JON HAMMOND

Louie Bellson Interview With Jon Hammond HammondCast on CBS KYOU / KYCY Radio - August 2003, he appeared at Jazz Club Nouveau in San Francisco with tenor saxophonist Don Menza -

Bellson was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, in 1924, where his father owned a music store. He started playing drums at three years of age. While still a young child, Bellson's father moved the family and music store to Moline, Illinois.[5] At 15, he pioneered using two bass drums at the same time, a technique he invented in his high school art class.[6] At age 17, he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest.[7]

After graduating from Moline High School in 1942, he worked with big bands throughout the 1940s, with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and Duke Ellington. In 1952, he married jazz singer Pearl Bailey. During the 1950s, he played with the Dorsey Brothers, Jazz at the Philharmonic, acted as Bailey's music director, and recorded as a leader for Norgran Records and Verve Records.[8]

Over the years, his sidemen included Ray Brown, Pete and Conte Candoli, Chuck Findley, John Heard, Roger Ingram, Don Menza, Blue Mitchell, Larry Novak, Nat Pierce, Frank Rosolino, Bobby Shew, Clark Terry, and Snooky Young.

In an interview in 2005 with Jazz Connection magazine, he cited as influences Jo Jones, Sid Catlett, and Chick Webb. "I have to give just dues to two guys who really got me off on the drums – Big Sid Catlett and Jo Jones. They were my influences. All three of us realized what Jo Jones did and it influenced a lot of us. We all three looked to Jo as the 'Papa' who really did it. Gene helped bring the drums to the foreground as a solo instrument. Buddy was a great natural player. But we also have to look back at Chick Webb's contributions, too."[9]

During the 1960s, he returned to Ellington's orchestra for Emancipation Proclamation Centennial stage production, My People in and for A Concert of Sacred Music, which is sometimes called The First Sacred Concert. Ellington called these concerts "the most important thing I have ever done."[10]

As a prolific creator of music, both written and improvised, his compositions and arrangements (in the hundreds) embrace jazz, jazz/rock/fusion, romantic orchestral suites, symphonic works and a ballet. Bellson was also a poet and a lyricist. His only Broadway venture, Portofino (1958), was a resounding flop that closed after three performances.[13]

As an author, he published more than a dozen books on drums and percussion. He was at work with his biographer on a book chronicling his career and bearing the same name as one of his compositions, "Skin Deep". In addition, "The London Suite" (recorded on his album Louie in London) was performed at the Hollywood Pilgrimage Bowl before a record-breaking audience. The three-part work includes a choral section in which a 12-voice choir sings lyrics penned by Bellson. Part One is the band's rousing "Carnaby Street", a collaboration with Jack Hayes.[14]

Bellson was known throughout his career to conduct drum and band clinics at high schools, colleges and music stores.[16]

Bellson maintained a tight schedule of clinics and performances of both big bands and small bands in colleges, clubs and concert halls. In between, he continued to record and compose, resulting in more than 100 albums and more than 300 compositions. Bellson's Telarc debut recording, Louie Bellson And His Big Band: Live From New York, was released in June 1994. He also created new drum technology for Remo, of which he was vice-president.[17]

Bellson was voted into the Halls of Fame for Modern Drummer magazine, in 1985, and the Percussive Arts Society, in 1978. Yale University named him a Duke Ellington Fellow in 1977. He received an honorary Doctorate from Northern Illinois University in 1985. He performed his original concert – Tomus I, II, III – with the Washington Civic Symphony in historic Constitution Hall in 1993. A combination of full symphony orchestra, big-band ensemble and 80-voice choir, "Tomus" was a collaboration of music by Bellson and lyrics by his late wife, Pearl Bailey. Bellson was a nine-time Grammy Award nominee.[19]

On November 19, 1952, Bellson married American actress and singer, Pearl Bailey, in London. Bellson and Bailey adopted a son, Tony, in the mid-1950s, and a daughter, Dee Dee (born April 20, 1960).[22] Tony Bellson died in 2004, and Dee Dee Bellson died on July 4, 2009, at age 49, within five months of her father. After Bailey's death in 1990, Bellson married Francine Wright in September 1992.[23]

Wright, who had trained as a physicist and engineer at MIT,[24] became his manager. The union lasted until his death in 2009.[25]

Discography[edit]

As leader[edit]

As sideman[edit]

With Count Basie

• Back with Basie (Roulette, 1962)
• Basie in Sweden (Roulette, 1962)
• Pop Goes the Basie (Reprise, 1965)
• Basie's in the Bag (Brunswick, 1967)
• The Happiest Millionaire (Coliseum, 1967)
• Count Basie Jam Session at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1975 (Pablo, 1975)

With Benny Carter

• Benny Carter Plays Pretty (Norgran, 1954)
• New Jazz Sounds (Norgran, 1954)
• In the Mood for Swing (MusicMasters, 1988)

With Buddy Collette

• Porgy & Bess (Interlude 1957 [1959])

With Duke Ellington

• Ellington Uptown (Columbia, 1952)
• My People (Contact, 1963)
• A Concert of Sacred Music (RCA Victor, 1965)
• Ella at Duke's Place (Verve, 1965)

With Dizzy Gillespie

• Roy and Diz (Clef, 1954)

With Stephane Grappelli

• Classic Sessions: Stephane Grappelli, with Phil Woods and Louie Bellson (1987)

With Johnny Hodges

• The Blues (Norgran, 1952–54, [1955])
• Used to Be Duke (Norgran, 1954) 

Louie Bellson, Jazz Drummer, Band Leader, Double Bass Drums, Johnny Hodges, Pearl Bailey, Educator, HammondCast, CBS Radio, KYOU, KYCY, Jon Hammond