[Dixielandjazz] Red Ingle's Fish Story as retold by Don Ingle

[Nancy Giffin]

Dear List mates,
Upon reading about Don and Jean Ingle, I consoled myself by digging up
an article that Don had sent in 2004 for publication in the STJS
newsletter.  At this sad time, I hope this humorous story from Don
ease a bit of grief. What a talented, friendly, and thoughtful man --
and a lucky man to have found Jean.  R.I.P. dear hearts.
Nancy

FROM 2004:

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From: Don Ingle <dingle at baldwin-net.com>
To: Nancy Giffin
Date: Monday, August 30, 2004 2:53 PM
Subject: Article for your newsletter is you wish to use it. Photo attached.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dinner

By Don Ingle

   About a year ago I happened to meet a elderly fellow in Traverse
City, Michigan near where I live, who 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 saxophone with 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 1930s. (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.
   Dad was a dedicated fly fisherman, as was the guitarist with the
band, Cliff Covert. They always carried their flyrods
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 TC, 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 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 ice-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 on 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.
   After 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 the special was, the
reply made the pair break into peals of non-stop, tear-evoking
laughter.  The other diners must have thought that the two recent
arrivals from Traverse City must have been escapees from the State
mental hospital for all the uncontrollable fits of giggles and guffaws
between the two anglers-cum-musicians.
   The special? "Fresh caught Michigan trout"!

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  About the author: Don Ingle, cornetist and valve trombonist, worked
with the Sons of Bix (Chicago's Jazz Ltd house band), Joe Marsala, and
Rosy McHargue. He lives in Michigan where he edits a magazine and
leads the Michigan Nighthawks Jazz Band.
Photo:  Red Ingle seems a bit aghast at the sound being made by Spike
Jones on Ingle's tenor sax.
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Rest in peace, dear Don and Jean.

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