Lou Donaldson and Me…

I started on the clarinet when I was 9 or 10 years old. There was an Alcoa Aluminum plant in my hometown and the company had a band, which, of course, was all white. My mother went over to the bandleader and spoke to him. I have no idea what my mother said but he gave her a clarinet to give to me...From time to time the Alcoa band would have some tough music to play. They’d call my mother, who could play anything on the piano. She was a music teacher in town. When her students missed notes, she’d have a switch to encourage them to make the notes the next time. That’s why I was the only one in my family who didn’t play piano. I didn’t want to get whacked with that switch.
Lou Donaldson

I was walking by the band room one day, and I hear this squeaking and squeaking and squeaking. I'm like, 'What's all that?' I stuck my head in the door, 'Who the f*ck is making all that noise?' And the band director said "Whatchu talkin' 'bout?" And I said, 'Man, that's the worst clarinet I ever heard. Give me that thing.' He said "Okay", so he put some music up, you know, a Barnum and Bailey march or something. I knew every thing because I played this in college. So I played. He said, "What's your name? You're the best clarinet player I've heard. You play saxophone too?" I said, 'Yeah.' I lied, I had never touched a saxophone, but he didn't know. He gave me a saxophone and a clarinet and said, "Take this back to the barracks and just start practicing. I'll call you when I can get you into the band." He called me about two weeks later, and by that time, I had the saxophone under my belt. And that's how I got in the band.
Lou Donaldson joining the US Navy band and becoming an alto saxophonist

***Good Gracious! (1963) signed by Lou, John Patton, Ben Dixon***

My first encounter with Bird was unbelievable. I went to a place in Chicago where Gene Ammons played. Ammons had a great band, of course, everyone in there was using 'vitamins'...and this guy was laying over in the corner sleeping. He looked like a bum. Finally, somebody came in there and said, "Can you get him to play one?" I'm looking around, I didn't know who they were talking about. So finally, I went over there and woke him up. Somebody gave him a saxophone...he didn't have a saxophone, his saxophone was in the pawn shop. And man, you talk about playing a horn. I had never heard anything like that in my life. That made me almost go crazy, because the tone seems like it would cut right through your chest...that cat was playing some stuff! And I had never heard nothing like that before. I said, 'Who the hell is that?' Guy says, "That's Charlie Parker"...I knew that was something nobody else could do, and I was going to be one of the first ones to get on board with it.

Lou Donaldson meeting Charlie Parker for the first time, circa 1944

Then I heard Charlie Parker and my whole approach to the saxophone changed. I got what he was doing instantly. I had seen him a few years earlier in Chicago... when he was with Billy Eckstein’s band. Parker was so messed up he could hardly play anything. The suit he wore looked like he had been wearing it for six months. At first, I thought he was a bum. Then someone told me he was the guy I liked so much on the Jay McShann records... I still it, “The Jumping Blues” with Jay McShann in 1942, which had “Sepian Stomp” on the other side. I played that record until you could see the aluminum in the disc. Parker was the only one playing that way even then, and all of us were trying to figure out what he was doing.
Lou Donaldson

***The Sermon! (1958) signed by Lou, Jimmy Smith, Kenny Burrell***

Blues is jazz. If it wasn't blues, it sounds like other music. A note is a note, but when you play a note with a blues feeling, it sounds different from other notes. I've heard a million guitar players play the shit out of a guitar, but non of them sounds like B.B. King. You know why? Because of the way he bends his notes on the guitar. The blues, if you never had 'em, you can't play 'em. You can't play the blues when you're at home, and Mama and Papa are paying the rent. You can't play the blues. Now, when you get married, and you have two or three kids, and the first of the moth is coming up, you start feelin' 'em! You watch musicians, you listen to 'em in their 20s and 30s, and listen to 'em when they get be 50 and 60. There's a different sound in that music.
Lou Donaldson

***Signifyin’ (1963) signed by Lou, John Patton, Ben Dixon***

We made about 10 or 15 hit records. The biggest one we made, “Alligator Boogaloo,” we made the date and we were three minutes short. I said, 'We don’t have no more material.' And the guy said just play anything for three minutes so we can fill out the time. So I just made the riff and naturally, the guys could follow it. That’s the only damn thing that sold on the record. All that other stuff we had been rehearsing, our relatives wouldn’t even buy it. Music is a funny thing. Sometimes it’s what you don’t do that works. That’s what happens today. Too many cats are playing past the money, you know what I mean? They want to play like Trane, and Trane played past the money. See, if he played the joints where I played, they’d throw him out after one song.
Lou Donaldson on his biggest hit, "Alligator Boogaloo"

***Alligator Boogaloo (1967) signed by Lou, Dr. Lonnie Smith***

Ninety years young, Lou Donaldson was still blowing a formidable alto saxophone when I saw him perform recently at the Blue Note in New York City. Though diminutive in stature, he was a commanding presence when he ascended the small stage accompanied by his fine musicians, Mike LeDonne on Hammond B3 organ, Eric Johnson on guitar, and a "young lion", the ferocious McClenty Hunter on drums. Lou introduced his accomplished band mates, then he said, "Tonight, we're going to play straight ahead jazz. There will be no fusion, no confusion. No Kenny G, no Spyro Gyra, no Heavy D, no Snoop Doggy Dogg, and no Fifty Cent, 'cause he ain't worth a quarter." The first song was "Blues Walk", perhaps Lou's best known composition, a breezy, bluesy romp that set the mood. Lou was not kidding when he admonished the Blue Note audience, he (blues) walked the talk!

***Hot Dog (1969) signed by Lou, Dr. Lonnie Smith***

Born in Badin, North Carolina, Lou attended the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro in the early 1940s. He was an honor roll student and his parents wanted him to study law. Lou had other ideas and interests, "My father was a AME Zion minister and he listened to church music, spiritual music for many, many years. And that's related to the blues. After I started playing, I heard nothing but the blues in the South, that's all we heard down there. When I was in the U.S. Navy, I heard Charlie Parker and he was one of the greatest blues players of all time. I tried to develop my style like he did, and that's where it came from."

***Mr. Shing-A-Ling (1967) signed by Lou, Dr. Lonnie Smith***

While stationed in Chicago during World War II, Lou saw Charlie Parker perform and he was never the same. He knew he wanted to be a professional musician despite his family's protestations. His family was very concerned about Lou's debilitating asthma, "My parents wanted me to do something else because I was asthmatic, and they figured that playing a horn is the last thing they'd want you to do. But they were wrong, because playing the horn actually made me survive. The diaphragm, breathing, and stuff like that, it made my lungs much stronger than weaker." Of Charlie Parker, Lou remembered, "He was just different. The sound was different. The way he played was different, the way he would drive when he played, the power behind his phrases, just different. And everything was swinging, just different from anybody else. You actually would have to live back during that era to understand it. Nobody else was playing that way, but him."

***Everything I Play Is Funky (1970) signed by Lou, Dr. Lonnie Smith***

Lou Donaldson has gone on to release more than fifty albums as a leader in his nearly seventy year professional and performing career, and he shows no signs of slowing if his recent Blue Note gig is any indication. After opening his set with "Blues Walk", he commented, "That's our theme song, it is available at your local record shop. Please go out and buy it, we need the money." He tore into a fast and frenetic version of Charlie Parker's "Wee" followed by Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World", a drawn out, heart wrenching ballad. "An homage to the greatest musician who ever lived, and if you don't know who that is, I'm not telling," Lou added with a chuckle. By way of introduction to his next selection, Lou said, "Now we're going to play the blues. Back in North Carolina, where I'm from, we call this 'sufferin' music. If you haven't suffered, you can't play this music.' Lou began "Whiskey Drinkin' Woman" with a filthy alto sax intro and then sang several humorous verses, extolling the habits of his paramour who put whiskey in her whiskey, even a dab behind her ear. The crowd roared along with Lou as each verse led to her increasingly outlandish behavior.

***I Won’t Cry Anymore (1957 recordings, 1969 release) signed by Lou***

Then the band played Lou's biggest hit, "Alligator Boogaloo", a swampy, greasy funk. In an interview, Lou explained the origin of the title. "I'm a golfer and had been playing down in Florida. One day, I hit my ball and it went in a ditch. I started to go in to get it, and my caddy stopped me and said, 'Don't do that.' Then he told me why. When I stuck my club down in the ditch with all the foliage, an alligator lifted up his head. I like the way the word "alligator' sounded with "boogaloo", which was a new hot dance then." It more than lived up to expectations as the band burned the boogaloo with a percolating boil.

Before the show, I visited with Lou in his dressing room with several of his band members. Lou was in great spirits and he was happy to look at the vinyl which I had brought. "Look at this great album, man, no one plays this anymore. Hey Eric, check this out," Lou said as he handed Funky Christmas to his guitarist, Eric Johnson. "This is before Luther (Vandross) or anyone on here was famous. This is a great album. Why don't they play my music?" Before I could answer, Lou answered for me, "I'll tell you why, they're motherf*#kers and they won't play my sh*t. They're just motherf*#kers, that's all." There was an equal mix of hurt and disappointment. I tried to console Lou, 'You know, the hip hop guys still listen to your music (Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Eminem, and A Tribe Called Quest are among the three hundred-plus who have sampled his discography!). I hope you're making some money off all the samples they've done.' "Yeah, I'm making a little bit there, but I still wish they played my records. It just ain't right," he shrugged. Shifting gears, I asked, 'What about all the pretty girls on your album covers. Any stories you want to tell me?' Lou smiled and laughed, "Nah, I don't know any of these girls. I had nothing to do with those covers. There was just one girl," he said wistfully, alluding to Maker, his wife and business partner for fifty-six years until her death in 2006. I thanked Lou for his kindness, and especially his music and left him with his band mates. It was a prelude to a great night of music.

***Funky Christmas (1976) signed by Lou, Luther Vandross at the piano!***

Lou once explained the success of his music: "Well, I started making a lot of groove records. The groove records depend on the groove. You don't have to worry about anything else really, but the groove. Because if you've got the right tempo, and everything is hitting where it's supposed to hit, you're in business. You can play variations on it, do anything on it, but if the groove is there, you're in business....There was no real mystery to those records. We made them the way we wanted to make them - which was to sell them!"