Remembering Dick Ames

Dick Ames fell in love with jazz when it was America’s popular music in the 1930s, went on to play cornet with a college dance band, became a lawyer, formed a Dixieland-style ensemble that lasted more than 50 years and founded the Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse. Ames died on December 28, 2017, while in hospice care near his home in Fayetteville, N.Y. He would have celebrated his 98th birthday on December 30. Four years ago The American Rag published a lengthy profile of the then-95-year-old Central New York bandleader headlined, “Jazz of all trades.” That idiomatic metaphor referred to Ames’ multi-faceted role in the Upstate trad-jazz scene. As the founder of the still-extant Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse in 1972, he presided over countless JASS board meetings and planning sessions. He wrote the club’s by-laws and applied for non-profit status. When a concert approached, he ordered and delivered stage decorations. He hauled and set up the sound system, then ran the board during the performances. And he played cornet while leading his own Bear Cats Jass Band, personally recreating the authentic sounds of America’s most spirited music. The Bear Cats’ theme song is “Blue Turning Grey Over You,” the bittersweet ballad by Fats Waller and And