[Dixielandjazz] Butch Ballard (R.I.P. London Guardian)

[Robert Ringwald]

Butch Ballard
Jazz drummer who performed with Basie, Ellington and Armstrong
by Peter Vacher
London Guardian, November 18, 2011
The drummer Butch Ballard, who has died aged 92, was one of a handful of African-American
jazz musicians who performed with both the Count Basie and Duke Ellington orchestras.
Having also recorded with Louis Armstrong's big band and worked with a roster of
top jazz stars, Ballard deserves to be recognised as one of the better percussionists
of the swing era. One commentator described Ballard's precision as "making his drum
sound as if it was being hit by a ball bearing".
That wider recognition was largely denied him was probably due to his decision, taken
at his wife's prompting, to leave New York in 1960 to return to the Frankford district
of Philadelphia, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Largely cut off from the
movers and shakers of jazz and seldom flushed out to tour or record, Ballard pursued
a lower-level musical career, happy to be lauded locally as teacher and performer.
George Ballard -- his nickname came from Machine Gun Butch, a character in the 1930
movie The Big House -- was born in Camden, New Jersey, but grew up a few miles away
in Frankford. Drawn to the drums as a child when he watched American Legion parades
in his locality -- "I would only notice the [snare] drummer," he said -- he eventually
persuaded his father, a water mains repairman, to buy him a partial kit from a local
pawnshop.
Having taken lessons and practised assiduously, he was thought good enough to sit
in with Herb Thornton's seven-piece swing band. By his late teens, Ballard was playing
semi-professionally with the Dukes, "a bunch of high-school boys", and stayed for
three years, while driving a truck by day. The jazz drummer Rossiere "Shadow" Wilson,
then working in Philadelphia with the Bill Doggett Big Band, took an interest in
the youngster, this relationship paying off later when the older man was leaving
Basie in 1948 and recommended Ballard as his replacement.
Before then, Ballard had made the move to New York in 1940 and, seduced by the big
city, admitted to "making a few mistakes" but fitted in with Fats Waller for radio
broadcasts and worked for Lucky Millinder at the Savoy Ballroom. He really earned
his spurs at Minton's Playhouse in Harlem with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's quartet.
Recommended by Davis, Ballard was in on the ground floor when the ex-Ellington trumpeter
Cootie Williams formed his big band, with Pearl Bailey as its singer, opening at
Chicago's famed Grand Terrace in February 1942. He toured with Williams nationwide
on package shows until he was drafted into the US navy for three years, serving with
the 29th Special Construction Battalion in Guam, in the western Pacific, and playing
in a military band.
After demobilisation, Ballard felt he had lost some of his prowess but he regained
his skills and worked again, with Williams in a smaller group and briefly with Armstrong.
Then, as was the custom, he moved from group to group, including a useful stint with
Basie and another with Mercer Ellington's Mad Men in 1948. It was Mercer who recommended
Ballard to his father, Duke Ellington, to go on the band's 77-day 1950 European tour
as relief drummer covering for Sonny Greer. Greer was in poor shape and drinking
heavily, so Ballard subbed for him at many of the band concerts, also recording with
Duke's sidemen in Paris. "I would have gone with him [Ellington] for free," Ballard
said. "That was the greatest thing that happened to me in my whole career."
Eventually, Ballard joined Ellington full-time in 1953 but stayed for only a few
months, preferring to play in small groups with players such as Arnett Cobb, Illinois
Jacquet and Clark Terry. Back in Philadelphia, he performed in all the best clubs,
such as the Pavilion and the Showboat, leading his own bands and backing visiting
singers including Nina Simone and Dinah Washington. His single European foray was
with the trumpeter Terry's Spacemen in 1989; observers (including me) were impressed
with his energy and verve.
A dedicated teacher, he continued to tutor individual private students until shortly
before he died. He was also the Democratic party leader for Philadelphia's 23rd ward.
He received a Mellon jazz community award in 2006 for his services to musical education,
and performed regularly with the Philadelphia Legends of Jazz Orchestra as its oldest
member. As recently as three years ago, he formed a new trio to be the house band
at the city's Mozaic club, playing his final gig aged 90.
Ballard's wife, Jessie, died in 2000; theirs was a blissfully happy, 60-year marriage.
He is survived by his son, Brenton, a sister, a brother and three grandchildren.
__________
George Edward "Butch" Ballard, jazz drummer, born 26 December 1918; died 1 October
2011.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
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