Trumpeter Lionel Ferbos RIP

[Mike Schwartz]

http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/201 ... enu_1.html


Trumpeter Lionel Ferbos, who enjoyed a late-in-life celebrity as the oldest active jazz musician in New Orleans, died early Saturday, July 19. He celebrated his 103rd birthday two nights earlier, on July 17, at a party at the Palm Court Jazz Café, a favorite venue of his.

Mr. Ferbos was the personification of quiet dedication to craft. Even some residents of his 7th Ward neighborhood, he once said, didn't realize he was a musician — they knew him as a master tinsmith who had taken over his father's sheet metal business. That occupation sustained him and his family for decades.

But he always nurtured a musical career on the side.

"He proved that the greatness of the city of New Orleans is that ordinary people can be extraordinary on a daily basis," said trumpeter and New Orleans Jazz Orchestra founder Irvin Mayfield. "Everyone has an opportunity to be something special. The culture gives us the opportunity. He was an example of that."

His life in music spanned the Roosevelt administration to the Obama administration, the Great Depression to the Internet era. Louis Armstrong was only 10 years his senior, but Mr. Ferbos outlived Armstrong by more than 40 years.

A self-described "melody man," Mr. Ferbos was never a "hot" player -- he wasn't flashy, or prone to showy improvisation. He never promoted himself as a bandleader or soloist -- his horn was part of whatever ensemble he was with at the time. As a result, he made relatively few recordings in his lifetime.

Born in 1911, he represented one of the last living links to the earliest years of jazz. His understanding of traditional jazz, and how to play it, was formulated by primary sources unavailable to musicians today. As a result, his style was subtly different, especially his sense of time.

With Mr. Ferbos and his contemporaries, "there's a certain way that they play melodies -- it's a different beat, a different rhythm," Mayfield said. "When you listen to King Oliver or Jelly Roll Morton, you hear it. I would describe it like sitting on the note, as opposed to playing in back of the note. Every time I played with Mr. Ferbos, that was apparent to me. That's one of the lost things that we won't be able to hear in person again."

The asthma he suffered as a boy made Mr. Ferbos an unlikely candidate to take up an instrument requiring lung power. But at age 15, he saw Phil Spitainy's All Girl Orchestra at the Orpheum Theater and was inspired.

"I thought, 'If they can do it, I can do it,' and I went and bought a used cornet at a pawn shop on Rampart Street," he recalled in a 2007 interview.


He subsequently took lessons that cost 25 cents. His first professional gigs were in the early 1930s with society dance bands — the Moonlight Serenaders, the Starlight Serenaders -- that played waltzes, quadrilles, pop songs and ragtime from written scores. He worked at dance halls in and around New Orleans, including the Pelican Club, San Jacinto Hall, the Autocrat Club, the Southern Yacht Club and the New Orleans Country Club.

Later, with other bands and bandleaders, he worked the Melody Inn, the Autocrat Club and the Happy Landing. He joined a vaudeville show called "Dashing Dinah." He was the lead trumpet player in a Works Progress Administration jazz band during the Great Depression.

In the 1970s, he played trumpet for the house band of the musical "One Mo' Time," but declined to move with the show to New York. He toured Europe several times with the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra. A skilled reader of sheet music, he wrote charts for the Danny Barker-led Fairview Baptist brass bands that helped revive the brass band tradition.

More recently, he fronted the Palm Court Jazz Band weekly at the Decatur Street traditional jazz cafe, his home away from home, as well as his own Louisiana Shakers. He remained a steadfast advocate of "foot-tapping," danceable, traditional jazz.

Across the decades, he never stopped honing his craft. As long as he entertained audiences at nightclubs and festivals — well into his 102nd year — he also practiced religiously at home.

"There was nothing more beautiful that to watch this man in his 90s, and then at 100, and then 101, saying that he had to practice," Mayfield said. "I'd call his house and they'd say, 'Paw-Paw is practicing.'"

In 2007, Mr. Ferbos recalled a "young" trumpet player of 72 who sought the secret of his longevity. "I told him, 'I practice hard, and I still got my teeth,'" Mr. Ferbos said.



Over the past decade or so, he received more attention and accolades that at any point in his career. His longevity became his claim to fame, a fact that was not lost on him. Being the oldest active jazz musician in New Orleans — and possibly the world — had a cachet to it. He clearly earned the Lifetime Achievement Award he received at the 2003 Big Easy Awards — at that point, he had been a working musician for 70 years.

Modest by nature, he loved the attention he received late in life, even if he didn't necessarily seek it. At gigs, he was there to do a job. Ultimately, that job was pleasing the public.

As long as his health allowed, Mr. Ferbos reveled in going out on the town, especially to either play or listen to music. Ever the courtly Creole gentleman, his soft-spoken wit and easy smile charmed those who encountered him.

For his 100th birthday in 2011, the Palm Court Jazz Café hosted a gala celebration. The event sold out quickly. Mr. Ferbos spent most of the evening — more than two hours — on stage with an all-star jazz band, playing, singing, or just taking it all in. USA Today profiled him in advance of the party. The New York Times dispatched a writer to cover the event, which stretched past 11 p.m.

"A friend was like, 'That's kind of a late party for a 100-year-old man,'" Krystle Ferbos, a granddaughter who recently had graduated from law school, said that night. "But this is how he rolls. He likes to go out."

In August 2013, he and the Louisiana Shakers were featured for one of the monthly house party concerts Mayfield hosts at his home in the Broadmoor neighborhood. Mr. Ferbos brought tears to the eyes of some attendees as he sang "When I Grow Too Old to Dream" in a gravelly voice that gave the lyrics an added poignancy. Despite a nearly 70-year age gap, he and Mayfield sat side by side, finding common ground as they raised their trumpets in tandem. After the gig, Mr. Ferbos gladly accepted congratulatory pecks on the cheek from a progression of women decades younger than him.

This year, however, he slowed down considerably. He last performed publicly on March 30 for a Sunday afternoon gig at the "Nickel-a-Dance" traditional jazz series at the Maison on Frenchmen Street. He missed both the 2014 French Quarter Festival and the 2014 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, both of which had featured him for decades.

He grew increasingly frail in recent months, confined to a relative's home. Palm Court proprietor Nina Buck had offered to bring his 103rd birthday party to him on July 17, but members of his family insisted he would prefer to celebrate at the club. Far too weak to perform, Mr. Ferbos instead posed for pictures and greeted dozens of well-wishers in what turned out to be his final public appearance.

He outlived his wife of 75 years, Marguerite Gilyot, who died in 2009, as well as his son, Lionel Ferbos Jr., who died of cancer in 2006. Survivors include his daughter, Sylvia Schexnayder, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

[Ron Thorne]

I was headed to our computer to post this news when I saw your post, Mike. Thanks.

What a story line. What a life! Lionel Ferbos was the oldest living jazz musician at 103 years of age.




R.I.P., Lionel Ferbos~




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDVkjNj36og

[Mike Schwartz]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHArkoHncw