President Clinton sent a telegram, Gov. Edgar offered a proclamation and the mayors of each of the Quad Cities (Rock Island and Moline in Illinois, Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa) weighed in with declarations and resolutions of their own.
Not bad “for a guy who plays drums,” quipped Louie Bellson, who appeared to be having the time of his life last weekend in the Quad Cities. Besieged by autograph seekers, local TV crews, aspiring musicians and fans from the old days, Bellson had come home in high style. At 69, the veteran swing drummer was not only being showered with honors, but also watching as the first Louie Bellson Jazz Festival unfolded near the banks of the Mississippi River.
It’s not difficult to understand why the locals were making such a fuss. In the long years since Bellson left the Quad Cities, as a teenager, he had gone on to keep time for no less than Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James and Duke Ellington, among others. In movies, in big bands and on stage with his wife of 38 years, the late Pearl Bailey, Bellson had become a veritable local hero.
Thanks to him, the folks on the Illinois side of the Mississippi had a jazz legend to call their own, just as Davenport long has held bragging rights to giving the world cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. If Davenport could have a Beiderbecke Jazz Festival, then Moline and Rock Island surely could beat the drum for Bellson.
Everywhere, the fans swarmed around him.
“Remember me?” asked one fellow, who claimed an acquaintanceship with Bellson dating to the days when he was known as Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassone.
“It’s a good thing you went into drums, because you sure didn’t know anything in English class,” said another “admirer,” who said she attended high school with Bellson.
Yes, reunions can be humbling, but this one was mostly warm and bright. In jazz clinics for youngsters and in concerts for anyone who values tautly swung rhythms, Bellson, who turns 70 on July 26, beamed.
Between public appearances, Bellson, who plays Chicago’s Jazz Showcase June 21-26, couldn’t help reflecting on the early days. Having discovered drums at 3, when the family was living in Rock Falls (an hour’s drive from Rock Island), Bellson progressed to that great conservatory for jazz drummers of yore, the strip joint.
“I was a teenager studying with Gene Krupa’s old drum teacher in Chicago, Roy Knapp, and during one of the lessons, he gets a call asking if he knows a drummer who can fill in at a strip place,” recalled Bellson.
“So I got the job, and the girls liked me, because I could catch all the bumps and grinds, and they appreciated that. And I played the circus, which was harder than you might think. You’ve got to have all this stamina to keep going, you’ve got to catch the cues, do these fast gallop rhythms-everything.
“But eventually the truant officer got hold of me and said, `Uh-uh.’ “
Obviously, Bellson was acquiring a reputation. Chicago drummer Barrett Deems, his elder at 81, remembers the teenage drummer as “a real talented kid. He had it, and everyone knew it.”
Little wonder, then, that by age 17 Bellson had won the national Slingerland/Krupa competition; by 18, he was setting the tempo for Goodman’s band.
“I had been playing for Ted Fio Rito’s dance band in Hollywood-Ted discovered me when I sat in with him while I was in high school, and he wanted me to quit high school on the spot,” remembered Bellson.
“But I insisted on finishing school (in Moline), then I joined him in Hollywood.
“One day Freddy Goodman, Benny’s brother, walks in and asks me how I’d like to work for Benny. My sticks started shaking. The King of Swing? He had to be kidding.”
He wasn’t.
“I thought I’d at least have an audition, but when they brought me to Benny, he was about to film a scene in a movie and needed a drummer. He said, `Get the kid a tux and tie and get him out here.’ So I played with Benny for a year before the war and six months after.
“Benny was a perfectionist. First he would rehearse the saxophonists, then he would bring in the brass, then after he had rehearsed everyone else he would bring in the rhythm section.
“And if we didn’t get it right off, he would say, `Hey, everyone else has the tempo-is there a problem here?”
Years earlier, Bellson had designed a drum kit with two bass drums, at the time a major innovation. Bellson, who had tap danced since childhood, wanted to keep both of his feet busy at the drums, and though Goodman never was particularly interested in the idea, Tommy Dorsey adored it.
“Tommy (for whom Bellson worked in the late ’40s) loved the two bass drums, and he said to me, `We’ve got to find some way to let the audience see what you’re doing.’
“It so happened that several years earlier I had invented this revolving platform and had it built-for a lot of money. When I told Tommy about it, he not only ordered it shipped to the band but later built me a better one, so that I could rotate during a performance. Tommy liked it so much he would control the movement himself!”
By 1949, however, Bellson yearned to push beyond playing drums and wanted to study composition in California with Buddy Baker.
Dorsey was not one to part with talent easily, as Frank Sinatra could attest (the bandleader had to be paid off and threatened with legal action before he would relinquish Sinatra in 1941).
When Dorsey learned that Bellson not only was quitting the band but also would be playing weekends with Harry James, “he flipped out, took away all my solos (for the duration of Bellson’s tenure), though he eventually got over it. The last night, in fact, he even let me play my solos again.”
The time Bellson spent with Baker paid off, for it was during that period that he penned such big-band classics as “Hawk Talks” and “Skin Deep.”
Yet it probably was inevitable that a drummer of Bellson’s skill and intellect soon would be drawn back onto the road, this time with the most sophisticated band of them all.
“While I was playing weekends with Harry James, (trombonist) Juan Tizol was in the band, and he was constantly talking on the phone with Duke (Ellington),” with whom Tizol had worked on and off since the ’20s.
“And Duke asked Juan and me to come with his band. So we went in and told Harry, `We’re going to join Duke,’ and he was silent for about 15 seconds.
“And then he said: `Take me with you.’ Now that’s beautiful.”
Learning to play for Ellington’s band, however, was never easy for anyone, since the band members did not exactly help neophytes along.
“You have to realize, this was a band that didn’t have a (repertoire) book-everyone just knew their parts by memory and played off (skimpy) lead sheets, so you were on your own,” said Bellson.
“The first three days weren’t bad, because they were dance dates, and I could read over the other guys’ shoulders. But then we were going to play the `Liberian Suite,’ which I had never heard and had no idea what I was supposed to play.
“So I asked (baritone player) Harry Carney, `What do I do?’ And he said, `Don’t worry, man, you’ll dig it.’
“Fifteen minutes before the concert, I go into Duke’s dressing room and say, `Duke, is there anything you want to tell me?’ And he says, `Don’t worry about a thing, you’ll dig it. Just watch me.’
“Sure enough, he cued me all the way through, though I had to sweat the whole thing. It took every cell in my body to get through that night.
“But this band was something else. If the guys didn’t feel like playing, they wouldn’t. If it was a lousy date, sometimes (alto saxophonist) Johnny Hodges would put his feet up on the (music) stand or go sit out in the house-and he’s supposed to be playing lead alto!
“But when they wanted to play, they were incredible. Once we were on a double-bill with Stan Kenton, and Duke’s band starts playing like crazy, with incredible solos from Tizol, (trumpeter Clark) Terry, (tenorist Paul) Gonsalves, Carney, (trumpeter Cat) Anderson.
“So then Kenton walks up to the microphone and tells the crowd, `We can’t play for you. There’s nothing left.’ “
By the mid-’50s, Bellson was spending most of his time as musical director for his wife, Bailey, though collaborating with Ellington on special projects (such as the Sacred Concerts) and leading big bands of his own.
Two years ago he remarried; earlier this year, he won a $20,000 Jazz Masters Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, a further tribute to a remarkable career in swing.
As Bellson prepared to plunge into yet another public appearance during the recent jazz festival, he summed it up this way.
“If I had to stop playing tomorrow,” he said, looking up toward the heavens, “I’d just say, `Thank you, Lord. I got to do it all.’ “
