[Dixielandjazz] More on Georg Brunis

[Don Ingle]

I sent this earlier but apparently never showed up at the time of the list
address change, so I will post it again now.

The stories about George are endless, and everybody whoever worked around
Chicago in the 50's-70's period has some.
I recall going into the 1111 Club under the "L" on Bryn Mar to hear the
band. Del Lincoln on Cornet, and the crazed drummer Hey Hey Humphries on
drums, as well as George. This was in the 50's.
The band played behind the bar on stand in front of  psuedo Art Deco columns
of Naugahyde-covered cotton batten. Hey Hey would do this little bit of
business where he would beat a drumstick back against the padded column.
In time his drum stick had torn through the padding to the cotton padding
and when he would put the stick back there to do a one-handed paradiddle,
the cotton would fly like a snow storm.
Hey Hey was a good drummer but had some serious mental problems that
eventually got him sent downstate to the Matoon state farm for the
hopelessly silly.
  George never varied his schtik, his routines, and his choruses. I felt
that many of us could sing along with him on his choruses on trombone. While
a great figure in early jazz, George was stuck in a rut most of his later
life, and sad to say could be a bit boring at times. I respected him for his
part in early jazz history (NORK,) but found him a nice man with little new
to say. Harsh on my part to say that, but it was a point many came to share.
I did get to work with him once, thanks to Gene Mayl who came up short a
trumpeter. He called me to sub...240 miles away in Detroit. I had no chops
after laying off for a few months, but like an old fire station horse, I
came over to help him out, bad chops and all. George was on trombone,  Frank
Powers (who just passed away) on clarinet and some other good players(Gene
help me out here), and it  was, over all, fun -- except that with my out of
shape chops, spotting Tom Pletcher and Tommy Saunders sitting at an up front
table at the Ponchatrain Roof did not do much for my ease of mind.
I have, somewhere, a cassette tape made there on a cheap recorder and lots
of table talk over much of it. But I can say that I did play on the same
stand with George, and thus made a personal link with his part of the jazz
history. My dad was my link to Bix, Lil Armstrong my link to Louis.
Don Ingle