Richard Simon

The late music writer and producer, Stanley Dance, shared the opinion, common in the East, that “Los Angeles was a wasteland dominated by the bad taste of the movie industry.” In his Foreword to Unfinished Dream: The Musical World of Red Callender, Stanley Dance praises the bassist for “the extent to which [Callender’s book] expanded upon the rather scanty existing picture of jazz in Los Angeles.” The picture of jazz in Los Angeles—to those who bothered to look for it—was anything but “scanty.” During the middle third of the 20th century—while jazz also flourished in New Orleans, Chicago, Harlem, Kansas City, and New York’s 52nd Street—Los Angeles’s Central Avenue as vibrant and important a center of jazz music as any of those other places. Like the city that became his home, George “Red” Callender, for decades a mainstay on Central Avenue and the West Coast’s most-recorded bass and tuba player, performing alongside the brightest stars of jazz throughout his lengthy career, seems destined to remain a victim of the tired notion that geography is destiny. (We of the Left Coast are used to being Left Out—as witness the annual ritual of sportswriters bloviating over the Yankees and the Red Sox, with scant coverage of our Dodgers and Giants—until one of them {finally} wins a World Series.) That East Coast Bias as articulated by Stanley Dance is echoed in the current era by Marc Meyers. In a 2020 JazzWax blog post, Meyers pays faint homage to his subject: “Callender may not be a top-of-mind jazz bassist today, but he was hardly a slouch.” Meyers even ascribes to Red a “phantom status,” though acknowledging that he “accompanied nearly every major jazz artist for over seven decades,” and admits that “when he did record as a leader in the 1950s, the results were superb.” Describing a highly-respected artist as “no slouch” with “phantom status” does a disservice to the remarkable career of Mr. Callender. He should be celebrated alone for the fact he played alongside the creme-de-la-creme of jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Erroll Garner, Duke Ellington and countless others. (Oh—lest we forget: Count Basie, too. That’s Red in the desert with the Count’s band in that iconic scene in Blazing Saddles.) Also overlooked are his accomplishments as a band leader, composer and arranger, and the fact that he helped break the color barrier in the television industry. Moreover, few musicians in any genre could match his astonishingly productive career in the studios. (“When I got up to 5,000 [recorded] sides in the mid-50’s, I stopped counting.”) Last July, ISB hosted a Zoom session to honor the late Milt Hinton. Tributes and anecdotes flowed effusively from Rufus Reed, John Clayton, Barrie Kolstein, and others, all attesting to his rare combination of peerless musicianship and amiability. The program limned a portrait of “the Judge,” an artist with enviable qualities he seemed to possess in full and equal measure: virtuosity and generosity. Red Callender (author’s collection) Like Milt, Red Callender stands out as both the consummate team player and, as a leader, a musical force-to-be-reckoned-with, from the early 1930s well into the 1980s. And like the Judge, Red, too, was universally beloved for his humility and his generous soul. The respect he earned among his peerless group of peers was equaled by the love he shared with colleagues and students alike. What did his contemporaries think of him? Fletcher Smith, a pianist who worked with Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, and Billy Eckstine, met Red when the latter first arrived in Los Angeles in the in 1930s. In the voluminous oral history project, Central Avenue Sounds, Smith testifies: “I’ve never seen Red mad about nothing. He always had that beautiful smile on his face. And Red was a hell of a musician. He was another one of those guys who was glad to tell you something if he knew it.” Charles Owens, a still-active, multi-reed virtuoso and band leader who worked with Red in the ’70s and ’80s, says, “I have so many pleasant memories about Red—I could almost write a book about him myself. I was glad to know him. Red was a gentleman—a very quiet guy. He was not a bragger; he let his work speak for him. He had a way how he would act around other people. He’d get there first, let them see you so they could get used to it. Before you know it, you’re friends. He was a great tuba player. A whole school of bass. One of my heroes. A very quiet giant.” While the Judge was the undisputed heavyweight champ of both jazz and studio work in New York, Red Callender rose to—and stayed at—the top of the rankings Out West. For his having played and recorded alongside the aforementioned giants of jazz; waxed countless r & b sessions; contributed significantly to decades of rock and pop music as a charter member of the legendary Wrecking Crew; broken the color barrier at a major television network; composed a hit record; and written a symphony—Red Callender remains an artist deserving wider recognition. [The richest and most engaging material about the life of George Sylvester “Red” Callender can be found in the aforementioned autobiography, Unfinished Dream: The Musical World of Red Callender (London, Quartet Books, 1985). Permission to cite material here from the book has been granted by my friend and the book’s co-author, Elaine Cohen. Unless otherwise indicated, events of Red’s life cited in this article are sourced from their book.] Red did have roots in the East: he was born in Virginia in 1916, schooled in Atlantic City, and moved with his parents to New York upon graduation. From his father, a native of Barbados, he inherited the red hair, freckles, and light-brown eyes. From the age of three, he was mesmerized by music. Radio broadcasts of the bands of Coon-Sanders, Earl Hines, and Isham Jones inspired him. Bordentown (NJ) school’s music director was Professor Alexander Valentine, a veteran of the James Reese Europe band, the first Black jazz band to tour the Continent. There was rigorous instruction in music theory, harmony, and composition to compliment band practice. “I was one of the lucky ones,” Red recalls, “because Professor Valentine saw something in me and took me under his wing.” Red went from peck horn to tuba, and bought his first bass from a schoolmate for $15. He’d start practicing at 4 am and then applied himself to music classes for the first three hours of the school day. “The day I joined the dance orchestra with my bass and tuba,” Red writes, “my whole career began.” During summer breaks he would play tuba with other high schoolers for Banjo Bernie, up and down the Jersey shore. “All summer long,” says Red, “he’d tell us he never made any money, lay a little change on us, give us a meal ticket and take care of our rooms. That was it, but he gave me a chance to see the road, to see how life was being lived, gave me that glimpse of what was ahead.” His move to New York City happened in the depths of the Depression. For a time, Red sold newspapers. Prof. Valentine had given him a letter of introduction to W.C. Handy—though it turned out the composer of “St. Louis Blues” didn’t need a copyist. Red would sometimes accompany his mother to her catering jobs—once, to a party at the apartment of George Gershwin. “His place was all done up in white: walls, furniture, rugs, a fabulous white grand piano. So that’s how the composer of ‘I Got Rhythm’ lived.” By night,his “post-secondary” music education swung into high gear. He’d hang out in front of the Rhythm Club on 7th Avenue in Harlem just to catch a glimpse of Chu Berry, Pops Foster, Jimmie Lunceford, Coleman Hawkins, Chick Webb. Standing 6‘2“, under-age Red had no problem being admitted to clubs where he’d hear bassist Wellman Braud with Duke Ellington’s band. “I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing,” he recalls. He befriended Roy Eldridge and Harry “Sweets” Edison. Occasionally, he’d bring his tuba to sit in with Art Tatum at Jimmy Owens’s. His skill on the tuba as well as the bass came to the attention of bandleaders who began hiring him to tour Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the Upper Midwest. Blanch Thompson and the Brownskin Models toured all the way to California, where Red would jump off the band bus. No one then could have known that he would become, in the words of jazz archivist Steven Isoardi, “one of the most stalwart members of the jazz scene in Los Angeles, as well as being an international presence, for more than fifty years.” He immediately made his way to the “main stem” of jazz on the West Coast: Los Angeles’s Central Avenue. “Central Avenue,” Red recalls, “was a carnival of life, music and action.” Again—despite “scanty” national publicity—there was as much high-level jazz activity “out there” as anything seen and heard “back East.” Ironically, Red discovered a bit of a continental divide: no one in LA had yet heard of either Roy Eldridge or Art Tatum. Red was immediately in demand: Nat Cole came to town and formed a trio with Red on bass and Lee Young, brother of Lester Young, on drums. The three of them gigged together and also picked up work as movie extras, appearing in films that featured Bette Davis, Peter Lorre, and Jack Benny. Along the way, Red composed some tunes and did some arranging for Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington. After giving notice to the Brownskin Models organization, Red accepted an offer to join Buck Clayton’s band for a brief tour. One night one of the band’s singers “swished by and knocked the bass off the stand,” breaking the neck of the instrument. Soon Red acquired the first of his two Morelli basses. He was asked to spell an ailing Pops Foster in another band, this one performing at the Vogue Ballroom. “The salary was $85 a week. That was my entry into the big time.” Oh—and this band’s leader was Louis Armstrong. Their shows were aired nightly on the radio. The night of the first broadcast, the new...

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