I Remember Jazz: Six Decades Among the Great Jazzmen

Louis Prima

52 • / Remember Jazz he had bought six thousand pairs of chopsticks. He was givingaway chopsticks at the Hall for months afterward. Once in 1970 I asked him to rent me the Hall for my wedding reception. Characteristically, he wouldn't permit me to pay him. Apparently one doesn't offer Jaffe money for anything. I'm happy for him that he can afford to refuse. Diana and I haven't thrown that big a party since. There were jazzmen everywhere. Alvin Alcorn led the band and Bill Russell recorded all the music. Punch Miller didn't stutter when he sang, only when he talked, and he sometimes got out of hand in casual conversation. But there was never a stammer when he talked about Jaffe. "That man! I don' know—he's like a father, a son, a brother. I love that man. He got the feelin when somebody else hurts. My God, the things he done for me!—what I seen him do for other people—not even musicians—. He come from heaven, Allan Jaffe. What would we all be now without him?" As a kid in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Allan used to listen, he tells me, to Journeys Into Jazz on his radio. I take more than a little pride in having contributed to the taste development that led him to settle in New Orleans and establish the framework that has provided a new life and prosperity for so many aging jazzmen. When the history of the last days of authentic jazz is written, I have no doubt that the authors will think of those years and write of them as the Jaffe years. If all of the people who brought jazz to the public in the past had had Jaffe's qualities, jazz might still be a lusty and thriving art form. Louis Prima Outside of the years I spent in college, a few of my adult years were spent in Philadelphia. In 1946 and 1947 I was doing the Journeys Into Jazz radio shows and concerts there, supporting these vices byworking in the advertising and publicity business. My favorite account was The Click, an enormous nightclub that contained the world's longest bar. The proprietor of this huge posh enterprise was the legendary Frank Palumbo, celebrated among band musicians as the most generous of all saloon keepers. He engaged me to publicize the place a couple of months before its opening on Labor Day of 1946. / Remember Jazz • 53 My old New Orleans friend, Louis Prima, was booked as the opening attraction. The Click had a revolving stage, and its policy was to have two bands, for continuous music. As part of my initial public relations salvo I created the Frank Palumbo Award to the most valuable Philadelphia baseball player. After I went over the details with Frank, he said, "Hell, if you can get them to accept an awardpublicly from a saloon keeper, go ahead and do it." As it happened, it wasn't all that easy to do—but I managed. I polled the sportswriters on the four daily papers, and they selected a pitcher, Schoolboy Rowe, for the honor. I had hoped they'd select one of the Phillies. The town had two major-league teams then, and the Phillies were going to be playingat home on Labor Day. I wanted to have Louis Prima make the presentation and play the Star Spangled Banner. All of this was fine with the Phillies. I then went to Frank Dailey's Meadowbrook, a primary big-band spot in Caldwell, New Jersey, to talk over my plan with Louis, who was filling an engagement there. I hadn't seen him in quite a fewyears, and when I entered his dressing room he looked pale and exhausted. He was cold and withdrawn and it occurred to me that he might not recognize me. I was about to refresh his memory when his face brightened with the realization that I was someone from home. "Al Rose!" he told himself. I nodded and we shook hands. He acknowledged that he wasn't feeling too well. Then he said, "I need to do a set before I come to life. Stay and watch and we'll talk later." It was never easy to get used to the suddenness with which Louis' personality changed the instant he stepped on stage. He suddenly became an energy bomb, a whirlwind of action. His performance was always in high gear, filled not only with music...