Second Timex All-Star Jazz Show Celebration: The Rehearsals, Part 1

By popular demand, we’re back today to begin a new series of posts devoted to the second Timex All-Star Jazz Show, as broadcast on April 30, 1958. For those who might have missed it, back in January we posted a six-part series on the fourth and final Timex All-Star Jazz Show from January 7, 1959, heavy on the previously unpublished photographs of Maynard Frank Wolfe, who attended all the rehearsals. The response to that series was so favorable, we’ve decided to do it again!

A few caveats up front: this won’t be a six-part series as we don’t have the 300+ photos we had for the 1959 show–instead we only have bout 190! But also, last time we had the script, the rehearsal times, and the run of show so it was possible to share the photos in the approximate order they were taken. We don’t have any of that this time and in fact only have two settings for the photos: a first rehearsal gathering and a second “dress” rehearsal on the soundstage. But we do have these unpublished Maynard Frank Wolfe photos and we have the space to share them, so let us begin!

As a way of backstory, the first Timex All-Star Jazz Show aired live on NBC on December 30, 1957, as hosted by Steve Allen. It was the brainchild of Oscar Cohen, Joe Glaser’s associate at Associated Booking Corporation, thus was heavy on acts Glaser booked, including Louis Armstrong, Woody Herman, Dave Brubeck, and Carmen McRae; there was even an All Stars “alumni” band of sorts with Jack Teagarden, Marty Napoleon, Arvell Shaw, Cozy Cole, future All Star Peanuts Hucko, and honorary All Star Bobby Hackett.

The show created plenty of buzz but when it came time for Timex to sponsor another such special, the affair was moved to CBS, where it would be hosted by Gary Moore, then perhaps best-known for the prime-time gameshow I’ve Got a Secret. Publicity began in early April, with multiple outlets noting that the show would feature Erroll Garner’s trio, Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker’s Quartet, and Jack Teagarden’s band with Henry “Red” Allen; in the end, Mulligan and Teagarden appeared, but there was no Baker, Ruby Braff replaced Red Allen, and George Shearing’s group substituted for Garner.

Some of the publicity for the show noted that jazz was going through a golden period on television; in addition to the first Timex All-Star Jazz Show from December 30, 1957 there had been the legendary “The Sound of Jazz” episode of CBS’s Seven Lively Arts from December 8, 1957, NBC was airing The Subject is Jazz on Saturdays, and on April 9, NBC hosted a prime-time “colorcast,” Swing Into Spring, featuring Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald among others. Here’s a John Crosby article about the sensation, hinting at a possible outcome that did not come remotely true:

But even with all the talent booked for the Timex show, much of the publicity focused on the one ringer, pop singer Jaye P. Morgan, who had had five number hits for RCA Victor in the preceding years but wasn’t exactly thought to be the cream of the jazz crop:

Morgan was also the center of a cartoon by “Patch” that ran in numerous papers (this one comes from Brooklyn’s Canarsie Courier on April 28), surrounded by Louis Armstrong, Gary Moore, Gene Krupa, and George Shearing:

I did manage to find one article that featured an interview with Lionel Hampton, giving quotes very similar to Louis’s, right down to expression admiration for Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk:

On April 27, Margaret McManus of the Virginian-Pilot wrote a profile of Moore which apparently caught the host at a rehearsal for the Timex show. After listing the special guests, McManus wrote, “Moore is wandering among these lads like a small boy with a pocketful of pennies for spending in a country candy store. Rehearsals to him are untold bliss. He probably isn’t exaggerating too much when he says he would gladly do the show for nothing.”

Thus, rehearsals must have already been taking place by April 26, four days before the live broadcast. At some point, it was decided to open up one of the rehearsals to numerous photographers. I can spot Jerry Dantzic and Sam Shaw in some photos and of course, there’s Maynard Frank Wolfe, the man who took nearly 200 photos and eventually sold the negatives to Jack Bradley. Thanks to Jack saving them and Mike Persico discovering them, we can now share posts such as this one.

Like the 1959 negatives, I’ve done searches on Newspapers.org, Archive.org, the Lantern Media History site, RIPM’s Jazz Periodical database, and old-fashioned Google, and I’ve never seen a single photo published anywhere, not to mention any photo spreads or features. But we have Wolfe’s photos and with the preamble out of the way, we’ll begin with the first batch of rehearsal photos.

We’ve grouped these photos together because Louis is wearing a sports jacket, meaning he had probably just arrived. Here he is surveying the scene; even the people in the background are smiling:

Warming up on his mouthpiece as he’s greeted by George T. Simon, who wrote the scripts for all four Timex All-Star Jazz Shows:

A slightly more serious shot:

I’m not sure who the blurry man is in the foreground, but that’s Lionel Hampton’s long-time guitarist Billy Mackel in the background, as Armstrong continues observing:

Eventually Louis wandered over and found two close friends–and iconic percussionists–Lionel Hampton and Gene Krupa. Wolfe followed them over and snapped a few unposed photos of the three giants in conversation:

It seems clear that they didn’t know they were being photographed, judging by the serious expression on Armstrong’s face:

Wolfe must have finally asked them to pose for a photo, but Hampton and Armstrong were still looking off camera during the first attempt:

This one’s a little better:

Eventually, Armstrong unleashes one of his trademark smiles–but in Krupa’s direction!

This might be my favorite of the bunch, as the three share a hearty laugh:

Wolfe’s last attempt is on the blurry side, but is still worth sharing for the joy conveyed:

Eventually the jacket came off and it was time for Louis to get down to business. We have almost 80 photos of Louis at this rehearsal in his checkered shirt and will save some for part two, but here’s some of the best images of Louis rehearsing with his All Stars: trombonist Trummy Young, clarinetist Edmond Hall, pianist Billy Kyle, bassist Mort Herbert, and drummer Danny Barcelona.

Wolfe’s camera definitely took a liking to drummer Barcelona, who didn’t appear in a whole lot of photos from the 1959 rehearsal; maybe that’s because Wolfe took so many here! Here’s a few more:

Ruby Braff didn’t play along with the All Stars on the telecast, but he couldn’t resist joining in at the rehearsal:

I believe it’s also worth sharing the words of George T. Simon himself, who wrote an article in 1972, “The Louis Armstrong I Knew.” In it, he opens by remembering the last time he saw Louis, walking in Manhattan from a doctor’s appointment in 1970. Louis introduced Simon to his wife Lucille as “My television man,” which prompted these remembrances by Simon, which we’ll intersperse through today’s remaining photos.

“Louis and I had worked together on all four of his big national network television jazz specials. That had almost been a decade ago, but Louis still remembered. And so did I. In fact, how could I forget! For while working closely with Louis throughout all those shows, I finally was given the opportunity to see this great jazz star as he really was–a warm, simple, direct, unpretentious gentleman–a true professional in every sense of the word.”

“Those were quite some sessions, too. The shows were invariably overbooked and that meant that nobody really had too much time to do his thing, either on the show or during rehearsals. Some of the jazz artists on those shows grew pretty tight under such conditions. But never Louis. He would wait around patiently, either talking with other performers or else withdrawing into the background, sitting quietly in a chair somewhere, just as though he might have been out on the back porch, maybe rubbing his lips gently with that salve he always carried around, until somebody would tell him it was almost time to go on. Then he’d take a few warm-ups on his horn, stride onto the stage in that relaxed, gazelle-like lop of his and off he’d be.”

“On the show, he always played well, though never as brilliantly as he could play. That’s because Louis, a thorough professional, had, through years of experience, decided that discretion was the better part of valor, that it was better to play it safe whenever he got in front of large audiences–and on our shows that were always many millions watching and listening–than to reach for new heights.”

“But those rehearsals–they were something else again! I can’t remember ever having heard him blow as brilliantly as he did during some of those prebroadcast sessions. For then there was no pressure–no big public listening–no need to play it safe. And so Louis would relax and just blow–not just the tried (and sometimes trite) and true licks he so often relied upon to make sure he’d get through his personal appearances without a goof–but loose and relaxed and very much more daring and exciting. I remember how the musicians–and those show featured so many great ones, Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge, Coleman Hawkins, Gene Krupa and many more–would gather ’round during those rehearsals, just standing there and listening with reverent attention.”

One can take issue with Simon’s assessment of Armstrong’s playing–ask any trumpeter if it sounds like Armstrong was “playing it safe” with the All Stars in the 1950s–but clearly, those rehearsals left quite an impression. We don’t have any recordings of the rehearsals but we have plenty more photos and will share them next time!