Badger Beats
Since the inception of jazz in the early 1900s, Wisconsin has been home to a remarkably rich variety of jazz musicians. Bunny Berigan’s immense talent burst onto the national scene during the Jazz Age before his life was cut short by alcoholism. Les Pau
One was a brilliant star who lost it all at a young age. One is a music icon whose jazz career hides in plain sight. They’re two of the Wisconsin jazz legends profiled in the new book Wisconsin Riffs.
Les Paul, one of the seminal figures in American popular music, is not regarded as a jazz musician by many “jazzers.” And many, if not most, of the people who know of Paul (as the pioneer of the solid body electric guitar, multi-track recording and more) are not aware that he was a jazz musician. But early in his career, and in the last three and a half decades of his life as a performer, he played jazz almost exclusively.
Born as Lester William Polfuss in Waukesha on June 9, 1915, the youngster reportedly first exhibited his deep interest in music by sitting rapt by a harmonica-playing construction worker who was laying sewage pipe on St. Paul Avenue. At the end of the encounter, the worker gave the 8-year-old boy his instrument, and a lifelong career began.
Sometime in the mid-1930s, Lester Polfuss became Les Paul and began playing guitar in a jazz duo with organist Harry Zimmerman on WIND, a Gary, Indiana, station that catered to the South Side Chicago jazz crowd. Paul was also making the scene in Chicago, regularly attending the live performances of Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines and other jazz stars, sitting in wherever he could. He appeared on a series of records with blues singer Georgia White. With guitarist George Barnes, Paul held jam sessions at a club called Barrel of Fun. He also formed a quartet, the Melody Kings, modeled on Django Reinhardt’s famous Quintet of the Hot Club of France.
Shortly after meeting Jimmy Atkins (the older half-brother of Chet), Paul formed a trio with Jimmy and bassist Ernie Newton. In 1937, the trio left town, playing gigs for a touring group on the way to the new center of jazz, New York. The three young musicians joined a legion of other unemployed players in the Big Apple. Apparently, Les had sold the New York trip to his companions in part by pretending that he was close to Paul Whiteman, who led the most successful big music ensemble in the country. They pushed Les into taking them to Whiteman’s office, where of course they were turned away, as Whiteman had no idea who they were. Incredibly, they ran into bandleader Fred Waring in the hallway, and an audition in the elevator led to Waring hiring the trio for his ensemble, the Pennsylvanians.
Waring’s schedule was demanding, but the pay was good, and the three newcomers thrived. In addition to playing with the big orchestra, the trio was also featured on the Waring shows in its original format – and was a hit. Soon, the trio cut its first jazz records, which were favorably reviewed by Down Beat.
At night, Paul continued the routine he had established in Chicago, hanging out and sitting in at clubs with Art Tatum, Ben Webster, Stuff Smith and Roy Eldridge. Everyone’s idea of jazz guitar changed when Charlie Christian hit town; he played in a new style, influenced by the jazz of the Swing Era and the blues of what was then referred to as the Southwest (Christian grew up in Oklahoma City), which was a step in the direction of bebop. It was around this time that Paul began experimenting with guitars, and his tinkering with instruments, as well as other broadcast and recording technology, would continue for decades.
Paul moved to southern California in 1943 and soon established a new Les Paul Trio that got work at the NBC studios making the transcription discs that were sent to troops overseas. They wrangled their way into a movie that was later released as Sensations of ’45. In late 1943, Paul was drafted into the service. However, when the music director at NBC, Meredith Willson, was designated to head what became the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS), he plucked Paul out to be a member of the unit’s orchestra. With the AFRS, Paul formed a new trio and recorded with the likes of Jack Benny, Groucho Marx and Kate Smith. He was discharged in 1944.
Over the next few years, Paul got the opportunity to work with some of the best musicians in the business. A call from Nat Cole in the summer of 1944 led to Paul being a part of the first of Norman Granz’s groundbreaking Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, the most famous and commercially successful “planned” jam sessions in the history of jazz.
In the late 1940s he met the bubbly, talented young country singer Iris Colleen Summers. When she later joined Paul under the stage name Mary Ford, they became one of the great successful duos of the 1950s. But in May 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets released “Rock Around the Clock” and American pop music was changed forever. No longer would the charts be dominated by the likes of Patti Page, Doris Day, Perry Como or Les Paul and Mary Ford. Soon rock and roll took over the airwaves and people stopped buying the music Paul and Ford released.
For a while, Paul was something of a recluse, hanging out in his home studio, occasionally entertaining friends with a jam session or stories from days gone by. An emergency call from jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli in January of 1972 was the spark for Paul’s unlikely comeback. The duo created a stir playing regularly in the St. Regis Hotel in New York City, with such musical celebrities as Count Basie, Doc Severinsen and George Benson dropping by.
In May 1975, Paul went to Nashville to record the album that signaled his full return. Featuring the guitar duo of Paul and Nashville icon Chet Atkins, Chester and Lester was released in 1976 and earned a Grammy award for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 1977. Despite its country “glow,” its tunes are standards largely associated with jazz, and even Down Beat published a rave review. His late-career revival lasted for decades, and Paul put on live performances even into his 90s.
After one of the most celebrated careers in American music, Paul died in White Plains, New York, on Aug. 13, 2009, at the age of 94. While he will probably always be best known for the instruments that bear his name, and secondarily for his innovations in recording technology, Paul’s status as a jazz musician should not be forgotten.