Drummers - Louie Bellson
Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni (born
1924), better known by the stage name Louie Bellson, is an American jazz
drummer. He is considered to be one of the few drummers whose technical
proficiency is in the league of Buddy Rich.a He is a composer, arranger,
bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use
of two bass drums. He has been called "the world's greatest drummer" by
Duke Ellington (with Ellington saying "Louie Bellson has all the
requirements for perfection in his craft. He is the world's greatest
drummer."). Renowned music critic and journalist Leonard Feather
referred to Bellson as "one of the most phenomenal drummers in history"
and also stated of Bellson that "Musicians and public alike respect him
as a drummer without peer in technique, taste and originality; and as a
composer whose works are a consistently effective fusion of melodic,
rhythmic and harmonic ideas."
Biography
Louie Bellson was born in Rock Falls, Illinois and started playing drums
at three years of age. At age 15, he pioneered the double-bass drum
set-up. His detailed sketch earned him an 'A' in his high school art
class. At age 17, he triumphed over 40,000 drummers to win the
Slingerland National Gene Krupa contest.
Bellson is an internationally-acclaimed artist who has performed in most
of the major capitals around the world. With the exception of Bob Hope,
who has made the most White House appearances, Bellson holds, along with
his late wife Pearl Bailey, the second highest number of White House
appearances.
He has performed and/or recorded scores of albums (approximately 200) as
a leader, co-leader or sideman with such renowned musicians and leaders
such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Harry
James, Woody Herman, Norman Granz' J.A.T.P. (Jazz at the Philharmonic),
Benny Carter, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum,
Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Hank Jones, Zoot Sims, Sonny
Stitt, Milt Jackson, Clark Terry, Louie Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Eddie
"Lockjaw" Davis, Shelly Manne, Billy Cobham, James Brown, Sammy Davis
Jr., Tony Bennett, Pearl Bailey, Mel Tormé, Joe Williams and Wayne
Newton.
Over the years, Bellson has taken several bandleader's holidays to play
under the direction of other leaders or to lead someone else's band.
During the 1960s, he rejoined Ellington for his Emancipation
Proclamation Centennial stage production, My People, the motion picture
soundtrack of Assault on a Queen, and for what Ellington called "the
most important thing I have ever done" -— his Concerts of Sacred Music.
In 1966, Bellson toured briefly with both Basie and ex-boss Harry James.
A few years later, renowned drummer Buddy Rich (referred to by many as
"the world's greatest drummer" over the years) paid Bellson a supreme
drummer-to-drummer/bandleader compliment by asking him to lead his
(Buddy's) band on tour while he (Buddy) was temporarily disabled by a
back injury. Louie proudly accepted.
In 1942, he performed with the Benny Goodman band and Peggy Lee in "The
Power Girl", the first of his many film appearances. Louie was 24 and a
veteran of a U.S. Army band when he joined Danny Kaye, Louis Armstrong,
Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnett, Benny Carter, Mel Powell,
Kenny Dorharn, Harry Babasin, Al Hendrickson, Buck Washington, and
Goodman for Howard Hawks' "A Song Is Born," a movie still shown
sometimes on late, late shows on TV to this day.
As a prolific creator of music, both written and improvised, his
compositions and arrangements (in the hundreds) embrace jazz,
jazz/rock/fusion, romantic orchestral suites, symphonic works and a
ballet. Not known by too many about Bellson, he is also a poet and a
lyricist. His one Broadway venture, Portofino (1958), was a resounding
flop that closed after three performances.
As an author, he has published more than a dozen books on drums and
percussion. He is currently at work with his biographer on a book
chronicling his career and bearing the same name as one of his
compositions -- "Skin Deep".
In addition, The London Suite (recorded in his album "Louie in London")
was performed at the Hollywood Pilgrimage Bowl before a record-breaking
audience. The three-part work includes a choral section in which a
12-voice choir sings lyrics penned by Bellson. Part One is the band's
rousing "Carnaby Street", a collaboration with Jack Hayes.
Bellson has been known throughout his career (up to and including the
present) to conduct drum and band clinics at high schools, colleges and
music stores. Aimed at student musicians of all ages, they are known to
be attended as much by many professional musicians as well as by
youngsters and aspiring drummers.
Bellson has led his own orchestra almost steadily for more than forty
years. His present band is called the Big Band Explosion.
Bellson received his Doctor of Humane Letters in 1985 at Northern
Illinois University. In 1987, at the Percussive Arts Society convention
in Washington, D.C., Bellson and Harold Farberman performed a major
orchestral work titled "Concerto for Jazz Drummer and Full Orchestra",
the first piece ever written specifically for jazz drummer and full
symphony orchestra. This work was recorded by the Bournemouth Symphony
Orchestra in England, and was released by the Swedish label, B.I.S.
Bellson maintains a tight schedule of clinics and performances of both
big bands and small bands in colleges, clubs and concert halls. In
between, he continues to record and compose, resulting in more than 100
albums and more than 300 compositions to date. Bellson's Telarc debut
recording, "Louie Bellson And His Big Band: Live From New York", was
released in June of 1994. He also continues to create new drum
technology for Remo, Inc., of which he is vice president.
Between 1943 and 1952, Bellson performed with Benny Goodman, Tommy
Dorsey, Harry James, and Duke Ellington (for whom he wrote "Skin Deep"
and "The Hawk Talks"). In 1952 he married Pearl Bailey and left
Ellington to be her musical director. Later in the 1950s and 1960s he
performed with Jazz at the Philharmonic or J.A.T.P., Tommy and Jimmy
Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington again, and Harry James again, as
well as appearing on several Ella Fitzgerald studio albums.
Once married to American singer and actress Pearl Bailey, Bellson also
recorded extensively and led his own bands (occasionally maintaining
separate bands on each coast). His sidemen have included Blue Mitchell,
Don Menza, Larry Novak, John Heard, Clark Terry, Pete and Conte Candoli,
and Snooky Young. He was equally effective as a big band drummer and as
a small group drummer.
As of 2005, among other performing activities, Bellson visits his home
town of Rock Falls, Illinois every July for Louie Bellson Heritage Days,
a weekend in his honor close to his July 6th birthday, with receptions,
music clinics and other performances by Bellson. At the 2004 event
celebrating his 80th birthday, Bellson said, appropriately for the
inventor and pioneer of double-bass drumming, "I'm not that old; I'm 40
in this leg, and 40 in the other leg." (Drum! Magazine,
September/October 2004, pg. 30, by Rob Howe.)
In 2006, Mr. Bellson released a CD entitled “The Sacred Music of Louie
Bellson and the Jazz Ballet.”
Awards
Among Bellson's numerous accolades: He has been voted into the Halls of
Fame for both Modern Drummer magazine and the Percussive Arts Society.
Yale University named him a Duke Ellington Fellow in 1977. He received
an honorary Doctorate from Northern Illinois University in 1985. He
performed his original concert-- Tomus I, II, III --with the Washington
Civic Symphony in historic Constitution Hall in 1993. A combination of
full symphony orchestra, big-band ensemble and 80-voice choir, "Tomus"
had been a collaboration of music by Bellson and lyrics by his late
wife, Pearl Bailey. He received the prestigious American Jazz Masters
Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1994. Additionally,
Louie Bellson is a four-time Grammy Award nominee.
In January 1994, Bellson received the prestigious American Jazz Masters
Award from the National Endowment for the Arts, a U.S. federal agency.
As one of three recipients, Bellson was lauded by NEA chair Jane
Alexander who said, "These colossal talents have helped write the
history of jazz in America."
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Bellson
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