracked the whip under the ensemble and brass solo passages adding juice and muscle to the pulse and accents. Each soloist got individual treatment – a stroke here, an accent there, a fill further on, all perfectly placed.

He moved the band from one plateau to another, higher and higher. By the time the band was about to go into the final segment, the audience was totally captured. There was a point during this last section when it felt as though the band would take us through the roof.

When the piece came to an end with four rapid bass drum strokes, I couldn’t figure out what he had done. He had been in the foreground only once during a four bar break, …, otherwise his was the least self-serving performance I had ever witnessed. I turned to my friend. ‘He has no chops. How’d he do it? What happened?’

He smiled, not quite as puzzled as I. ‘It might not have seemed like much,’ he said. ‘But whatever he did, he sure lit a fire under that band.’”

That’s it, he lit a fire under the band!

But how’d Mel [and Davey] do it?

Mel played on an ordinary blue pearl set of Leedy drums and one of his A-Zildjan cymbals even had a huge chunk missing from it!

[Like most drummers, Mel was always looking for ways to cut down the overtones of his cymbals, but few of us were willing to go this far to cut down on their ringing qualities, i.e., overtones. Actually, I think the reason for the cut was to keep a crack in the cymbal from spreading]

Usually, his “big” drum ending was a snare drum roll and a cymbal crash, but what he had done before this simple ending was to kick, shove and drive the band to levels of excitement that took the listener’s breath-away.

It never seemed like much, but whatever Mel Lewis did, he lit a fire under every band he ever worked with or, as Brian Hope phrased it: ““Every time I hear him I am amazed at the influence he has on the sound and performance of a band.”

Away from the drums, you’d never guess that Mel was such an extraordinary drummer.  He had none of the sparkle and the flair of a Gene Krupa or a Buddy Rich.

His appearance was so commonplace  that vibraphonist and bandleader Terry Gibbs once gave him the nickname – The Tailor – because as Jack Tracy, the late editor of Downbeat, explains:

“Vibraphonist and band leader Terry Gibbs used to call him ‘Mel The Tailor’ because ‘I had this old Jewish tailor in Brooklyn who had bunions and walked funny. Mel walked just like him, so I called him The Tailor and it stuck. In later years Mel would tell people that he got that nickname because he played ‘tailor-made drums,’ but many of us knew better.”

Irrespective of his unusual walk and his dressed-down look, put Mel behind a set of drums, especially in a big band setting, and he was the epitome of style and grace.

We thought we’d turn to three writers, two of whom are themselves drummers and all of whom knew him well to see if somewhere in their written observations about him, there was an explanation of how Mel created his magic.

© -Loren Schoenburg, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Mel Lewis, it should come as no surprise to you, is a consummate artist with im­peccable taste. This is attested to by the tremendous range of musicians who have vied for his services over the years: Dizzy Gillespie, Ben Webster, Hank Jones, Ben­ny Goodman, Count Basie, Gary McFarland, Eddie Sauter, Lionel Hampton, Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Hodges, and Bob Brookmeyer, to name just a few. It's a little-known fact that both Duke Ellington (in 1960 and '63) and Count Basie (in 1948) tried to get Mel, but it never worked out.

The amazing thing is that Mel is not a chameleon who sounds different with each group, but a drummer with such a universal conception, so that if the group is any good, Mel will fit it like a glove. Mel has a way of doing all the right things so subtly that you hardly notice them, until, that is, you have to play with someone else! As one musician remarked after struggling through an evening with a plodding drum­mer, "Mel Lewis never sounded better than he did tonight!" …

When Mel plays, the effect on the soloist and the ensemble is almost indescribable.”

Mel personified the ultimate in style.’ "Less is more’ is an oft-repeated saying that is directly applicable to Mel's drumming. Is ‘drumming’ an adequate description of what Mel did? I don't think so. He gave the music more than just a beat. In fact, the beat, itself a rather abstract concept, was just the most tangible element of his input.

Why did his presence make musicians feel like playing? In an interview done for The New York Times in October 1989, he said that he couldn't smile and play drums at the same time. While this put his concentrated demeanor in perspective, it was only partially true. Inside, he was doing much more than smiling. He was animating his very existence, and ours at the same time.”

Burt Korall, author of Drummin’ Men, The Heartbeat of Jazz: The Bebop Years [New York: Oxford, 2002] was a friend of Mel’s for thirty-five [35] years. Here are some excerpts from his chapter on Mel.

© -Burt Korall/Oxford University Press, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Lewis learned the most valuable lessons of all from his father: to think as a musician, to do what was called for. Because of [Ben] Sokoloff [Mel’s Dad] and drummers he met as a youngster—e.g., Gene Krupa and Jo Jones—Lewis came to realize how important it is to know about the history of jazz and the instrument you play.

Krupa and Jones spoke to him about significant drummers and instru­mentalists of the past and present. They made the youngster aware of the basic necessities for playing jazz. And they advised him to get to know about music and drums from the inside—as a player.

Lewis: Dad took me to see and hear Krupa for the first time in 1934. The Benny Goodman band appeared at the Cinderella Ball, which was held in the Armory in Buffalo. I was five or six years old. Krupa ruined me. I loved what he did. The next time I saw him was in 1938, just before he left Goodman. Again my dad took me. Two years later, at ten, I cemented my relationship with Krupa. By that time, he had his own band. I played for him and we talked about drums and how they related to music.

From then on, I was "his man" in Buffalo. Every time Krupa was in the area, I was there. I traveled by bike, no matter how far away it happened to be. Sometimes it was as much as twenty-five miles.

"That Ace Drummer Man" and "Red" from Buffalo became so close that Krupa would call Mrs. Sokoloff for permission to take her son on the band bus to bookings in and around Buffalo.

Lewis was insatiable. He heard all the great bands that came though. He quizzed the drummers on just about everything. One evening, he became so involved with Jo Jones that the Basie star missed a date with a lovely lady of the chorus who danced at the Palace Theater, the local burlesque house. Sam Sokoloff played drums in the pit band there.

Lewis: Gene Krupa made me aware how important musicality and simplicity were. He had a lot of technique, but he was really the simplest. His playing was easy to understand. That's why so many of the older musicians liked him. Though he kept training and studying with a lot of people, he never attempted to do impossible things. He was into music and what fit, not speed and facility for their own sake.

As much as I admired Gene, his taste and all-around ability, I didn't want to play like him. I was more attracted to people like Jo, Dave Tough, and Sid Catlett and what they did for music.

Lewis sensed his future would not be built around technique. He was more interested in becoming an integral part of a big or small band's sound and thrust. The kind of drummer that appealed to him most as a youngster remained interesting to him at the end of his life. He favored understated yet strong and intense players of the instrument, those who mixed pulsation with pertinent coloration and gave music dimension. …

Sal Salvador: Mel and I were rooming together in New York. I'd been on the Stan Kenton hand for two years. Mel had been after the job with Stan for quite a while. Stan Levey was about to leave. He had some major disagree­ments with Kenton. Mel was doing the Ray Anthony TV show in town and waiting to get word from Kenton. Then the band broke up—and rapidly re­formed. Mel went through a lot of emotional turmoil before Stan called and hired him. Maynard had recommended him. Mel felt it was his main chance.

I had an opportunity to see and hear Lewis on one of Kenton's first concert dates with the newly revised band, at a large Seattle auditorium in September of 1954. He didn't seem to be in full control of the band or comfortable in the job.

Lewis: I remember that date in Seattle. I had just joined the band. Kenton was headlining a package tour. Shelly Manne and Sonny Igoe were the drum­mers with the other groups.

Lewis: Shelly gave me some great advice. I've always been grateful to him for telling me what had to be done. He said my cymbal beat was not what it should be. "You're not bringing out enough of the ‘1's’ and 3's’. The ‘2’s' and ‘4’s' are there. But the ‘1’s' and ‘3’s' have to be more prominent to control this band." This was very constructive criticism from someone who knew all about Kenton and how the music should be played. Many people heavily into ego might say: "Sure, man, thanks. Gee, I really appreciate it," then fluff the guy off. I acted on what Shelly told me. I believe you have to listen to people who have the experience and are trying to help you.

Sonny Igoe: Mel wasn't doing so well at first. He was lucky he stayed with the band long enough to become brilliant. Stan was going to let him go. As a matter of fact, after the tour was over, Stan asked me: "Are you going to stay with Charlie [Ventura]?" And I replied: "Charlie isn't sure what he's going to do." Stan posed a question: "How would you like to come with the band?" I said: "What are you going to do with Mel?" Stan felt it wasn't working out. I suggested: "Give it a chance; it'll work!" and it did. I was glad for Mel that he settled in and the situation righted itself.

It more than righted itself. Lewis felt he had to make everything work. He concentrated as never before. He took advice. He relaxed, allowing his imagination to float free, his talent to take hold. The band began swinging and Lewis gave it increasing impetus. His small band rhythmic approach to this colossus had a major effect on how the band moved and felt. His ability to play softly with more than an indication of muscle restructured the band's rhythmic identity. How he handled dynamics and fed the time line to the band had a telling effect on the players and all those who favored a Kenton turn away from mountains of sound and pomposity.

Bob Brookmeyer: The Kenton experience set him free. I heard the band at Birdland. Mel was all over the place, just playing so many interesting, provocative things behind the soloists and the band. He was outrageous.

What was growing apparent in the Kenton band burst forth during the last years of the 19505. Mel Lewis had gotten his stuff together in such a way that he couldn't be ignored. With Woody Herman at the Monterey Jazz Festival, he played so well it literally blew everyone away. His time was highly motivating. His sound on the instrument, the way he mixed, blended ideas, and burned, how he structured his performances, mingling intelli­gence and instinct—it was stunning.

There were various levels of intensity in his playing. On the Monterey opener, "Monterey Apple Tree," a revamp of "Apple Honey"(Woody Herman's Big New Herd At the Monterey Jazz Festival, Atlantic), Lewis sets the tree on fire. He pushes and provokes, hitting hard on the bass drum where the figures demand it. He puts together snare-bass drum patterns that enhance the rhythmic flow. All the while, the hi-hat is snapping on "2" and "4," and the side cymbal sound seduces everyone. The effect is so strong, you wonder why it had not been done exactly that way before.

Two other big band albums, both done during this significant phase of his career, The Fabulous Bill Holman (Coral) and Jazz Wave—Med Flory and His Orchestra (Jubilee), also show how far Mel had traveled since those trio gigs in Buffalo. Two tracks, Holman's view of Sonny Rollins's " Airegin" and Flory's original "Jazz Wave"—one at medium tempo, the other a little faster—are almost perfect performances.

Everything seems to fall in the right places, and the pulsation is undeni­able. The drums are just tight enough, tuned low, the bass drum open but controlled. These performances lift you up; both bands, which employed many of the same excellent Hollywood-based players—Al Porcino, Conte Candoli, Stu Williamson, Bill Perkins, Charlie Kennedy—are very much on the money.

Stylistically they mingle swing and bebop, to grand effect. Lewis has a lot to do with stirring things up to a level where the musicians can do nothing but respond. The section and ensemble work is dauntingly precise, swinging, and natural. Lewis struts and shuffles, smoothly moving the time forward. After you listen, the rhythm remains in your body—a happy presence, a good feeling that causes involuntary tapping and patting of your feet after the room has become silent.

Five CDs by Terry Gibbs's Dream Band (Contemporary), taped live in Hollywood clubs, 1959-61, tell the same story. The band is a killer. It had become what it was because of an enthusiastic leader, great musicians who shared the same concept about music—and Mel Lewis.

"Seventeen Swingers" is Gibbs's most frequently used, rapid-fire descrip­tion of his Dream Band. Listen to the recordings and you will hear delight­fully crafted, deeply felt, pulsating music—standards and originals arranged and/or composed by Bob Brookmeyer, Manny Albam, Bill Holman, Al Cohn, Med Flory, Marty Paich, Lennie Niehaus, and Sy Johnson.

Lewis never plays too hard or too loud. A vocal minority accused him of laying back, not digging in deeply enough. I don't hear that. The drummer plays as well as he always told me he did, giving the band what it needed— the ingredients that made it explosive and engrossing. …

Bob Brookmeyer: When Mulligan's first Concert Jazz Band was in California, I went to a Terry Gibbs band rehearsal. I'd been writing some things for Terry and hadn't heard them performed. The band was just outrageous! Mel was fantastic, and all those guys were so strong. In comparison, Mulligan's band sounded like a bunch of amateurs.

So I said: "We've got to get this feeling!" I was staying with Mel and asked him to join the band. He said yes. I hired Buddy Clark and Conte Candoli as well. They all came back East. Mel commuted until 1963. He lived with me for a while and then with Richie Kamuca. He flew to New York in July of 1960 to make a record with us and returned in late August when the band played the Village Vanguard before we all went to Europe for a tour.

Mel did just what I expected. I remember the first night at the Vanguard. I We were playing Gerry's "Bweebida Bobbida." I looked over at him the first chance I had—and just grinned because it felt so good.

Mel remained with Mulligan until 1964, ….

Musically, the CJB was a major experience. Smaller and more compact than most bands—twelve pieces plus Gerry—it often sounded and felt like a small band with added instruments. Mulligan, Brookmeyer and the other writers—Gary McFarland, John Carisi, Bill Holman, George Russell, Al Cohn, Johnny Mandel—retained in their charts the light, fluid feeling so typical of Mulligan. The soloists—Mulligan, Brookmeyer, Zoot Sims, Conte Candoli, Nick Travis, Gene Quill—brought distinctive character to the essentially linear material and diversified the flavor of the band.

The CJB wasn't a burly, shouting ensemble. It had class, quality, and subtlety and swung more quietly than most bands. Lewis enhanced the good feeling of the rhythm. He was controlled yet intense, dropping in supportive ideas as the band moved ahead. But his ideas blended in with the CJB's sound. He was always there, keeping the motor well oiled..

The way he tuned his drums and entered into each chart, becoming a part of it, made a vast difference in how the music sounded and felt. As he always had, Lewis adjusted to the quiet and the dynamically more forceful music. You could hear various facets of his playing personality, ranging from a almost reserved "2" and "4" accents on the snare, reminiscent of Sam Woodyard with Ellington, to a Basie’/Jo Jones flow. But mostly it was Mel Lewis doing what he felt, keeping the parts and the whole picture in mind. He was very sensitive, very swinging.....

Bill Holman: Mel had a fantastic understanding of music. I knew that. But I realized it all the more when he and Bob [Brookmeyer], Jim [McNeely], and I worked in Cologne. We'd go in with at least an hour of new music, and he would get right to the meat of every chart—not necessarily like a drummer but like a complete musician, maybe even a conductor.

He'd hear everything that was happening and knew what to do—when to change color, when to do this and that. He certainly made my job easier. One or two times through the pieces and he knew them as well as I did, if not better. Mel could deal with all kinds of time and the atmospheric things that are part of my work.

Jim McNeely: Mel could make any band sound better by virtue of what and how he played. He liked variety, getting into new things. It was his simplicity and elegance that made his playing immediately identifiable. And he could play with anyone. As a writer, all you had to do was give him information about the music and he'd play what was needed. His gifts: great ears, psych­ing out forms, giving music shape and direction. It was his innate musical sense and that fat ride beat that made him so popular among musicians.

I think of him a lot. When I'm at the top of the stairs at the Vanguard, I miss the sound of his bass drum coming up to meet me. …

It also was part of Mel’s nature to take young drummers in hand and help and advise them. Kenny Washington, Danny Gottlieb, Jeff Hamilton, John Von Ohlen and Jay Cummings—the last drummer to play with the Stan Kenton band—among others, benefited by their association with him. Lewis knew about the music, about drumming, the history of the instrument, and equipment—and freely offered information to those who needed it.

Bob Brookmeyer: When Mel died, it was one of the biggest losses the music ever had. People all over the world suffered. And they'll never recover. We were sitting in Cologne, a key producer and I. We said, "Mel," and were silent for five minutes—because there's no replacement.

All of the bands, big and small, amateur and professional, that he made sound good have to feel a terrible, terrible loss. There will never be another like him. Mel was one of the greatest drummers of all. I'd stake my life on that.

What was he all about? I want to add a final comment, from a piece I wrote for International Musician about a year before he left: "Mel Lewis has a near perfect relationship with the beat. His time, a natural phenomenon, is firm when necessary, pliant if the music calls for it, buoyant, bubbling or quietly persuasive—but always swinging. He plays so he can be felt and serve as a guide and a source of inspiration for the musicians with whom he is engaged. Most important his time is never forced and builds upon its own flow and energy. He is the antithesis of flamboyance and unnecessary aggres­sion. He plays what is necessary and relevant, adding an edge of adventure and individuality. Lewis allows the music and his gifts to couple in the most loving way possible."

His legacy is on the records.”

And here are Kenny Washington’s reminiscences about Mel. Kenny is one of the best drummers on today’s Jazz scene and was the subject of an earlier feature on JazzProfiles which you can locate by going here.

© -Gene Lees/Da Capo Press, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

As told to Gene Lees in Cats of Any Color: Jazz, Black and White [New York: Da Capo, 2000, pp. 174-176].

“... When Mel started getting sick, I used to sub in the band for him. ...

"And I met Mel through Lee Konitz. Lee said, 'Gee, Mel, I’ve got this young drummer, man, he can play.' I was working this place called Stryker's Pub. Lee said, 'He can really play, but he plays too loud. Maybe you can come down and sort of give him some advice? So then Mel came down, right? I didn't know he was there. We were all hanging out outside, because it was warm. Lee said, 'Okay, time to play. Mel Lewis came in to check you out.'

"I played a set. First thing Mel said: 'I don't like your cymbals. I don't like those cymbals at all. And you're playing too goddamn loud! You could bust out the windows in this place!'"

We laughed. I said, "Mel was never exactly tactful."

"Oh buddy! Man. I knew he had a lot of hip cymbals."

"Yeah, you know where he got that big crash cymbal, I'm sure. Dizzy gave it to him."

"That Chinese cymbal," Kenny said. "That cracked, though, man. That broke. 'Cause

I asked him about that cymbal. What I said to Mel, not out of disrespect, man, or being a wise guy, was, Well look, Mel, do you have any extra cymbals you could lay on me, or I could buy from you?' He looked at me. He wrote down his number. He said, 'Come on over to my house.'

"He was living right across the street from Ron Carter—74th or 75th, something like that. I get up to his place. Doris, his wife, lets me in. Mel's sitting there. He says, 'Have a seat.' He says, 'How old are you?' I told him. I was about twenty.

"He said, 'Are you married?'

"'No.'

"He said, 'Good! Stay that way! Because, man, you can really play, and I've seen that kind of thing mess up a whole lot of potentially great musi­cians.'"

I said, "Since you knew Mel so well, I'll tell you a story. The other day Connie Kay said to me that he thought Mel was maybe the best big-band drummer he ever heard. I mentioned this last night to Roger Kellaway, who worked with Mel a lot, and he said, 'Yeah, and if Mel were still alive, he'd be the first to tell you."*

"That's right!" Kenny said, laughing.

"Modesty was not his style."

"Oh man! But Mel was just great for me. We sat and talked. He says, 'But you play too goddamn loud. And another thing, you young drummers, you never use your bass drum. Now if it was a funk record, and there was no bass drum, you'd think something was wrong, now wouldn't you? And you play too loud. The band doesn't come up to the drummer, the drummer adjusts to the band.' He says, 'You remember that, man.' And so from then on, man, I used to come and hang around with him, and listen to the band. Or he'd come around where I was working to check me out. He'd come down any old time, unannounced. One time, I was working the Vanguard or somewhere and Mel says to me, 'Damn, Wash! Those drums sound like shit! Man, tune 'em, damn it, tune 'em.' Next night he comes back. He taps on my drums, he says, That's much better. Man, I knew you could tune your drums better than that?

"And about the bass drum. One of the last times that I saw him, I was working up at Bradley’s. So I'm playing. I'm sitting up there playing. I don't see him walk in. I'm looking someplace else, looking straight ahead. And all of sudden I see Mel! He's down there under the piano! All of a sudden he pops up his head. He says, 'Yeah, man, you're using that bass drum.' He was down there listening to see if he could hear the bass drum or not.

"Mel was beautiful to me."

"Dizzy makes that same point," I said, "about young players not using the bass drum."

…

"Mel was great. I used to come and play when he couldn't make it or if he had another gig. Or when he got sick. Especially during his last year. I used to come down and sub for him. I used to watch him. He was incredible.

"When he was going through chemotherapy, they had a big tribute concert, the American Jazz Orchestra. I used to play in that band. When Mel couldn't make it, he'd send me in as a sub for the concerts at CooperUnion. They decided to do a tribute to Mel. They played all his music, a retrospective of his career. They got a Johnny Mandel thing that Mel did with the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band back in the '60s. They got some Terry Gibbs things. Some Stan Kenton stuff, all kinds of pieces. Mel was worried about whether he was going to be able to remember all that stuff, because of the chemotherapy and what it does to your brain. By then he was completely bald.

"I came in. I said, 'Man, can I sit behind you so I can read the charts?'

"He said, 'Sure, man.' They called this tune off quicker than he could get the music out. He just started playing. There was this place where the band stopped and started, and he was catching everything. Bam, bam! And he hadn't played this, man, in thirty years. There was a place where he came in on the down beat instead of on the and, a half a beat off. He said, 'Damn, Wash. I don't remember this stuff.' And he was, bap, bap, bap-di-bap-bap, swingin' his ass off. And so after the tune was over, I said, 'Right, Mel. Right! You don't remember this stuff! You came in a half a beat early a couple of times, and you don't remember the stuff. Riiiight, Mel.' And the band started cracking up.

"I had never seen anything like that. He was an amazing cat, man. The best thing for me is, like, he was able and willing to show me anything I wanted. Just to be able to sit there and talk to him. That first night at his house, I sat there from seven in the evening until three in the morning. He was playing all these different records he had made, showing off his own talent and what he had done all these years. But! I learned a whole lot. He was showing me about adaptability. He said, 'Listen to what I played on the Barbra Streisand record Color Me Barbra? He fit into every one of those situations. I learned a lot that night.

"Any situation Mel was in, big band or small band, he took care of business. He didn't make any bad records. At all. Period."

Rare footage of Count Basie inside Birdland , NYC ( 1959 ) - with Steve Allen

Rein de Graaff – Dutch Jazz Master

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

This look at the music of Rein de Graaff was actually occasioned by the issuance of a new CD that celebrates Dutch tenor saxophonist Ferdinand Povel’s being honored in 2008 with Holland’s Boy Edgar Award.

The CD is entitled Good Bait - Live at the Bimhuis Amsterdam and features Ferdinand along with tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb and Rein’s long time rhythm sections mates, Marius Beets on bass and Eric Ineke on drums.

Mp3 downloads of the CD are available through Amazon [Timeless CDSJP 484].

The VPRO/Boy Edgar Award, is an annual award given to a Dutch jazz musician, composer, or bandleader who has made major contributions to the Dutch jazz scene over a significant period of time. The award is a sculpture by Dutch fine artist Jan Wolkers and a cash prize of 12,500 euros. It is widely regarded as the Netherlands' most prestigious and honorable jazz award. The award is given under the auspices of the VPRO [a broadcasting organization] and Music Center the Netherlands [an organization that promotes and archives Dutch professional music].

The VPRO/Boy Edgar award has been given since 1963 and pianist-composer-arranger Rein de Graaff was the recipient of the award in 1980.

Rein was born in 1942 in Groningen and raised in nearby Veendam. Both are situated in northern Holland.

Although he did have some piano training as a young boy, Rein is largely self-taught.

Listening to records and the radio in post-World War II Holland brought the music of Charlie Parker into his life and Rein has remained true to his bebop leanings ever since.

These listening experiences also helped to develop his ability to play by ear and led to his being asked to play in his high school Jazz band even though his ability to read music was poor.

And while many of his classmates were falling under the spell of the West Coast Jazz “cool school,” thanks to a French/Belgian radio program hosted by DJ Carlos de Radetzky, Rein discovered the likes of Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean and Sonny Rollins and became “a hard bop man.”

“After seeing Sonny Rollins on TV, I borrowed some money from my grandfather, drove to Groningen on my scooter and bought Sonny’s At The Vanguard LP. None of my music friends liked it. They listened more to Stan Getz and Zoot Sims. Some said: ‘This man cannot play and there’s not even a pianist!’ But many of them gradually came around and we all learned many new concepts as a result of this music.”

“I was obsessed with Jazz and listened to any Jazz program on radio, including many foreign broadcasts. In my youth, Jazz was the music of the young. It was everywhere.

In 1964, Rein moved to Amsterdam and was a regular visitor to Scheherazade [Holland’s equivalent of Birdland in New York or Ronnie Scott’s Club in London]. While there he met saxophonist Dick Vennik and they formed a quartet that played together for over 25 years.

Through club dates, radio and TV appearances Rein earned a living playing Jazz although, like many of his stateside counterparts, he also worked a day gig.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Rein began to earn a reputation as “one of the best accompanist” for American Jazz musicians traveling in Europe.

As Mike Zwerin, who for many years was the noted Jazz columnist for The International Herald Tribune observed: “[After the Second World War, but especially in the 1960s,] …  Jazz went to Europe to live.”

In the decade of the 1960s, Jazz lost its relationship with the greater American public for a variety of reasons.  Many musicians who wished to continue earning a living playing Jazz traveled to Europe where the music still had a large following.

Due to economic factors, the clubs and concert promoters in Europe would bring a horn player over from the States as a featured attraction and assign a local rhythm section.

In this way, Rein got to work and/or tour with alto saxophonists Bud Shank, Charles McPherson and Gary Foster; tenor saxophonists such as Arnett Cobb, Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon, Al Cohn, Teddy Edwards, and Von Freeman; baritone saxophonists including Nick Brignola, Ronnie Cuber and Cecil Payne.

In the 1980s, with interest in Jazz now beginning to wane in Europe, too, many promoters began to back out of scheduling tours of Europe by American Jazz musicians so Rein stepped in directly to arrange these overseas tours.

He went to New York, got in touch with Charlie Rouse, the tenor saxophonist who played so many years with Thelonious Monk. Charlie wanted to do a tour of The Netherlands so Rein set-up a series of club dates, concert venues and radio and TV broadcasts for him, including some appearances in his hometown of Veendam.

Rouse was followed by Eddie ‘Lockjaw” Davis, Billy Mitchell and Frank Foster, Bob Cooper, Conte Candoli and many others.

“These tours really put little Veendam on the map,” said Rein.

In 1987, the Vredenburg Concert Hall in Utrecht, Holland, asked Rein to do a series of four, lecture and musical programs under the banner: “Stoomcursus Bebop,” which I think translates to something like a “Crash Course in Bebop.”

Here again, prominent American Jazz musicians were highlighted in Vredenburg's unamplified setting as well as Dutch Jazz performers. 

Rein is “not pianists oriented,” although he is a fan of certain pianists such as Bud Powell – “all modern piano Jazz comes from him” - Barry Harris, Wynton Kelly and Hampton Hawes. He prefers “… listening to horn players,” and this is certainly reflects in his playing, particularly in his phrasing.

Among today’s young players, he is a fan of Eric Alexander, James Carter and Joshua Redman.

As he approaches his seventieth birthday, Rein de Graaff continues on as “the keeper of the flame in Dutch Jazz;” an exponent of bebop, hard bop and straight-ahead Jazz.

You can samplings Rein’s work in a video tribute to the music of Gigi Gryce that features Rein along with John Marshall on trumpet and Herb Geller on alto saxophone on Gigi’s Minority..  On the video, Rein and the horn players are joined by Marius Beets on bass and Eric Ineke on drums.

Ricky Riccardi: An Interview with the Author of “What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years”

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“I loved and respected Louis Armstrong. He was born poor, died rich and never hurt anyone along the way.”

- Duke Ellington

When the world was young and college students read books, one of my professors assigned our class a series of period novels.

“How can you understand what the world was like then if you read about it in books written now?”

“Context is everything.”

“These novels will give you the ‘flavor of the times.’”

In addition to offering a detailed view of the stateside and overseas musical journeys of the last two decades of Louis Armstrong life, this is exactly what Ricky Riccardi succeeds in doing in his book - What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years.

He puts Louis’ life in the context in which he lived it: the US and the world as it existed in the 1950s and 60s. Equally as important, Ricky stresses the continuity of all aspects of Pops’ life as a musician and entertainer. One now understands Pops as a totality.

What emerges as a result is a fitting tribute to a man, who by any standard of judgment, was a creative genius and not the Jazz equivalent of Pagliacci, the [operatic] clown, an epithet hung on Pops during his later years by those who never fully understood him or appreciated him.

The magnitude of Louis Armstrong’s achievements during the last 20 years or so of his life and author Ricky Riccardi’s work in documenting them is underscored in the following quotation from Dan Morgenstern, Director of The Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University:

“This is not only a tale of interest to Jazz fans or academics but the climatic portion of the inspiring life story of a man who, against all odds, rose from extreme poverty and discrimination to become, indisputably, one of the stellar figures of the twentieth century…. We need this book.”

Or as, Terry Teachout, the esteemed writer about Jazz and American culture, states:

“The story of Louis Armstrong’s later years is the great untold tale of postwar Jazz. Now Ricky Riccardi has told it to perfection. What a Wonderful World is a unique and indispensable landmark in American scholarship, a weathervane that will point the way to all future writings on his life and work.”

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles is honored that Ricky Riccardi consented to the following interview. You can find out more about Ricky and his continuing activities on behalf of Pops and the Louis Armstrong House by visiting his website.

I would also like to thank Josefine Kals, Publicist at Pantheon and Shocken Books, for her consideration and for arranging the interview with Ricky.

01.  Many Jazz fans view Pops’ early career as separate and distinct from the popular figure he became in his later years. What gave you the idea to see the continuity between these two periods?

It was just from doing the listening.  Anyone can go out and get a “Best of the Hot Fives” disc, listen to only “West End Blues,” “Potato Head Blues” and “Cornet Chop Suey” and come away with the impression that Louis was a pioneering jazz trumpet player of the 1920s…and that’s about it. Though they did not change the course of jazz, I think it’s important to listen to and appreciate “Sunset Café Stomp,” “Irish Black Bottom,” “That’s When I’ll Come Back to You” and the other more humorous Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.

Second, I did a lot of work with Louis’s scrapbooks and reading about his day-to-day activities.  The Hot Fives and Sevens were blips on his radar; he didn’t think he was changing jazz history, he just wanted some quick money!  But when you read about him playing pop tunes nightly, singing, getting laughs, doing comedy routines, dancing, you realize that the trailblazing trumpet playing was only one aspect of a man who was a genius all the way around.  So, as I ask in the book, why not take all of him?

02.  How did you - someone born about a decade after Pops died - ever become interested in Pops’ music to the extent that you have?

I was born in 1980 and have enjoyed very little popular music created after 1980.  In elementary school, I was listening to Motown and 1950s rock and roll.  In middle school, I went backwards to Al Jolson and ragtime. Thus, I’ve always enjoyed old sounds and especially old movies.  When I was 15, I rented “The Glenn Miller Story” with Jimmy Stewart.  I knew nothing about Louis, but when he came on and did “Basin Street Blues,” it knocked me out.  I immediately asked my mother to take me to our local library and I checked out a cassette, “16 Most Requested Songs,” a compilation of Louis’s 1950s Columbia recordings.  Well, the rest is history….

03.  What is your background in music?

I’ll be 31 in September and I’ve been playing the piano since I was 7 or 8.  Just basic lessons and then I taught myself jazz and how to improvise when I was in high school.  I formed a trio in my senior year and though the personnel has changed, I’m still leading it out of Toms River, NJ.  I love playing but I’ve never taken it too seriously.  I’m not an innovator by any means; I just like playing songs I like and bringing the sounds of jazz to an area that really doesn’t know what it is (I once jokingly billed myself as “The Jazz King of Toms River” because I’m the entire Toms River jazz scene!).

04.  What was your purpose in writing this book?

I just wanted more people to respect the entirety of Louis Armstrong’s life and career.  This is one of our great geniuses; hundreds of years from now, he will be discussed like we talk about Bach and Beethoven.  Since he’s died, it’s become okay again to admire the Hot Fives and Sevens, but no one really feels the need to go any further.  Online jazz forums barely mention Louis; he might get one article a year in the major jazz magazines.  I think too many people take him for granted:  “Yeah, he was incredibly important in the 1920s but then he went all showbiz and I never bothered checking anything else out.”  Those people are missing out.

And then there’s the people who have problem’s with Louis’s persona and still think he was soft on racism.  By using so many of Louis’s private tapes, I’ve tried painting a full portrait of the man, someone who had very complex feelings about racism and a man who was a real Civil Rights pioneer.  It’s time he gets respected for that, too. 

05.  If the reader had to take away three main points about Pops after reading your book, what would these be?

1) Louis Armstrong was nobody’s Uncle Tom and took heroic stands for his race in the 1950s and 1960s.  2)  There’s no such thing as the two Armstrong’s:  the young genius and the old clown; it’s one man.  3)  Louis Armstrong made some of his greatest and most challenging works in those last 24 years of his life….get out and listen to them!

06.  Joe Glaser, the impresario, was a key figure throughout Pops’ career. How would you describe the relationship between he and Pops?

Complex.  Many people have painted Glaser as nothing but a slave driver, working Louis too hard and getting rich from it.  And yes, there’s an element of that.  But people don’t realize that Louis had a lot of control; he WANTED to work that hard and would get upset if Glaser gave him too many days off.  And Louis was not afraid to stand up for himself, threatening to retire if Glaser couldn’t make things happen for him.

          So for all of Glaser’s faults, he gave Louis a stress-free life for the last 36 years of Louis’s life: he never had to worry about money, about taxes, about hiring and firing musicians, about getting gigs, nothing.  All he had to do was show up and play and I think a lot of musicians would have killed for a deal like that.

07.  It’s not uncommon for fans of an earlier era of a musician’s career to dislike the music of these musicians as their careers progress: Miles Davis comes to mind with his transition from hard bop to fusion & rock; Stan Kenton’s playing of the music of the Beetles during his orchestra’s last decade in the 1970s; Pops’ move to popular songs such as Hello, Dolly, Mack the Knife and What a Wonderful World. Why do you think that this is so?

Ah, I think sometimes an artist is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.  If Louis went around playing in Hot Five settings from 1925 to 1971, people would have wrote him off as someone simply repeating himself and never offering anything new.  Louis changed with the times but never compromised his art; he still sounded like Louis Armstrong, whether it was “A Kiss to Build a Dream On” on Decca, “Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy” on Columbia, singing the Great American Songbook on Verve or doing “Hello, Dolly.” Louis loved ALL kinds of music and always said that where he came from, a real musician was taught to play different kinds of music, not just one style. 

So people and critics might grab on to one part of a musician’s career—the Hot Fives and Sevens make up about three total hours of Louis’s life in the 1920s—and bemoan everything else as this great change, but they don’t realize that artists change themselves.  Lester Young got it in the 1940s and 1950s because he wasn’t the swashbuckling playing of “Shoe Shine Boy.”  So what?  He was Lester Young and he had a story to tell and you should listen to it.  Same with Louis; he matured over the years and learned how to say more with less.  In 1956, he was claiming he was playing better trumpet than ever before in his life, but it’s like people expected him to say, “Boy, I’m not playing like I used to in the 1920s, I might as well keep making commercial songs.”  No, Louis was still doing great things and he knew it.  I quote a lengthy conversation Louis had with a disc jockey who described one of Louis’s Decca pop records, “I Laughed at Love,” as a “commercial” number. Louis scolded the D.J. and said there was “nothing that can outswing it.”  There’s this thing where people feel, “Well, I don’t like it so the artist must not have liked it either.”  Not true. So you have to stop listening with preconceived notions and appreciate who the artist was in those moments, not who he or she wasn’t.

08.  Over the years, Pops played with many musicians. Who among them were his favorites and why?

He seemed to have a thing for trombonists:  he absolutely adored Trummy Young, Jack Teagarden and Tyree Glenn and they all became his closest friends when each was an All Star.  He was often hard on his drummers, though, and really did not get along with Earl Hines during his tenure with the All Stars.  But those trombonists, they were super close with Louis.

09.  In coming to know Pops as you have through your research, what were you say were some of his strong points both as a person and as a musician; what were his weak points?

Got time for another book?  There’s too many strong points to list but I’ll make a go of it.  As a person, he was just an incredible human being.  He treated fans like he had known them for years.  He was incredibly generous.  He demanded respect—and if you didn’t give it to him, watch out for his temper!.  He decried social injustice and had no tolerance for violence of any kind.  He put his audiences first and lived to make them happy.  He was a complete professional who worked strenuously to make sure his live performances were top notch, giving 110% even if there were a handful of people in the room.  And as a musician, I don’t think there’ll ever be another who had such an impact as a trumpeter AND as a singer. 

But of course, he was no saint.  He smoked marijuana religiously, he cheated on his wives at pretty much every chance he got.  He could be stubborn.  And perhaps he didn’t speak up enough for certain things he believed in, such as some ideas that George Avakian had for Louis to record at Columbia, but Joe Glaser killed them without a fight for Louis.  I write about Louis singing the word “darkies” as late as 1951 and that’s nothing to be proud of.  So the man did have his faults and I’m not afraid to call out a recording that I find so-so.  But the good far outweighs the bad.

10.  In your book, you identify Pops’ May 17, 1947 concert at Town Hall in NYC as a sort of a turning point in terms of what was to follow later in his career. Why this performance and not a different one?

Town Hall is where the writing on the wall really became apparent.  Louis had success with Edmond Hall’s sextet at Carnegie Hall in February, but his big band shared the bill on that one.  And he played with small groups on a “This is Jazz” radio broadcast, and another broadcast with Jack Teagarden, on the same day in April 1947.  But Town Hall was an entire evening devoted to small group performances.  It surrounded Louis with some of the finest musicians then on the scene.  The concert sold out immediately and was a hit with critics.  The big band era was dying out and that one evening at Town Hall made it abundantly clear that this was the way to go.

11.  Although Jazz critics viewed them as “commercial,” why was Pops’ so comfortable with A Kiss to Build A Dream On, Lucky Old Sun, Blueberry Hill, Mack the Knife, Hello, Dolly, and, What a Wonderful World.

Because these were songs where he could “see the life of them,” as he put it.  Louis, as I mentioned, believed in playing all kinds of music.  He didn’t think he just had to play straight jazz or standards.  He loved sentimental songs and novelties.  So he never prejudged a tune.  When he was handed “Blueberry Hill,” he thought about “some chick” he once knew.  When he was handed “Mack the Knife,” he thought of some characters out of New Orleans.  When he was handed “What a Wonderful World,” he thought of the kids he watched grow up on his block in Corona, Queens.  So he never complained, “Oh no, what is this, I should be recording nothing but instrumental hot jazz!”  He found something to relate to in every song he performed, which is why when you listen to Louis in such settings, he always sounds completely connected to the tune and never like he’s just slumming.

12.  When they were appearing together in the 1953 movie, The Glenn Miller Story, the legendary actor, Jimmy Stewart, said of Pops: “That man really is Jazz personified.” What did Jimmy Stewart mean by that remark?

To probably the great majority of inhabitants of the planet earth in 1953, that if you heard the word jazz, you thought of Louis Armstrong.  And it’s true.  Think of that whole package, the trumpet playing, the high notes, the solos, the improvisations, the compositions, the singing, the scatting, the repertoire, the man WAS jazz.  And obviously, I still feel that way though I think that to the majority of people who hear the word “jazz” today, they’ll think of Miles or Monk or Coltrane.  Louis has kind of been put on the back burner a little bit and that shouldn’t be.  Why?  Because he was funny and recorded pop songs?  He was just as serious about his music as the rest of them.

13.  What brought about Pops’ 1954-55 “Columbia [Records] Masterpieces;” which recordings are included and why are they deemed so?

It’s more of a “who” brought them about:  it was the legendary producer George Avakian, still going strong at 92.  George had ideas to have Louis and his working group, the All Stars record material by great composers such as W. C. Handy and Fats Waller, stuff that wasn’t in Decca’s plans for Louis.  After some wrangling with Joe Glaser, Avakian was allowed to make two albums, “Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy” and “Satch Plays Fats,” two of the greatest albums Louis ever made and really, two albums that belong in the pantheon of great jazz works created in the 50s.  Both albums were critically lauded and sold well so Glaser let Avakian record Louis exclusively for almost a full year, starting in September 1955.  Avakian came up with a hit record when he had Louis record “Mack the Knife,” then followed it with the turbo-charged album, “Ambassador Satch,” capturing my favorite edition of the All Stars at their peak on a variety of live and studio performances.  But just as Avakian was getting rolling, Louis’s popular started climbing into the stratosphere.  In the book, I detail how Glaser strung Avakian along for a while but refused to sign an exclusive contract, knowing that there was more money to be made by using Louis as a free agent, available to only the highest bidders.  So the Columbia era ended too soon—it lasted from 1954 to 1956—but the material Louis turned out in those years can stand alongside the best of his 1920s and 1930s works.

14.  Besides the obvious monetary relationship, what do you think accounts for Joe Glaser’s unflagging support of Pops’ during the “[racial] showdown of 1957”?

I think Glaser truly admired Louis and you can even say he loved him.  That didn’t stop him from taking advantage of him and stuff like that but I think he admired Louis’s courage in taking that stance against Eisenhower and the government.  Others, such as Louis’s road manager, a cronie of Glaser’s named Pierre “Frenchy” Tallerie, tried to downplay Louis’s words to the press but Glaser never budged and was quoted in newspapers and magazines such as “Jet” saying how proud he was of Louis for saying this.  I’m sure deep down, he was having a heart attack over it, but he knew he wasn’t going to change Louis’s mind so he did the next best thing and stood behind his prized client during a pretty tenuous situation.

15.  “Entertaining” and “show business” were always a big part of Pops’ life. How would you describe Pops’ philosophy of entertaining and why was it so important to him?

Louis was a natural “ham actor,” as he once put it.  Even in his early days, when he was supposed to be such a “serious” artist, he was known just as much for his onstage antics as he was for his trumpet playing.  He was a true entertainer and saw no problem with mixing music and showmanship….especially because he took his music so seriously.  As he once told an interviewer, getting applause for showmanship and jokes is nice, but it doesn’t matter if you’re not playing the notes correctly.

And remember, yes, Louis was heavily influenced by musicians like King Oliver but he also never got tired of talking about his love of vaudeville entertainers such as Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Bert Williams. Some people try making it a “minstrel” thing but Louis just loved comedians.  His personal record collection was filled with albums by Redd Foxx, Moms Mabely and Pigmeat Markham.  And his private tapes are filled with hours and hours of Louis and friends telling jokes offstage…always with Louis telling them the best and laughing the loudest.  He even typed about his favorite jokes in a 100+ page manuscript that is absolutely fascinating (and available to researchers visiting the Louis Armstrong House Museum’s Archives at Queens College, where I’m the Archivist).  Sometimes nailing a punchline  with perfect timing is harder than hitting a high C and Louis was great at doing both.

16.  Why was Pops’ performance in Dave and Iola Brubeck’s The Real Ambassadors such a moving and meaningful experience for him? Does this project have a special significance in Pops’ life beyond the music itself?

I think it does.  First, there was the challenge of learning an entire score of new material, something he really had never done before.  Even on Verve albums with Ella such as “Porgy and Bess,” I’m sure he was at least familiar with some of those great songs.  But the Brubecks wrote all these new songs with Louis in mind and Louis rose to the challenge by nailing it.  Also, there was the subject matter, songs about race, politics, religious, etc.  This was deep stuff and Louis responded with more seriousness and sensitivity than even Brubeck imagined bringing tears to those who heard Louis in the studio or those who witnessed the only live performance of “The Real Ambassaors” at Monterey in 1962.  I really think he considered it one of the highlights of his life (he dubbed it many, many times on his private tapes, right up to the end of this life) and proudly told reporters that Brubeck had written him “an opera.”

17.  To elaborate further on a portion of an earlier question, what were the factors that made Hello, Dolly such a wildly unexpectant hit for Pops?

It’s one of life’s great mysteries but the simple explanation is that it’s a fun, catchy, swinging Louis Armstrong record.  No one knew the song; the play wasn’t even open when Louis recorded it.  The Beatles were all over the place, not small-group Dixieland complete with banjo.  And Louis hadn’t even stepped foot in a recording studio in two years so it wasn’t like his records were exactly hot commodities.  But the stars really aligned for that record.  Some people bought it as soon as they heard Louis’s personal touch, “This is Louis, Dolly.”  Those in his band said Louis wasn’t a big fan of the song but again, he gave it his all, played some fine trumpet and when all was said and done, he had the biggest hit of his lifetime, at 63-years-old.  It’s quite stunning but if you just taken it for granted, give “Hello, Dolly” a fresh listen and I guarantee you’ll find it pretty irresistible.

18.  Why did Patrick Scott’s 1965 Toronto Globe Mail article and Richard Meryman’s 1966 Life Magazine profile have such a huge impact on Pops’ later life?

Those articles didn’t have as much of an impact on Louis’s later life as they reflected Louis’s mental state in what was a pretty rough time for him.  He had major dental work in the spring of 1965 and when he got back to playing, things weren’t exactly the same.  He still sounded great but he could no longer execute his solos and ideas 100% as he had just a few months earlier.  He was in his mid-60s and tired and needed more rest.  But at the same time, because of “Hello, Dolly,” he was more popular and more in demand than ever before so he kept pushing himself, even though internally, he was getting more depressed.

The Scott and Meryman articles are important because they caught Louis with his guard partially down and Louis’s depressed state comes through loud and clear.  The Scott article recounted events from the summer of 1965, while the “Life” piece, though not published until April 1966, was also done around September 1965.  And in both pieces, Louis wonders if he should have stayed in New Orleans and never become famous.  He hints at retiring but tells Scott that he was afraid to talk to Joe Glaser about it.  He wants to just be a civilian and doesn’t want to be Satchmo anymore.  It’s real depressing stuff but honestly, it didn’t have much of an impact publicly speaking.  It didn’t cause headlines.  No other writer or jazz magazine picked up on Scott’s writings, which have remained pretty much ignored for over 45 years.

But I do think it must have gotten back to Glaser.  Because in 1966, you start seeing more days off in between tours of one-nighters and in one remarkable stretch, Louis had a steady gig at Jones Beach in Long Island between June and September 1966, getting to stay at his home every night for four months.  So I do think Glaser made an effort to give Louis a little more breathing room but there were still plenty of grueling tours left.  Two All Stars, Billy Kyle and Buster Bailey, even died in 1966 and 1967 respectively.

The postscript to it all is Louis finally got his wish in 1968 when ill health forced him to pretty much retire for two years.  He made TV appearances and the occasional record but really just lived at home, practiced a bit of trumpet and worked on his hobbies.  But once doctors gave him clearance to play with his All Stars again, he came to life and even though those few engagements probably contributed to his death, he was back onstage and for all the depressing thoughts he told Scott and Meryman, he lived to be on that stage, entertaining his fans.

19.  If the general public associates Pops’ with one, particular tune, it may be What a Wonderful World. How did this recording come about?

The producer Bob Thiele took credit for it.  After “Dolly,” Louis began making a series of erratic recordings for Mercury and Brunswick, the great majority of which were complete rip-offs of the “Dolly” formula.  Thiele thought Louis should go in a different direction:  a ballad, but not just any ballad, a message song backed by strings and a choir.  Apparently, Louis’s first reaction wasn’t too enthusiastic but when he spent more time with the lyrics, he began associating it with his neighborhood in Corona, Queens and grew to love the tune. However, the president of ABC records thought it was suicide and didn’t want to release it.  He eventually did but gave it zero promotion in the United States and the record barely sold here.  But he didn’t think about the rest of the world and it became a huge international hit!  Louis performed it every night until he died but still, the song was fairly little known in the U. S. until it was used in [the film] “Good Morning Vietnam.”

20.  On page 277 of you book you state: “Before singing What a Wonderful World on the 1970 David Frost Show, Armstrong said about the lyrics, ‘They mean so much.’ Is Pops’ comment an appropriate summation for the main theme of your work: “The Magical World of Louis Armstrong?” Put another way, did Pops’ view his life as a “magical world?”

I think he did and he didn’t.  In many ways, he downplayed a lot of what he did, referring to himself as a “salary man,” living in a modest home, wanting to be treated as any ordinary working citizen.  He felt he got as far as he did through hard work and by not being lazy and in that sense, he probably didn’t see any “magic” in it.  But at other times, he did look at his life and express some amazement at where he came from and what he became.  When asked about being called an “Ambassador of Goodwill,” he once replied, “It’s nice because, I mean, the kid has come a long way.”  And he knew the effect he had on his fans around the world. It truly was magical.  “A note’s a note in any language” he was fond of saying.  He could go behind the Iron Curtain, where you couldn’t find a single Louis Armstrong record, and end up a hero, winning standing ovations and being mobbed for his music.  He stopped a Civil War in the Congo in 1960. He took mediocre songs and made timeless music with them.  He changed the world.  And all with a dirt poor background and fourth grade education.  If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.