[Dixielandjazz] Happy 100th, Red

[Bob Romans]

Absolutely! Don, no one but you could do it...I bought my first Spike Jones 
record, I think, sometime around 1944...I was 12 years old...
Warmest regards,
Bob Romans,
1617 Lakeshore Drive,
Lodi, Calif., 95242
PH 209-747-1148
www.cellblockseven2002.net

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron L'Herault" <lherault at bu.edu>
To: "'DJML'" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Happy 100th, Red


> Gawd, that was wonderful!  Please, write the book!!
>
> Ron L
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
> [mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of
> dingle at baldwin-net.com
> Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 3:35 PM
> To: Dixieland Mailing List
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Happy 100th, Red
>
>  While most of us will be doing the political poll watching this
> Tuesday, November 7, this fellow will do more than vote. My wife Jean
> and I will be having a celebration of a birthday - my father's, who
> would have been 100 years old on November 7 of this year.
>
> Certainly jazz and entertainment mavens will get reminders about Red
> Ingle when they dig through the musical archives of the jazz, ig band
> and comedy in music subjects, but some plain folks still come up with
> recollections at the oddest time and place., he is still remembered
> today in the most unexpected places. It is amazing to think that while
> he died at 59 in Santa Barbara, CA in 1965.
>
> For me there are so many memories that flash by all the time, but every
> so often a new one pops up, and often triggered by a chance remark from
> a stranger.
>
> While dad and I shared the musical occupation, we also shared another
> activity - trout fishing - fly fishing to be exact. On the road when I
> worked with him, we carried fly rods and waders along with our horns and
> props and snuck off to creeks and other waters whenever rumors of trout
> living there were heard. This was one of the heritages he passed to me,
> and he was already well into the sport before I was much more than a
> tad. That fly rod and wader package was packed away in the band bus of
> the 1930's Ted Weems band as well, and were put to action even then when
> chance allowed.
>
> About a year ago I happened to meet a fellow in Traverse City, north of
> my home in Michigan, and he asked me a question about my name.
>
> "Ingle? Is that Ingle with an I," he asked.
>
> I said yes, and he asked, "Any relation to "Red" Ingle, the fellow that
> was with Spike Jones and the City Slickers and made those comedy records
> with Jo Stafford?"
>
> Again I said yes, "my father, in fact", and his face lit up with a big
> smile.
>
> "Well, I even saw him before that time, right here in Traverse City at a
> dance. He was playing sax with the the Ted Weems Band."
>
> "Right again", I told him, and then I remembered a long forgotten tale
> of dad's about one Traverse City date with the Weems band in the big
> band days of the late 1930's. (Dad was with the Ted Weems band from 1931
> to 1941, and with the Spike Jones City Slickers in the War years and
> right after until he started his own recording career at Capitol Records
> with several number one records in the country, "Timtayshun" with Jo
> Stafford, and "Cigareets and Whusky and Wild, Wild Wimmen.")
>
> It was on a tour of several cities in Michigan one summer that the Weems
> band played at a dance hall somewhere near Traverse City. Dad recalled a
> fellow name of Nixon was the owner or manager and that it was in the
> summer when the trout season was open.
>
> As noted, dad was a dedicated fly fisherman, as was the guitarist with
> the band, Cliff Covert. And they always had their fly rods and waders
> along on the band bus for whenever they could get time to fish
> someplace, even if for a few hours.
>
> So, when they came to Traverse City, the first thing they did was line
> up a local to drive them out to the Boardman River, leave them off for a
> few hours of fishing and then pick them up to get them back in time to
> get on the band bus for the trip to Grand Rapids where they would play 
> next.
>
> Early the next morning they met their driver, got to the stream and
> began fishing. At the time they were to meet the driver, he was a no
> show. Finally, more than an hour late, the driver arrived with a story
> about car trouble.
>
> Both Dad and Cliff had killed several big brown trout, so they got back
> to town and had them iced down and boxed, then went to the bus location
> only to find that the bus hadn't waited for them and had just left.
>
> Dad, himself a pilot, remembered seeing some bi-wing planes flying that
> day, and asked the driver to take them to the airport. There, they
> pooled their money and hired a local pilot to fly them down to Grand
> Rapids to catch up with the band. Into the front cockpit of an old
> bi-wing they sat, cliff on Dad's lap, and their fish, iced down but
> beginning to leak melt from the box holding them, lashed down to the
> lower wing next to the fuselage. Off they flew with the barnstormer to
> meet up with their band members several hours south.
>
> As they flew, the prop wash and airfoil carried the dripping ice melt,
> full of fish odor, back into the two of them crammed into the cockpit.
> (Keeping those fish was not their best idea as it turned out.)
>
> By the time they landed at Grand Rapids they were thoroughly soaked and
> beginning to smell more than a tad ripe. In fact, when they went to
> enter the Pantlind Hotel where they were to stay that night, the desk
> clerk wouldn't allow them to stay in the lobby and made them go around
> back to the freight elevator before he'd allow them access to the
> hotel's upper floors.
>
> By the time they'd cleaned up and were presentable, they had barely time
> to eat dinner before getting ready to play that night.
>
> Dad said that when they asked the waiter what was the special for the
> day, his answer brought on some sudden, uncontrollable laughter from the
> pair.
>
> The others in the dining room must have thought that the two men must
> have been escapees from the local State hospital for the mentally
> impaired for all the uncontrollable fits of laughter between the two
> anglers-cum-musicians.
>
> The day's special, as the waiter told them, was . . .
>
> . . ."Fresh caught Michigan Trout!"
>
> ###
>
> That's one tale to share. There are so many, so little time to tell in
> one sitting. Perhaps a few more will emerge in the days ahead. But it is
> enough for me to know that if Red was still with us, he would still be
> flinging a fly along side me to hook one of those "fresh caught Michigan
> trout."
>
> Happy birthday, Dad, and say hi to Bix for us.
>
> Don Ingle
>
>
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