In 1952, the Gibson Guitar Company unveiled a new instrument at a special event featuring star guitarists Tony Mottola, George Barnes, and Mundell Lowe. It was to present the first version of what came to be the iconic Les Paul line of guitars. That line long reigned as a dominant model favored by a host of famous guitarists such as B.B. King, Sheryl Crow, Al Di Meola, Jerry Garcia, Muddy Waters, Paul McCartney, and far more.
One evening, more than a half century later, Les Paul sat alone on stage as his audience filed in. Something was wrong with his guitar, so he worked on it for some time. Finally satisfied he leaned into the mic and said, “I should have brought a Fender.”
In addition to his humor and renowned musicianship, he was also an inventor who changed the sound of music. I spoke to him several times and knew several long-time members of his band. They had great stories about their legendary leader: His arthritic hands were in constant pain, and he struggled just to reduce the pain in order to play. He only wanted to play small venues so he could be close to his audiences, and he told me that if ever he could no longer play, he would still perform as a comedian.
For many years, the best place to see him was at his weekly Monday night gig at the Iridium in New York City. Normally that is the night most such establishments stayed closed. For the chance to see the legend, however, a line of potential patrons usually stretched down the block. I once heard a young musician say he had only recently learned that his guitar was named after a real person, and he hoped to get him to sign it. His chances were great, as Paul loved interacting with his fans.
He lived to be 94 and died a multi-millionaire. No doubt there are millions of Les Paul guitars, but the guitarist Les Paul was a true “one and only.”
Success came early. By the early 1930s his band did several daily CBS radio shows in Chicago, and earned far more than the average Depression Era worker—playing bluegrass country music. When that band broke up, however, he followed his heart to play jazz with the likes of Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, and Roy Eldridge.
He soon noticed that Chicago’s jazz clubs paid poorly. “My pay dropped to $5 a week, and I said there is something wrong with this picture. So, I went back to where the money was and formed a group called Les Paul and His Melody Kings. It was a real swinging group that could turn around and do country. In the morning, we were Rhubarb Red and the Scalawags doing the country stuff. In the afternoon and evening, we were the Melody Kings. I had the best of both worlds and that made me happy.”
Art Tatum was impressed that the new guitarist he was playing with played so well as “Rhubarb Red” on radio, he long continued to address him with “Hello Red. How you doing?” Paul, however, soon felt he needed a change. “It was a lot of fun in Chicago, but I’d reached as far as I could go. So I said I’m going to flip a coin—New York or LA. I flipped the coin and it came down New York.”
“So, we got a job doing country music with this outfit touring the Northeast. When we got to New York, within a week we landed a job with Fred Waring five nights a week, twice a night, coast to coast. The great part of it was when we were heading for New York, members of my group said, ‘Who do we know in New York?’ I said, ‘Well Paul Whiteman, and I are very close friends.’ I’d never met Paul Whiteman, but they believed it.”
“When we got to New York they immediately looked up Paul Whiteman’s phone number and said ‘Here’s your buddy’s phone number, give him a yell.’ So, I called Whiteman’s office and his secretary said, ‘We are not looking for anybody.’ My friends asked, ‘What did Paul say?’ ‘Well, I talked to his secretary, and she said come right over.’
“We went over, and when they saw us coming with instruments, the door closed in our faces. We’re standing in the hallway and just then stepping from the men’s room was Fred Waring. His office and bathroom were being renovated, so he was using Paul Whiteman’s facilities. I said, ‘Aren’t you Fred Waring?’ He said, ‘Yeah, but I’m not looking for any more Pennsylvanians.’ I said, ‘Well, the elevator is down on the main floor. Could we play till it gets here?’ He said, ‘There’s no law that says you can’t.’”
(photo by William Gottlieb)
“We played After You’ve Gone, and he said, ‘Get in the elevator.’ The elevator went to this enormous rehearsal hall, and he stopped his rehearsal and said, ‘I ran into some hillbillies here. Oh no, I’ve run into the Mozart String Trio, and I want you to hear them.’ I said, ‘Mr. Waring it’s the Ozark String Trio.’ And he said, ‘Funny yet too.’ We played After You’ve Gone again. Everybody applauded, and he said, ‘Well you guys are hired.’ That’s how I got to New York.”
New York proved the perfect place for Paul, and he had the perfect attitude for it. While violent racism was sadly so common in much of our country while he was growing up, it wasn’t in his parent’s home. “I never heard a racial word during my upbringing. My dad had no difference between one man and the other man, and at my dad’s funeral one pallbearer was black, one was Jewish, one was Polish and one was German. So, I grew up in a darn good environment.”
He once explained to me, “Whether its Charlie Christian, or Bucky Pizzarelli or John Pizzarelli, there is music everywhere. You learn everywhere. I just love to play jazz. Eventually, I knew that’s not where the people are. The people want to hear the melody. So, when I make a record, I’m making that record for the people, not for me. People like Stan Kenton would say, ‘Les how do you do it? You are making hit after hit after hit.’ And I said, ‘It’s simple. I don’t educate thease people. I give them what they want to hear.’ And that was the key to it; we play not for the musicians, but for Joe Public. Then, of course, I manage to throw in all the licks I learned from all the great players. You can hear Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, everything in there. I would play that, but I’d still play “commercial”—which was almost a dirty word.”
“I look at it the same way down at the Iridium. The people come there to be entertained and if they want to gladly spend their money and they enjoy themselves that makes me happy. I’m not there to educate those people; I’m there to entertain them. That’s where I get my kicks.”
He quickly found his way into Harlem’s flourishing jazz scene and into trouble. The powerful musician’s union had outlawed musicians just jamming in public places without being paid, which was exactly what the Paul was doing.
“I would regularly be up for a fine and Fred Waring would kill it.” Finally, his curious boss asked Paul to explain how and why he was getting into trouble. “I said, ‘Fred, the music is up in Harlem with the black people. Their creative is a million times ahead of us, and I’m going to jam with guys I can learn from.’” Waring soon made his own trip uptown and was converted. He protected Paul until the restrictive rule was discarded.
John Colianni, Paul’s last pianist, loved this story he heard his famous boss tell many times: “Art Tatum was Les Paul’s idol. They struck up a great friendship when Les lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, right near where Bix had cashed it in some years before. Les had an automobile, and used to drive Art to cutting contests. Cutting contests were like jam sessions, in these cases groups of pianists taking turns at a piano and trying to top each other. It was like a battle of musical gladiators, and the Harlem scene was famous for them.”
“Art called Les one morning and said, ‘Les there is a big cutting contest in Newark, New Jersey.’ Les said, ‘Okay, I’ll drive you out to Newark.’ They drove to an older building, walked up about seven flights and into a large room. Les heard a fabulous stride piano player, probably Don Lambert, and there were similar great players around. Les saw the usual provisions for a cutting contest: a battered upright piano, a metal tub filled with ice and beer, and other refreshments. Then he saw in a corner of the room a nude dead body on a board used to drain fluids from a body. He gasped and said, ‘Art, what the hell, there is a stiff over there.’ Art said, ‘Oh yeah…. this place is a mortician’s workroom. He has a piano and lets us have our contests here, because nobody complains about the noise.’ Les managed to get used to that, and focused on the session. They stayed there more than 24 hours, drinking beer and making unforgettable music that should have been recorded.”
Colianni added, “That story is so telling of a lot of what jazz is about. First the aspect of the friendly competitive nature of pianists, secondly the willingness to play under whatever circumstances are available. I love that story. It brings out what the scene was really like.”
Les Paul continued to jam in Harlem with and learn from many of the greats such as Chu Berry, Don Costa, Roy Eldridge, and many others. However, he got into trouble another way. His neighborhood was home to many musicians including standouts such as Lionel Hampton, Jo Stafford, and Bob Crosby. Converting the basement storage space in his apartment building, Paul soon gave them a venue to play whatever and whenever they loved.
His interest in electronics also added another dimension. Paul said, “I had a transmitter and an illegal radio station in the basement because we had all these musicians living within a three-block area. I thought it would be fun to invite the guys to jam and then everyone in their apartments could listen to that broadcast around the neighborhood.” It became popular enough to gain two sponsors, “Gus’s Delicatessen and a beer joint around the corner. So, we had pizza and all the beer you could drink there.”
The local spot was too alluring to resist. Paul smiled as he remembered, “I never saw so much talent: Ernie Cassara, Vido Musso, Joe Sullivan, Bunny Berigan, Bob Zurke, Lionel Hampton, Roy Eldridge, Bobby Hackett, and on and on. Many of them had to play arrangements all week. None of them got a chance to play what they wanted to play.”
Paul was especially pleased. “I’m with Fred Waring playing all this commercial stuff and all of a sudden at home on my radio station I’m with Lester Young playing Lester Leaps In. And, I’m playing his stuff.”
Then the FCC knocked on the door. “Little did we know that we were going from the 59th Street Bridge all the way to Corona. We had a lot stronger signal than we thought we had.” Airport officials complained that the station’s signal was interfering with planes landing at a local airport. Evidently, the FCC officials liked the music since they didn’t kill the little station or bring charges. Instead, they rigged wave traps to limit the signal and the fun continued for a few years until Paul suffered a life-threatening accident.
One night he reached into the transmitter, “I had the guitar in one hand and I reached over to pull out a tank coil, it’s a big round piece of plastic pipe with wire wound around it, and I got electrocuted. I couldn’t breathe. I pulled the equipment down and was unconscious on the floor. My bass player and very dear friend, Ernie Nooton, realized I wasn’t kidding. He threw the master switch and they took me to the hospital.”
He remained in the hospital for about a month and discovered that he had to relearn how to play the guitar. He gave his notice to Fred Waring as he couldn’t work, and soon left the city for the next great chapter of his life, but that is another story.
Schaen Fox is a longtime jazz fan. Now retired, he devotes much of his time to the music. Write him at foxyren41@gmail.com.
