He wasn’t a brilliant trumpet virtuoso or a top-notch vocalist or a great musical innovator, but Louis Prima surely conquered audiences the way Sherman tanks conquered armies.
Loud, tough, driven and relentless, the man became a jazz star in the ’40s and a pop icon in the ’50s by sheer force of personality.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that roughly a generation after he died (in 1978) and more than half a century after he first turned up on record (in the early 1930s), Prima is back–with a vengeance. Death alone, it appears, could not still such a maniacal voice.
Over the past couple of years alone, Prima’s fervent brand of music-making has been resurfacing seemingly everywhere.
It’s Prima, after all, who drives the plot of the new film “Big Night,” in which two would-be restaurateurs plan an extravagant, fantastic feast in hopes of luring the famous bandleader through their doors.
And in darker underworld films such as Chicagoan John McNaughton’s “Mad Dog and Glory” and Martin Scorsese’s “Casino,” it’s Prima’s pulpy vocals and volatile orchestral accompaniments that establish an atmosphere of danger and hedonistic pleasure.
Even in “Riverview: A Melodrama With Music,” staged at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 1992, Prima’s vintage recordings helped create the show’s somewhat garish amusement park setting.
With many of Prima’s vintage records reissued on compact disc (see adjoining story) and his whimsical performance in Walt Disney’s “The Jungle Book” winning him a generation of new fans (since the video release of 1991), Prima has become something of a multimedia phenomenon of the ’90s.
“I suppose that’s because of his enthusiasm–it was just so contagious when he was on stage, and it remains that way on record,” says veteran bandleader/record producer Mitch Miller, who was a longtime friend of Prima’s.
“His music was deceptively simple, and people felt they could relate to it right away. Plus the fact that he had this New Orleans feeling to everything he played, and that helps make him really irresistible.”
Like Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway, his two most obvious influences, Prima reveled in the art of showmanship. He may not have approached Armstrong’s genius as a jazz innovator nor Calloway’s virtuosity as bandleader and stage performer, but the sheer fury and frenzy of Prima’s work made him a celebrated figure.
Further, by mixing the jazz-swing idioms of his native New Orleans (where he was born in 1911) with a brand of comic mayhem borrowed from the Marx Brothers, Prima was bound to achieve stardom in Las Vegas of the 1950s. Frank Sinatra may have been king of the Strip, but Prima surely was its court jester.
Moreover, by applying his apparently bottomless well of energy to uptempo dance music of the mid-’50s, he promoted one of the more joyful musical trends of the day: jump music. Though Louis Jordan justly receives much of the credit for the advent of jump music, Prima’s work on TV, in film and on stages across America surely helped popularize this short-lived idiom, which by the late ’50s was being edged out by rock ‘n’ roll.
“When I first heard Louis Prima’s records, I didn’t even realize he was white,” says Jimmy Sutton, of the Mighty Blue Kings, a latter-day Chicago jump band.
“And the first time I heard Prima’s `Jump, Jive An’ Wail,’ I knew I had to learn to play that piece, although I actually like almost everything he did.
“People who aren’t into jump music may not realize it, but Prima was important in bringing a lot of R&B influences onto the white circuit.”
So in the retro ’90s, when lounge music and martinis have found new favor with teens and twentysomethings, the time probably was right for a Prima comeback. Calloway, after all, was returned to popularity in “The Blues Brothers” film of 1980; and Armstrong lately has been enjoying renewed attention, thanks to a recent touring museum exhibition on his life and several recording reissues.
Finally, Prima’s turn has come.
What casual observers may miss amid all of the renewed activity, however, is the man’s protean ability to reinvent himself to suit public tastes. The trumpeter who led a bona fide jazz band called Louis Prima and His New Orleans Gang in the ’30s (with no less than George Brunies on trombone and Claude Thornhill on piano) remade himself into a leader of a big band in the ’40s, a Las Vegas crooner with his wife, Keely Smith, in the ’50s and, remarkably, the voice of the animated King Louie in the 1967 Disney film “The Jungle Book.”
That Prima also penned one of the most revered tunes in jazz, “Sing, Sing, Sing,” only adds honor to his resume. His recorded version may have been vastly inferior to Benny Goodman’s, but the initial inspiration was purely Prima’s.
Like many of America’s most beloved entertainers, Prima, who died after three years in a coma, may not have achieved great artistry. But the exuberance with which he performed endeared him to millions–and apparently still does.
“He was a very good showman, a pleasure to watch,” recalls nonagenarian jazz trumpeter Doc Cheatham, a Prima contemporary.
“And he wasn’t a bad trumpet player, either.”
THE ESSENTIAL LOUIS PRIMA
A few highlights from Louis Prima’s immense discography:
Louis Prima, Vol. 1 (JSP). How did Louis Prima sound at the start of his career, in New Orleans? This remarkable document includes several 1934 cuts featuring Louis Prima and His New Orleans Gang, a somewhat derivative ensemble that shows the profound influence of Louis Armstrong. Prima may never have attained trumpet virtuosity, but the ebullience of his vocals proves irresistible.
Louis Prima Orchestra (Laserlight). By the 1940s, Prima had become a star in New York, his showmanship drawing packed houses to the Famous Door, enthusiastic press from Walter Winchell and a national radio program called “Swing It.” This compilation CD includes several incendiary broadcast tracks, most notably Prima’s orchestral tour de force “The Blizzard” (surely named for its cascading trumpet riffs) and “St. Louis Blues,” in as rambunctious a version as any on record.
Louis Prima, Featuring Keely Smith (The Entertainers). By the late 1940s, Prima had established himself as one of the foremost Big Band stars in the country–but the Big Band era was quickly coming to a close. Shrewdly, the veteran showman refreshed his act by recruiting a teenage singer named Keely Smith, whom he met in 1948, married in 1952 and divorced in ’61. Their fire-and-ice musical partnership made Prima bigger than ever, and their best tracks (“That Old Black Magic,” “I Wish You Love,” etc.) are but two gems of many on this disc.
Louis Prima, Capitol Collectors Series (Capitol). The single best overview of Prima’s career comes from Capitol’s superb Collectors Series, which includes old hits revisited (“Oh Marie,” “Buona Sera”), dance classics (“Jump, Jive An’ Wail”) and brilliant originals (“Sing, Sing, Sing”). Prima’s two key collaborators at the height of his career, tenor saxophonist Sam Butera and singer Keely Smith, light up several tracks.
