Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner
from Swing Man and Women

Louis

Louis played a fine Dixie horn
then he went on to swing
and he swung.

And what’s more,
Sing, Sing, Sing
is to his credit,
as well as other tunes
like Robin Hood
and Oh Babe.

Whenever and whatever Louis played,
he played pretty for the people.

This Louis,
like his namesake,
was good at scat
and got his act going
and went on to be a performer.

He teemed up with Keely Smith
and tenor man Sam Butera.
Keely had a melodic foggy voice
and she and Louis
did jivey-jokey vocals
with Sam providing sassy riffs
in a rock ‘n’ roll style.

Every one of their numbers,
like Angelina and Oh Marie,
is a humdinger,
with Louis dishing out
pommarola
over spaghetti and meatballs,

I know they’re not jazz,
which is okay,
everything doesn’t have to be jazz.

But my question is
didn’t Louis, Keely and Sam
ever get the urge to jam?

Didn’t Louis Prima
ever have the itch
to go at it again?

Couldn’t there have been
one more recorded session?

Did those wonderful commercial pieces
cancel jazz out?

Why is it that once you sell something else,
there seems to be no coming back?

Louis and Gigolo
There’s a sad ballad
replete with heartache,
which regrets that
“youth will pass away”
and that “they’ll say
‘just a gigolo.’”
It’s slow and straight,
and let’s face it - sentimental.

Along came Louis Prima
and jazzed it up,
turning it into
one of his best novelty numbers
ever to be sung.

Hamp and Chu Berry
did a similar job on
Carmen Lombardo’s Sweethearts on Parade.

Actually Louis’ namesake,
Louis Armstrong recorded Sweethearts
prior to Hamp and Chu,
but he played and sang it
the way it was written,
which Hamp and Chu didn’t.
God, did they juice it up!

Ditto for the Italian Louis’s Gigolo!
when you hear him render it,
you hear what the song became
due to his interpretation.

Sorry, David Lee,
that’s the breaks of the game.

Louis wrote Sing, Sing, Sing.
Benny Goodman took it,
and made it his own
and Louis said goodbye to it.
“And the guy never said ‘thanks;’
he don’t even say hello to me.”
That’s the breaks of the game!
Keely
Listen to Keely Smith
on Embraceable You!
She gets off to a great start.
After a few bars
Louis Prima comes in,
clowning beautifully
and they both take it
from there.

Keely was the straight man
and Louis - the clown of the act.
She was deadpan and skeptical
to Louis’ salacious exuberance.

They had the best act in the business,
and they eternally played Las Vegas.
Every record they made
hit the charts,
and the dough came rolling in.

I love that Gershwin number,
as well as many others,
but I would have liked to hear
her carry through once by herself,

Her melodic foggy voice
is one of the best I ever heard.

Keely was great on ballads,
and I know that she could
have done well with jazz too.

Louis was the marrying kind,
and he took the plunge five times,
but he was also noted for
plunging as often as five times a day
with different mates.

Having a live-wire wife
and the best singing partner,
didn’t prevent him from
pursuing these activities,
and eventually Keely
had her fill and got a divorce.

Louis continued as a duo,
and his new singing partner
became Gia Prima.

Needles to say,
no one could replace
the preceding Mrs. Prima.

Keely made a few records
and then disappeared from view.
She kept house,
and brought up the kids.

Years later
she made a comeback
backed by a brassy band,
belting out the songs
she and Louis made had famous,
and other songs in their style.

Louis’ ghost is on every cut.
The spirit of the terrific partner
and the unfaithful mate predominates.

Instead of doing solos,
she’s still doing duos.
Long gone,
Louis simply overshadows her.

What’s missing are the seductive ballads
and the jazz pieces that could have been.

What’s there is okay,
but what’s not there
is the best singer
of ballads and jazz vocalist
that never was.
Sam Butera
When Louis and Keely
Did their duos,
Sam underlined them
with inimitable riffs.
by his sassy sax
on numbers like
That Old Black Magic
and I’ve Got You Under My Skin.

After Keely divorced Louis,
Sam stuck around,
but after a while,
he went it alone too.

The Witnesses expanded
to a studio-type band
and what Sam did after Louis
was tame in comparison
to what he did with Louis.

Sam as well as Keely
never lost their nostalgia
for the gold old days with Louis
and frankly,
after they left,
the fire was gone.

Appropriately
Louis’ nickname was the Chief
Was he exclusively the motor
and the catalyst?