The name of Mitch Miller came up the other day quite by coincidence. The conversation was about Louis Prima’s difficult, early-1950s, pre-Vegas days when decent gigs and recording deals were, for him and new wife Keely Smith, hard to come by.

The conversation turned to a song titled “Come On-A My House,” produced by Mitch Miller for singer Rosemary Clooney in June of 1951. Though it was a tremendous hit for Clooney, Prima–deservedly–felt it would have been a perfect Prima tune and may have helped resurrect the singer/trumpeter’s flagging career.

Prima never spoke to Mitch Miller again. He wasn’t the only one.

If anyone still wants to sing along with Mitch, by the way, they still can. The bearded conductor, classical oboist, record producer and television personality is still very much with us at the age 98, living in New York City and doing guest symphony conductor dates from time to time.

Few in the history of the music business have had as varied a career as Miller, and even fewer have been as popular and beloved by the general public. What some industry people thought of him was sometimes another matter.

The invention of a Mitch Miller couldn’t happen today, if only because his was a career that included stints as a classically trained symphonic oboist (jazz fans recognize his work as oboe soloist on the legendary “Charlie Parker with Strings” recordings of 1949), to producer of some of the most God awful recorded novelties in music history (from Frankie Laine’s “Mule Train” to Johnnie Ray’s “Cry”), and ultimately as host of the hit sing-along television program, “Sing Along with Mitch.”

For one artist to have started his career as an oboe soloist with the Budapest String Quartet, only to ultimately gain fame as host of what would be described today as a karaoke TV show, is almost impossible to fathom.

As a record producer in the 1950s and 1960s, first at Mercury and later at Columbia, “the bearded one,” as he was known, was a schlockmeister all the way. Some artists, like Guy Mitchell and Patti Page, weren’t particularly quality conscious when it came to material. Others, such as Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, went along with some of Miller’s suggestions reluctantly.

Then there was the case of Frank Sinatra. For any number of reasons, Sinatra’s career was pretty much down the tubes by the late 1940s, as were his record sales at Columbia. Mitch Miller thought he could make Mr. S. a star again via his proven formula for novelty songs, and strongly suggested that Sinatra record dreck like “Bim Bam Baby,” and the truly embarrassing “Mama Will Bark” from 1951. The latter was duet between Sinatra and a then-popular, pinup television star named Dagmar. And yes, there was actual barking on the track, though not by Sinatra as is widely thought, but by a dog impressionist by the name of Donald Bain.

A few years later, when Sinatra’s career was reborn as an Academy Award-winning film star and hit-maker at Capital Records, Sinatra sent telegrams to judiciary and senate committees, accusing Miller of presenting him with inferior songs, and of accepting money from writers whose songs he (Miller) had used.

Miller always said that Sinatra and other Columbia artists could not be forced to perform anything they didn’t want to. Mr.S.wouldn’t hear of any of it. Years later, it is said, the two physically crossed paths in a Las Vegas casino. Whomever was with Sinatra or Miller on the scene that night tried to affect a reconciliation.

“F–k y–, keep walking,” was Sinatra’s reply.

Interestingly, for a music man with the tastes of MItch Miller, he couldn’t stand rock and roll, and is said to have passed on the likes of Elvis and Buddy Holly. Indeed, Columbia’s small share of the rock market was due to Miller’s distaste of it. Miller was much more interested in producing and recording dreck like “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

After the demise of his “SIng Along with Mitch” television show, and with the advent of the Beatles, Mitch MIller fell pretty much out of fashion and off the radar. No matter. He made his mark, and at the age of 98 is likely still following that elusive bouncing ball.

Maynard Ferguson, the dynamic, musically stratospheric and charismatic bandleader/trumpter who died in August of 2006, is the subject of a new book.
Not surprisingly, the work was not able to find a traditional book publisher.
Maynard! was written and assembled by Grammy Award-winning record producer Ralph Jungheim, is a collection of interviews with many of Maynard’s personal and professional colleagues through the years, including reedman Lanny Morgan, Don Menza and Bud Shank; drummers Rufus Jones, Shelly Manne and Peter Erskine’ singer Irene Kral; guitarist Mundell Lowe; trumpeter Lew Tabackin; and various others.
Maynard! is self-published and the good news is that it was published at all, in a day and age when traditional book retailers are going under, and the only works that seem to get traditional book deals these days are works by politicians, conservative and otherwise.
Lee Mergner, Editor of Jazz Times magazine, who first wrote about this on the JazzTimes.com site, is optimistic when it comes to print publishing and jazz. He should know, as Jazz Times ceased publishing recently until, thankfully, it found another buyer and is back in business.
“Print is most assuredly not dead,” Mergner said. “Nor is the oral history. If anything, the difficulties of bookstores have created a do-it-yourself submarket, in which projects heretofore viewed as commercial risks become unabashed labors of love, published via print-upon-demand or eBook or no-frills self-publishing.”
Ferguson’s life and music are worthly of a full-fledged bio. Dr. William Lee did write an authorized biography of Maynard about ten years ago, but its scope was surprisingly limited.
Born in Quebec in 1928, Ferguson was a child trumpet prodigy who quit school at 15, performed with, and eventually led a bunch of bands there. He came to the United States circa 1949, and spent road time with the likes of Jimmy Dorsey, Boyd Raeburn, and the leader who really groomed Maynard Ferguson to be a star, the equally charasmatic Stan Kenton, with whom he spent the years 1950 to 1953. Leaving Kenton, he was a Paramount studio player until 1956. In 1957, he led his first, U.S. band, known as “The Birdland Dream Band.”
It lasted, in various incarnations, until the bottom dropped out of the jazz business around 1967. But MF’s band was astounding, and those a part of it during those salad days likened it to what it must have been like to be a member of The Rolling Stones.
The array of talent that passed through that 12-piece group was incredible, and included artists such as Joe Zawinul, Don Ellis, Bill Chase, Slide Hampton, Jimmy Ford, Don Menza, Jake Hanna, Rufus Jones, Jaki Byard, John Bunch; and an equally wonderful array of arrangers and composers. The band recorded prolifically for Roulette. Volume-wise, they could blow groups twice the size off he stage. Subtle, it wasn’t. Swinging, it was.
Call Maynard Ferguson the “Buddy Rich of the trumpet,” if you will. No one has yet been able to equal his trumpet range and the clarity of his range—no one, quite simply, could play higher—and the energy, feeling, and enthusiasm he brought to the stage was consistently infectious and exciting. By God, it’s even been said that Miles Davis liked his playing.
Ferguson had become, like Harry James before him and Doc Severinson afer him, as much of a personality as a musician, though he never, ever compromised his musical vision.
Times were tough in the latter 1960s for everything that was jazz, and were at a particularly low ebb for big bands. Woody was scuffling, Basie was recording Beatles’ tunes, and Ellington was surviving. Buddy Rich, however, did begin to make something of a splash on the scene around 1967, but Maynard couldn’t ignore increasing audience disinterest. He first cut down to a small group, spent some time studying and teaching in India, and ended up living in Manchester, England, circa 1969.
He has no idea that a second, very successful career was in the offing, via his signing with CBS Records in England in 1969, and later forming an all-British band, with the accent on more contemporary material with a contemporary beat.
Maynard came back to the states permanently in 1973 and resumed a hectic touring schedule, with the emphasis on high school and college bookings, and in-residence teaching “clinics,” a concept pioneered by Stan Kenton. The band became a favorite of younger music fans via their choice of material, and in fact, made it to the coveted “top 40” with “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme from the film, “Rocky,” in 1977.
Demand for the band—as well as its prices—went up, and Maynard Ferguson was able to maintain the group, through several names and musical configurations, until just days before his death on August 23, 2006.
As a person? There are only two musicians in the history of jazz that no one—no one—has ever heard a negative word about. Louie Bellson. And Maynard.
The source material for Maynard! was a series of interviews recorded by author in 1978, when Ferguson and the band were playing in Santa Monica, CA. His wife transcribed the many hours of interviews.
“Jungheim had hopes of getting a book deal based on the interviews,” Lee Mergner explained, but there were no takers” from the major publishing houses.
“So I put it in a box and pretty much forgot about it,” said Jungheim. “Every once in a while I’d take it out and read it, but then I’d forget about it. I had a bout with cancer about two and a half years ago, and my son suggested that I make it an eBook and finally get the thing out.”
Ultimately, Maynard! was released as a print-on-demand project. The 240-page paperback is now available via MaynardFerguson.com, Amazon.com and the author’s own BusterAnnMusic.com.
Matt Keller, who has reviewed the work for the Ferguson web site, describes it “as an absolutely compelling read for Maynard fans… from the musicians who played with him in the first 30 years of his career.” Though this work is incomplete as well, in that Ferguson performed for almost 30 more years after these interviews were done, Keller says that the book “ provides a fascinating verbal accounting of the first half of Maynard’s recording and performing career.”
Perhaps the entire story will someday be told.

Sometimes enthusiasm gets the better of me. I’m one of the multitudes out there–and I’m presuming there are multitudes–who have wanted to view the 1987 Academy Award-winner for Best Documentary film, “TIme is All You’ve Got,” the project that focused on that enigmatic jazz genius, Artie Shaw.

A lot of material, said not to exist, said to be lost or said to be pulled from distribution, has surfaced over the years, including the Krupa./Rich drum battle on the Sammy Davis, Jr. television program of 1966, the meeting of Rich and no less than Jerry Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour of 1955, and other gems.

Imagine my glee when I thought I might actually see a copy of “Time is All You’ve Got.” Because it seemingly disappeared from view so long ago, I figured it had been hung up in litigation, fallen into the public domain, was never copyrighted and/or simply vanished. On top of everything, I had the audacity to say that if I got a copy of it, I would do everything possible to make it available to JazzLegends.com visitors.

The fact is, I cannot, and will not, and never will.

Bottom line is, producer/director Brigitte Berman owns the copyright and all rights to the documentary. I hereby acknowledge that I hold no rights whatsoever to the film, and that I had no
right to post an article today on my various blogs, offering to make available the film to third parties.

My goal, as most of you know, was, is and always will be, to make these discoveries available to the general public. Sad to say, “Time is All You’ve Got” is one item you won’t be able to get from JazzLegends.com. Ever.

However, and I have nothing definitive to report at this juncture, but I’m getting the sense that the film may be available in the not-too-distant future via standard, legal commercial channels.

When and if that happens, I’ll be first in line to purchase a copy and report on what I know is a remarkable work.

I am still, at heart, a fan, but I failed to realize the ramifications of my enthusiasm. Again, my apologies to Ms. Berman and all involved in this matter.

By all accounts, clarinetist and bandleader Artie Shaw was quite the difficult guy, before, during and after his days as a working musician.

Still, Shaw, born Arthur Jacob Arshawsky in 1910—who passed in December of 2004 at the age of 94—is still regarded in many quarters as the greatest jazz clarinetist who ever lived.

For those of a certain age, his story is a familiar one, which included eight marriages to the likes of Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and Evelyn Keyes; the wild success of his various bands; Shaw’s inability or unwillingness to deal with much of this success and various other emotional factors which resulted in his giving up the horn for good in 1954.

It’s one of the great stories in jazz, if only because Artie Shaw was among the few players in history who actually evolved as a player. It’s not that he suddenly became a Charlie Parker-like be-bopper. It just seemed that, as time went on, his style just became more modern and more timeless within the parameters that he had already set. And those were very, very high-level parameters. Technically, harmonically and emotionally? He couldn’t be touched. Though there who continue to argue about such matters, Benny Goodman had very, very little of what Artie Shaw had. “You play clarinet, I play music,” Shaw once said to Goodman.

I’d bet BG had no idea what Artie Shaw was talking about.

After leaving the music business, Shaw involved himself in various activities, which included work as a film distributor, gentleman farmer, and mainly, as a writer. For years, he was said to be working on a gargantuan, fictionalized version of his own life, titled “The Education of Albie Show,” said to be around 1,900 pages—double-spaced—in length. According to those few who have read all or part of it, it is not an easy read.

Jazz writer Gene Lees, in fact, described Shaw as “a second-rate writer.” The presumption of course, is that Lees is a first-rate writer.

There have been various attempts to get Shaw involved in telling his own life story through the years, and there was actually a documentary film produced and released around 1987. Titled “Time is All You’ve Got,” it was produced by Brigitte Berman, critically acclaimed for her work on a Bix Beiderbecke documentary several years before this.

“Time is All You’ve Got” won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature film in 1987. Shaw participated in it enthusiastically, and is also boasted the participation of Shaw cohorts like Buddy Rich, Helen Forrest, Lee Castle, ex-wife Evelyn Keyes and many, many others via vintage footage and interviews.

For reasons still not widely known, outside of a few showings around 1987, the film was pulled from distribution and has not been seen since. In terms of film rarities, “Time is All You’ve Got” is one of the rarest.

Who knows what happened? Shaw was well known for putting roadblocks in the path of various projects over the years.

Seasons back, after the release of the “Buddy Rich: Jazz Legend” video, Artie Shaw called my office. He was not happy.

“By whose authority are you using this clip of my band with Buddy Rich from 1937?” he asked me.

“Well, Mr., Shaw,” I began to explain, “the clip is over 60 years old and has been used in over a dozen documentaries over the years.”

He then tried to argue that he owned the film clip, ignoring the fact that Vitaphone, an operation that had been out of business for decades, was actually the producer/distributor of the film short, “Artie Shaw’s Class in Swing.”

I cleared a payment of $500 to Shaw with the DCI Music Video offices—distributors of the Buddy Rich video—as a courtesy to Mr. Shaw. That seemed to do the trick.

Then again, perhaps Evelyn Keyes’ successful lawsuit a few years ago, in pursuit of half of her ex’s estate, was a factor in getting “Time is All You’ve Got” pulled. Who knows?

The important thing is, this deserves to be seen.

JazzLegends.com will be getting a copy shortly, and the moment we do, we’ll try to make it available as soon as we can, and as long as we can.

But knowing Artie Shaw, you never know how long that will be.

Wherever and whenever live music is played—in Naples, Florida, or otherwise—people of a certain age will often request a song made famous by the late and great Louis Prima.

Last season in Naples at The Cafe’ on Fifth Avenue, when I had the privilege of playing with the great trumpter Bob Zottola, a customer approached me and requested that we do something by Louis.

Zottola, to his eternal and idealistic credit, is a music guy, not an entertainment guy, but wanted to honor the customer’s request.

Knowing I sang and played pretty much the complete Prima repertoire through the years—“if you want to make a dollar, you’ve got to make them holler,” has long been my credo–Bob asked me, “Is there anything like a tasteful Louis Prima song?”

“No, unfortunately, there isn’t,” I told Bob.

Louis was never a darling of the jazz critics.

We did “Oh Marie” anyway and the crowd loved it. Bob was really cooking on that one. It couldn’t be helped.

Prima’s sound was and is an electrifying, timeless and swinging one that transcended labels, genres, timelines or categories. In his early days, Louis was a good, traditionally oriented trumpeter and singer out of the Louis Armstrong mold, but as time went on, he moved farther and father away from jazz into the world of entertainment.

Indeed, via his group in Las Vegas that featured vocalist Keely Smith, to whom he was married from 1953 to 1961, he made one of the biggest splashes in entertainment history in the Vegas lounges, on records, and in clubs throughout the country. Along with the architect of the Prima sound –the recently-departed saxophonist Sam Butera—the Prima book combined elements of Dixieland jazz, early rhythm and blues, the Italian jive novelties he had been doing for years, plus the deadpan vocals of Keely, to fashion an eclectic and singular sound that has never been duplicated. Many have tried, included Sonny and Cher, who basically lifted the Louie and Keely act, updated it and tried to make it their own,

Prima continued, with varying degrees of success and with changes in music policy—he was almost doing a rock and roll show at one point in later years—until he lapsed into a coma in October of 1975. He died in August, 1978.

Prima’s drummer on and off since the early 1940s was a superb player by the name of Jimmy Vincent, who died on April 15, 2002.

You can hear Vincent wailing away on some of Louis’ most famous songs, including “Jump Jive and Wail,” “Just a Gigolo” and all of the rest.

Vincent also had a good deal of success with another, semi-famed, Las Vegas-based lounge group called “The Goofers.” Drum fans, in particular, may remember Vincent appearing in ads for the Slingerland Drum Company, where he was wearing a monkey mask.

Vincent never cared about critics. If you wear a monkey mask while playing the drums, that’s obvious. But Buddy Rich, among well-known players, is said to have loved him. No one could play the shuffle beat like Jimmy Vincent.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, singer Joy Adams and I were waiting for a cab to pick us up at our Philadelphia home to take us to the airport. We were flying to Las Vegas to get together with drummer Jimmy Vincent, who was to be interviewed and featured in a Hudson Music DVD, which then had the working title of “Roots of Roll Drumming.” Eventually, it was released as “Classic Rock Drum Solos,” but the idea was the same, which was to trace the evolution of the drum solo as it ultimately applied to rock and roll,

Vincent was an important figure in this area, having helped pioneer and perfect the shuffle beat on drums, an important component of early rock.

At about 10 a.m., a few minutes before our taxi was scheduled to arrive in Philadelphia, Joy’s daughter, Lauren, called us at home. “Turn on the television, now,” she told her mother.

“What channel?” Joy asked.

“Any channel,” Lauren said.

There it was. The tragic bombing of the Word Trade Centers. Live, on television.

We didn’t believe what we were seeing.

The taxi had arrived to take us to the airport. My first thought was to call the airport to see if planes were still flying. Whomever answered the phone at the airport said that nothing had changed, Planes were still taking off.

They didn’t for long.

The trip to Vegas never happened and we never hooked up with Jimmy Vincent, who passed away about a year and one-half later.

“Classic Rock Solos” features an early, 1940s drum solo by a 16-year-old player by the name of Jimmy Vincent, tearing it up on a song written by his long-time boss, Louis Prima. The song’s title was “Sing Sing Sing.”

Bob Zottola has spoken often about doing that number when I come back to Naples.

I plan on it.

Jerry Lewis. Funniest man who ever lived, in my opinion, anyway. “The Nutty Professor?” I mean the original. Greatest film ever made. It still cracks me up. Forget about Eddie Murphy. Let’s talk about Professor Julius Kelp.

Today, in terms of showbiz icons who are still standing, Lewis is it, and he is still very much on view. At the age of 84, he spent a considerable amount onscreen hosting the “Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon on Labor Day weekend. He still gets top billing over the illness and the kids he supports. God bless him. He deserves it.

He looked and sounded like an older Jerry Lewis, though at his age, he is certainly to be forgiven for not looking like a day older than he actually is.

In fact, this year, after a couple of seasons of severe illness that would have taken out weaker souls, he helped raise over 60 million dollars for Muscular Dystrophy, down over five million dollars than last year, but given the state of the economy, still a grand amount. And this without the participation, for the first time in years, of sidekick Ed MacMahon.

What was surprising, entertaining and inspiring, was that Lewis was on screen as much as he was. He no longer gets the cover of the Sunday newspaper insert, “Parade” magazine, nor does he – or the telethon – get the advance press it used to get, but the telecast still garners a huge audience. You don’t get over 60 million dollars in contributions otherwise.

Lewis, often sitting down this year, sang songs, bantered with the orchestra, and performed his famed, “Al Jolson Medley,” which he first introduced at the Palace Theater in New York City shortly after breaking up with his partner, Dean Martin. By the way, it was in that year–1957–when Lewis’ vocal recording of “Rockabye Your Baby (With a Dixie Melody)” became a surprise hit. Dean Martin was more surprised than anyone that year. Yes, there were plenty of on-air gaffes and screw-ups in this year’s telethon as always—centered on one of Jerry’s favorite subjects, Adolf Hitler, among other things—but that’s what happens every Labor Day weekend.

For the past several telethons and a camp highlight for me, Lewis has introduced a young, Buddy Love / Bobby Darin-type singer named “Michael Andrew,” who is supposedly being pegged to play the young Jerry in the Lewis-directed, Broadway production of “The Nutty Professsor.” Now, the show is supposedly set for 2011 and is said to have the participation of Marvin Hamlisch and Rupert Holmes. I’ll believe it when I see it. The Broadway version of “Professor” has been in the planning stages for five years now. “Michael Andrew will be a big star if he does what I tell him,” Lewis said on the telethon. I hope Michael Andrew will listen to Jerry Lewis.

Stranger things have happened.

Here’s one of them:

My first job after graduating Temple University was with a publication devoted to the film industry, called Film BULLETIN. The intent of this magazine, which had been published since the 1930s, was to help motion picture theater exhibitors choose the films they wanted to show.

Film BULLETIN was already an anachronism when I came aboard, but a job was a job and show biz was show biz. After roughly three years there, from about 1975 to 1978, I had built up some good contacts in the film industry, and I came up with what I thought were a couple of good ideas about what would fly in the film marketplace as well.

One of my more brilliant concepts was an idea for a screenplay. This would tell the fictionalized story of none other than Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

I felt so strongly about it, I quit my job. I was out $125 per week.

Making a call to the story department of United Artists in New York where I had some connections, I spoke to a story editor. I introduced myself as being the Managing Editor of Film BULLETIN, and said, “I know you get thousands of phone calls like this, but I have an idea for a film.”

“Let’s hear it,” the woman on the phone said.

“Three words,” I said fearlessly. “Martin and Lewis.”

“Wow,” was the initial reply. “How soon can you have a screenplay on our desk?”

“Two weeks,” I said, thinking that sounded good.

The next call I made was to a high school colleague who graduated college with a degree in theater. I thought it would be a good move to contact someone who knew something about writing a play, which I didn’t.

His name was and is Eric Diamond. He had a wonderful sense of humor, a marvelous sense of theater and of music—remember that Martin and Lewis were as much about music as they were about comedy– and to me, seemed to be the perfect collaborator. We could bounce stuff off each other, and we would become big screenwriters.

Eric, by the way, has carved out a fabulous, 20-plus year career for himself in the theater department of Montclair State College in New Jersey. This guy knew, and knows, theater. He is currently the Chairperson of the Departments of Theater and Dance.

It also seemed to me that Eric, who had taken the plunge and the risk of moving to New York City right after graduating college, had the perfect locale—just off Broadway, as I recall—for two, fledgling screenwriters. This was as close as “let’s put on a show” as one could get circa 1978.

Though Diamond had a theater degree and I had worked as a magazine editor, the two of us had no idea as to the actual “form” that a movie screenplay should take.

We bought a book at a Manhattan book store. I think it was entitled “How to Write a Screenplay.”

I knew the story of Dean and Jerry pretty well from the book that Arthur Marx, Groucho’s kid, had written about them, and Eric Diamond had a good sense of the dramatic, what worked and what didn’t.

We had two weeks to write this thing.

We took individual turns writing sections of the script, which included entire musical sections of what was Martin and Lewis’ actual act at the 500 Club, the Copa, etc.

I was in heaven in New York, and why I didn’t stay, I still can’t say. During my first week in NYC, I grabbed the Times to see who was playing, jazz-wise in the area. Screenwriter or no screenwriter, I was and I am, first and foremost, a jazz drummer, and there was no way I could ignore where I was living, for the moment. On Broadway. I could see Howard Johnson’s when I looked out the window.

In the Times was a small ad for a tourist-type place called “Joe’s Pier 52,” that featured the piano “stylings” of the one and only Mary Napoleon and “his trio.”

Marty Napoleon? Jeez! He was the brother of longtime Gene Krupa pianist Teddy Napoleon (Teddy had passed in 1958), but more importantly, Marty had played with saxophonist Charlie Ventura. I had played with Charlie in Philadelphia several years before, so I had a connection. My goal? To sit in on drums, of course.

I think I schlepped Eric Diamond with me to Joe’s Pier 52. The next thing I knew, I introduced myself to Marty Napoleon and told him of my connection with Charlie Ventura. I was asked to sit in and I evidently, as they say, acquitted myself well.

I was asked to take the job playing drums, but I turned it down, telling Marty that I was occupied writing a screenplay.

Marty Napoleon, by the way, is still very much with us at the age of 88 and recently appeared as a part of the Harlem Jazz Museum’s lecture series in New York city.

Truth be told after all these years, I was scared to death to sever my ties with my hometown of Philadelphia and move to New York, screenplay or no screenplay.

The two week script deadline was approaching. Diamond and I put the finishing touches on our draft, which I think we called “Leave Them Laughing.” We used fictitious names for Martin and Lewis to dodge any possible legal action and registered the work with an organization called The Writer’s Guild of America/East. I don’t think either of us read the thing the whole way through.

I think Eric Diamond lent me a coat and tie for our impending meeting at United Artists in New York City.

We met with a woman who was an executive in the UA the story department. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. She asked us who we had in mind to play Martin and Lewis. I suggested Vic Damone and Charlie Callas. I remember distinctly that she said something about Al Pacino being under contract, and that she mentioned to us, “What if the Jerry Lewis part were played by a woman?”

I told her that the “dynamic” of our work would be changed, but that we were open to anything and that we would rewrite it if necessary. We could have it done in two weeks.

Several weeks later, back in Philadelphia, I received a call from United Artists, saying that they had passed on our screenplay.

I asked why.

“There is no conflict,” I was told. “A movie has to have a conflict that is somehow eventually resolved. Your script is just a straightforward telling, and a good one, of the story of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.”

“But the whole Martin and Lewis story was a conflict,” I replied.

“No one would really care today,” was the United Artists’ verdict.

On November 24, 2002, 24 years after our screenplay on the life of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis was submitted to United Artists, a television movie entitled “Martin and Lewis” aired on CBS Television. Sean Hayes, who starred on the television program “Will and Grace,” played Jerry Lewis. An English actor with a lot of B-movie credits, named Jeremy Northam, portrayed Dean Martin. A good deal of it was based on the Arthur Marx book that Eric Diamond and I used as our source material, and plenty of our shtick was in there. The project supposedly had the blessings of both the Lewis and Martin estates. The reviews of the show were lukewarm. They should have used Vic Damone. And Charlie Callas, too.

I remember trying to call Eric Diamond on the telephone the night the program aired. I couldn’t get through.

After seeing Lewis on television during this year’s telethon, and realizing that this may be one of the last times anyone might even see Jerry Lewis, I was moved to try to contact my collaborator again.

Though I’ve never been interested in reliving anything, perhaps I’m getting sentimental as I grow older. Or, quite simply, I just wanted to make contact with the talented young fellow who co-wrote the screenplay, “Leave Them Laughing,” that could have been made into a major motion picture by United Artists. Starring Al Pacino. And Charlie Callas.

This time, Eric Diamond answered the telephone, and we had a wonderful, long and heart warming conversation about Martin and Lewis and other matters. I think, as usual, I did most of the talking. Mainly about myself.

Eric will be visiting his family in Philadelphia within the coming weeks, and we have made plans to get together. I hope we do. Perhaps we’ll collaborate on something again.

This time, maybe it will be the story of The Ritz Brothers.

Starring Al Pacino.

So what is Jerry Lewis really like?

Let me tell you.

In 2001, I was in the midst of writing and co-producing a Hudson Music video production called “Classic Drum Solos and Drum Battles.” After being involved in a number of Hudson projects through the years–on Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich and various others–I became firmly convinced that the main reason folks bought these things was to hear the drum solos, and that everyone could live without the music portions leading up to it. “Classic Drum Solos and Drum Battles” would be just that. All drums and nothing but.

By the time we were set to go start putting this thing together, I realized I was about eight minutes shy of an hour, the bare, time minimum needed to release this thing to the marketplace.

I received a call, just in the nick of time, from a gentleman who then headed the international Buddy Rich fan club, Charles Braun.

“You won’t believe what I just found,” Charles breathlessly told me over the phone. It’s an eight-minute drum battle from 1955 between Jerry Lewis and Buddy Rich.”

I didn’t believe him. No one had ever heard of the existence of such a thing.

“Charles,” I said, “if this is true, then get it on my desk by tomorrow.”

He did, and it did exist. It was a segment from the television program, “The Colgate Comedy Hour,” which frequently played host to Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The actual segment began as a comedy, featuring Jerry battling Buddy with a bunch of film tricks, various drums and dozens of pairs of sticks (Jerry was a good amateur drummer and the godfather of Buddy’s daughter, Cathy), but gave way to a fabulous, extended workout by Buddy Rich. In terms of time and material, it was just what “Classic Drum Solos and Drum Battles” needed.

I was wary of using it without permission, however. Jerry Lewis was still very much on the scene, and I was told that he kept a pretty close eye on how vintage film — with him in it — was used. I sent a letter to his Las Vegas offices, asking for permission to use the clip in our video, “for the good of jazz education and scholarship.”

Several weeks went by, and I heard nothing. Time was getting short. What was missing from this picture?

I sent the letter to Las Vegas again, this time with a check made out to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

Five days later, on a Saturday morning, the telephone rang at my home.

It was Jerry Lewis.

Forgive me for being star-struck, and I’ve known a lot of celebrities on a personal basis over the years, but it is not every day when Jerry Lewis calls your home.

Buddy Love himself. On the phone with me.

He was personable but very businesslike. I told him, before he even began, that not only was his call sincerely appreciated, but how much of an inspiration he had been to so many of us through the years. He thanked me and told me he knew of my work.

“I’m going to give you permission to use this film,” he told me, “and I’m going to send you a package next week of everything Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa did on the telethon over the years. Use it as you see fit. The only thing I ask is that I be remembered to Cathy and the family for this.”

I assured him that I would let Cathy and Marie Rich know.

“Classic Drum Solos and Drum Battles” was released by Hudson Music in 2001 and continues to do well, spawning two sequels in the process.

During my conversation with Jerry Lewis, there was no mention made of my screenplay, of Eric Diamond or of Al Pacino.

But Jerry Lewis called my house. I hope he will again. Maybe during next year’s telethon.

Chris Connor, last of the triumvirate of the “cool school” of jazz singers that included Anita O’Day and June Christy, died on August 29, at the age of 81, from cancer.

Born Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, MO, Connor studied clarinet for eight years. She first sang publicly–the song was “Amor”– in 1945 at her junior high school graduation.

Three years later, she moved to New York City, hoping to begin a singing career. It only took two months until she joined the “Snowflakes,” the vocal group that was a part of the well-known orchestra led by pianist Claude Thornhill.

She stayed with Thornhill on and off through 1952, then joined the band of Jerry Wald briefly.

In that year, Stan Kenton’s well-known singer, June Christy, announced her attention to leave the band in pursuit of a solo career. Christy had heard Connor singing on a radio broadcast and recommended her to Kenton. She formally joined the band in February of 1953. She stayed a year, constantly touring and recording, and had something of a hit in the form of a song entitled “All About Ronnie.”

Like Christy, Connor left the Kenton band to work as a solo attraction. She moved to New York city in the fall of 1953 and quickly signed a contract with the jazz-oriented, Bethlehem Records. Her first two outings for that label, “Chris Connor Sings Lullabies of Birdland” and “Chris Connor Sings Lullabies for Lovers,” were bestsellers. In 1956 she signed with a bigger label, Atlantic Records, and remained until 1963. Connor was the first, white, female jazz singer to join Atlantic.

Without exception, the productions were superb, and always included the finest jazz players on the scene at the time, from Herbie Mann and Zoot SIms, to Hank Jones and Kenny Burrell. A highlight were two recordings she did in tandem with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and his orchestra.

Connor’s Atlantic years, many believe, were her finest.

As a singer, Chris Connor was not the inventive, risk-taking scat singer that Anita O’Day was, nor was she the manufactured cool of June Christy. Connor had a wonderfully cool but sometimes smoky, throaty sound. Her singular inventiveness came by way of her sound, the way she toyed, subtly with the melody without ignoring the composer’s intentions, and above all, via her eclectic choice of material. Her time was superb and she knew how to use space. In many ways, she was a minimalist, entirely opposite of the style of Anita O’Day.

She could virtually inhabit everything from a simple pops like “I Miss You So” to the complexity of an “All About Ronnie.” And in 1962, she really took a risk, recording a vocal version of avant-garde saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.”

During the Atlantic years, she performed in nightspots all over the country, and sold out most of them. To the public at large, she was the epitome of the “cool jazz singer.”

She left Atlantic Records in 1963 to join a label called FM, started by her manager, Monte Kay. It was not a wise decision, as the label folded the following year. Her career never really recovered totally, and changing tastes didn’t help.

There was always a following for Connor, however, particularly in Japan.

She recorded for various labels through the years, including ABC / Paramount, Japanese Sony, Progressive Records and Highnote. Her final recording, “Everything I Love,” was released circa 2001.

In the critically acclaimed book, “Jazz In Search of Itself,” writer Larry Kart aptly summed up the aura that was Chris Connor.

Cool, breathy, and almost barren of vibrato, Chris Connor’s voice is a haunted house,” Kart said. “Its tone color alone would be enough to freeze the soul, and the way each phrase seems to be exhaled more than sung only increases the impression that in her music Connor must contend with ghostly powers-either that, or she herself is a spirit summoned unwillingly from beyond.”

Quite a statement. But those fortunate enough to see her and hear her would agree.

Connor made a rare visit to Philadelphia about a half-dozen years ago, and jazz singer Joy Adams and I made sure we were at the club, the now-defunct Zanzibar Blue, as often as possible during her engagement.

She was backed by a very, very modern-sounding group that included long-time pianist Mike Abene and drummer Danny Gottleib. She did wonderful business at the venue, sounded great and was surprisingly contemporary. There was no living in the past for Connor. She wasn’t reprising Kenton or anyone else for that matter. Still, we wanted to hear “Ronnie” and were quite taken aback when she said she wasn’t performing it much these days and didn’t even have the music.

“I do, Joy Adams told her.

“So bring it in tomorrow and I’ll see if I remember it,” Connor answered.

She did. It gave us, and the audience, the chills. Chris Connor’s singing could have that effect.

Of her latter-day work, Connor herself said that she wasn’t taking vocal “chances” as much as she once did.

“I haven’t changed my approach, although my voice has become deeper and softer, and I don’t experiment as much,” she explained several years ago. “When you’re young, you overplay as a musician and you over-sing as a singer because you’re trying all these ideas, and I was throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. I’ve eliminated a lot of things I used to do. The simpler it is, the better it works for me.”

Indeed, it worked. For over 50 years.

Maybe Benny Goodman thought the swing era would never end. For him, perhaps it didn’t, as he continued doing what we did from the 1930s onward, rather successfully, until his death in 1986.

In jazz lore, such as it is, it is said there supposedly is not a day that goes by without someone telling a story, somewhere, about the odd and off-putting behavior of “The King of Swing.” Many of the stories, as chronicled by bassist Bill Crow in his book, Jazz Anecdotes, Gene Lees’ Jazzletter and other publications, had to do with what went on during Goodman’s highly publicized tour of Russia in 1962.

There was, however, an earlier instance whereby, some say, The King couldn’t handle what may have been a certifiable career highlight.

Goodman had several triumphs throughout his long career, with the most famous being his groundbreaking jazz concert at Carnegie Hall on January 16, 1938. It was the first time jazz had been presented at that venerable hall, and, believe it or not, as everyone now knows, the darn thing was recorded.

The acetates of the night were given to Benny, but, in typical Goodman fashion, he just ignored them and put them in a closet. Around 1950, he “rediscovered” the sides, took them to engineers at Columbia Records, and no one could believe what they heard.

They were finally issued and not only became best sellers, but spawned a series of other Goodman “discoveries” that were issued on record–mainly live, radio airchecks from 1937 and 1938–that received much attention in the marketplace. They deserved the attention, as they were are fabulous.

BG became convinced that, either the swing era was back, and/or he could capitalize on the popularity of these recorded releases.

He was, by all accounts, very, very enthused. And it wasn’t easy to enthuse Benny. His idea, around 1953, was to recruit as many of the veterans of his 1937-1938 band to get together again and tour. As a special added attraction, and in order to ensure full houses, the tremendously popular Louis Armstrong and the All-stars would join the program. As a grand finale, BG and Pops would do some stuff together.

Sounded like can’t miss material.

Drummer Gene Krupa, pianist Teddy Wilson, trombonist Vernon Brown, trumpeter Ziggy Elman, vocalist Helen Ward, and from a later Goodman band, tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld joined up for the show. Others, like Harry James and Lionel Hampton did not, as they were leaders in their own rights and would not cancel lucrative bookings they had. There was a question of money, always an issue with BG, as well.

Still, it was a great crew, fleshed out by reedmen Willie Smith and Clint Neagly, trombonist Rex Peer, trumpeters Charlie Shavers and Al Stewart, and rhythm guitarist Steve Jordan.

Goodman enlisted the aid of his brother-in-law, the famed record producer and discoverer of talent, John Hammond, to help launch and promote the tour. The relationship between the two was always strained for various reasons–including Hammond being accused of taking credit for Goodman’s successes– but this particular project would bring things to a boil.

The band was assembled, programs were printed, and tickets were sold for the upcoming tour. All sellouts, by the way.

There is evidence that Goodman believed, even before the gigs began, that he didn’t need Louis Armstrong. However, Pops was contracted, and showed up dutifully to rehearse his part in the program.

Here’s where things went wrong, and everyone who was there, including Hammond’s account of it in his autobiography, Steve Jordan in his own book, Bobby Hackett and Georgie Auld who were there at rehearsals, has a different account.

The gist of it is that Goodman and Armstrong finally met for a rehearsal, only days before the tour began, to determine what Armstrong’s role would be in the program, other to serve as “opening act.”

As the story goes, Pops and the All-stars, weary from yet another one-nighter, showed up at the rehearsal hall early the next day, while Goodman was in the midst of drilling his reconstituted big band in yet another rundown of “Don’t Be That Way.”

Armstrong wanted to rehearse his piece of the show with Goodman and get out of there ASAP, as he–and the All-stars–were dead tired. Goodman indicated that Armstrong and the gang would have to wait until he was through rehearsing his own band.

Pops, rightly, was insulted and incensed, and unceremoniously split the scene.

The band had a tryout date in Boston and two, sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall.

“It was clear to observers that Goodman wasn’t himself,” according to John Hammond biographer Dunstan Prial. “Goodman acted erratically, he was drinking more than usual, and that he seemed generally distracted. Finally, barely two weeks into the tour, Goodman apparently collapsed in his hotel room. A week later, he withdrew from the tour, citing health problems.”

Prial’s version shouldn’t be accepted verbatim–his book on Hammond is rife with errors, as he identifies Helen Ward as Helen Humes–but what he described is basically what happened.

What occurred, it appears, is that Armstrong and the All-stars, doing their normal, vaudeville act at the actual show, totally upstaged the Goodman crew. And Benny, with his Mount Rushmore-sized ego, just couldn’t handle it, saw everything slipping away, and just abandoned the tour citing illness as a way of getting out of the tour. Some who were around at the time, however, do say that Goodman was actually very ill. We’ll never know for sure.

It could have been marvelous, if Benny would have just let everyone do what they did. There are thousands of folks out there who would have loved to hear just what things really sounded like.

Goodman never rejoined the tour, and Hammond and promoter Norman Granz threatened to sue BG. An immediate solution in terms of playing the dates that were already booked and sold, came in the form of Gene Krupa, who took over leadership of what remained of the tour, circa May, 1953.

It has long been believed that this band was never recorded.

It was.

A recording of one engagement, under Krupa’s leadership, on May 20, 1953, has come to light, and demonstrates what might have been and what could have been.

In all the years I’ve heard Krupa, under many conditions, I’ve never heard him the way he sounded leading this band. Multiply Buddy Rich’s energy times two, and you’ve got it. From the opening “Let’s Dance,” through “Don’t Be That Way,” some fabulous Ward vocals, through “Sing Sing Sing,” Krupa plays with more energy and sheer power than has ever been captured on record.

In many ways, this recording comes off more like a Jazz at the Philharmonic cutting session, than it does a Goodman band, mainly due to the presence of tenor saxophonist Auld, whose playing throughout veers been that of Illinois Jacquet and Lester Young. And trumpeter Charlie Shavers, always the extrovert, left nothing to the imagination as well.

Of particular interest to Goodman alumni fans, is that these recordings contain the last, great jazz solos of Ziggy Elman and Vernon Brown. Ziggy lost his lip a few years later, and Brown joined the studios.

In an effort to give everyone their money’s worth in lieu of Goodman’s absence, Krupa also threw in an unbelievable Krupa Trio version of Drum Boogie,” featuring Willie Smith and Teddy Wilson, and a drum duel with Armstrong’s Cozy Cole, and an encore of “The Saints.”

Although some are partial recordings (“Sing Sing Sing” cuts off near the end and Armstrong’s formal program has not been included), this recording shows that Benny should have never abandoned the tour.

The only thing missing from all of this is the discipline the Goodman would have demanded over the band. There would have been less showboating by Krupa, Auld and WIllie Smith, and I’m sure, less spirit.

I’ve rather have heard it this way.

What is particularly fascinating, given that Goodman was supposedly deathly ill at the time, is that “someone” decreed that, if the band were to continue without him, there would be absolutely no clarinet solos permitted. Indeed, Georgie Auld takes all the solos Goodman would have. Illness or not, Benny’s ego was evidently still pretty intact.

We, of course, have this very rare recording. It’s something to have.