[Dixielandjazz] Fw: Your request re: Lil Armstong

[Don Ingle]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Ingle" <dingle@baldwin-net.com>
To: "Robert S. Ringwald" <ringwald@calweb.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 7:22 PM
Subject: Your request re: Lil Armstong


>    In response to Mr. Wonderful request to write something about my
> recollections of Lil Armstrong, I will gladly share them. In fact, it is a
> good way for me to recall that wonderful lady with the warmest smile and
> easiest laugh in the world.
>
>    As with many, I first became aware of Lillian Hardin Armstrong in my
> early years of listening and learning about the Armstrong/Oliver period.
So
> it was my delight in 1954 to finally  meet that legendary lady in Chicago.
>    I had been on the road and ended up New Year's Eve leading a house band
> at the Iroquois Gardens near Louisville, KY. It had been my dad's road
> band, but he had to take off to do some TV work in NY, and I became a
> "leader" through New Year's Eve. The floor show of several acts was
> headlined by Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards, a charming old pro entertainer
and
> a delight to work with. We closed New Years Eve, and I took off for
Chicago,
> deciding to put in my I.A. card in transfer to 10-208.
>    Because I was not allowed to work a steady engagement for the 6-month
> transfer period, I jobbed around town and did a little stringing for wire
> service to make ends meet. I got a call to work a job on the South Side
from
> Sid Nelson, a fine bass player I had worked with in Louisville, who said
> he'd recommended me to Lila. "Lila who," I asked. "Lila Armstrong," he
said,
> and watched as my jaw dropped to my knees.
>    That was my first in-person meeting with that lady...and fortunately
not
> my last.
>    But it was not until 1963 when I came from I.A. to work at Jazz Ltd.
that
> I got to meet her again, and in time Jean and I became quite good friends
> with her. She worked the off-night at Jazz Ltd with a band that had Whitey
> Myrick on trumpet, Jerry Coleman on drums, A bass man I cannot recall, a
> neat little cherub clarinet player, Jimmy Granite, and Danny Williams on
> trombone. Jean and I often came into town from up north where we lived to
> see or hear other groups and do a little shopping, and JELL was frequently
a
> stop for us when Lila was working.
>    Lila is noted for her jazz compositions but she also wrote some fine
> ballads...my favorite is "Just for a Thrill."
>    After five years at JELL, and working part time for wire service on the
> side as a photographer I was ready to get out of town and head back for
> Michigan, a place my family long considered "home." My wife is from
> Michigan, my dad from (close enough), and my mother a fifth generation
> Michigander, so the roots are deep here (even have my Michigan State UP.
> sheepskin). So we left Chicago and have been here in Michigan 34 years.
> Fortunately, it was not the last of my times with Lila.
>    When she and Louis were married, they bought a summer home on a lake in
> Idle, MI, at the time an all-black resort village in the pre-integration
> days. Lila kept the house when she and Louis divorced and used to come to
> her place in the summer between gigs.  One night the phone rang and this
> familiar voice came over the receiver. "Don... This is Lillian. I'm at my
> place in Idle (which is about five miles from my home town of Baldwin).
What
> are you and Jean doing tonight?" I told her we had nothing on. "Well, I'd
> love it if you would come over and have dinner here tonight. I have a
> surprise for you...an old friend is here visiting."
>    So we agreed to join Lillian at her home, and had a pleasant
surprise --
> that the "old friend" was none other than Red Saunders, one of the good
> South Side jazz drummers, leader of the famous Club Delis house band, and
> also a member of some of Father Hines's Chicago bands of the 30's-40's.
>    After that we saw Lila a few times in Chicago when visiting, and again
at
> her place when she was in Michigan.
>    I had contacted the Sun Times feature editor about doing a profile on
> Lila in her summer get-a-way home and had gotten a go-ahead. I had talked
> with Lila about it and we were set to go. The day I was to do the
interview,
> she called and said she was a little under the weather. She was trying to
> rest a day before heading to Chicago to do an outdoor memorial concert in
> Louis's memory, and we agreed to do it when she got back up the next week.
> She never made it.
>    At that concert, after finishing a number, she remarked to her bass man
> that she wasn't feeling good...then collapsed at the piano. Taken
offstage,
> an MET  worker tried to revive her, but it was not to be. One jazz  legend
> had left us while honoring another.
>    I never got to write that profile. But if I had my lead would have
> started this way:
>    "The first thing you note about Lillian Hardin Armstrong is her smile.
It
> warms you through to the bone."
>     That is the way I remember my friend Lillian.
>
>