Jazz Connection Magazine

Guitarist Nappy Lamare, above, strumming his guitar while in the Bob Crosby band in

1938. Pictured behind Lamare are Bob Zurke, piano; Bob Haggart, bass; and Ray

Bauduc, drums. Lamare would have turned 100 on June 14, 2005.

If you are fan of Dixieland music and are old enough to remember, the name of Nappy Lamare conjures up images of a master showman, a brilliant guitarist and banjo player, a great novelty tune singer, an original member and the spark plug of the famed Bob Crosby Bob Cats, a pioneer of early television, and a life-long champion of the Dixieland style of jazz.

To those who knew him best - family, friends, and fellow musicians - Nappy Lamare was someone you just instinctively had to love. And those that loved him best and those who appreciated his musical contributions are celebrating the centennial anniversary of Lamare's birth this month. It's not surprising that this milestone is gaining attention

"It's more for my family," said Lamare's son, Barry, 66, via telephone from his home in New Denver, British Columbia, Canada, about what he hopes will come out from the attention about his father. "My children knew him, of course, but my grandchildren didn't. My dad still has a fan base out there. I'm sure there are people around who still listen to his music. For some reason, there seems to be a regeneration in that kind of sound up here in Canada. I hear it on the radio. My cousin, Ginger (Lamare McAuliffe) sparked this idea that maybe others should know about it and that people do remember him. Dad made a statement in terms of that genre of music in his life."

"I just want people to remember him," said Ginger Lamare McAuliffe, Nappy's niece, in a telephone conversation from her home in Corpus Christi, TX. McAuliffe is the host of a jazz radio show, Moonlight Serenade, on KEDT FM 90.3 in Corpus Christi, that airs on Friday nights from 8 to 9 and again on Tuesday from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Central Time "I think he had a great legacy. I know when the Crosby band went to France in 1981, it was Nappy that they welcomed with signs."

Raising to stardom by helping to lay the rhythmic foundation for the popular and explosive Bob Crosby band from 1935 to 1942, and thus helping to make it "the best Dixieland band in the land," Lamare spent his entire life dedicated to making good music.

"All I can say is that Nappy was one of the nicest guys," said Kay Weber Sillaway, 95, via telephone from her home in Dallas, TX. Weber-Sillaway worked as the girl singer in the Crosby band from mid-1937 to mid-1938. "He had a great sense of humor. He had a sly, subtle humor. He was a natural talent. He always had that 'little boy' in him, which I always thought was so charming."

"Nappy was one of my dearest friends," said Arthur "Doc" Rando, 95, in a telephone conversation from his home Las Vegas. He played alto sax in Crosby's band from 1940 to 1942. "He was Godfather to my daughter and I'm Godfather to his son, James. With Nappy, there was always something going on."

"I've known Nappy and worked with him for so often and so long it was very a deep pleasure," said Noni Bernardi, 93, in a telephone conversation from his home in Van Nuys, CA. Bernardi, a veteran of the Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet and Kay Kyser units, also played alto saxophone in the Crosby band from 1936 to 1937, and he, along with Doc Rando, were business partners with Lamare. "We were very close, musically and otherwise."

"Nappy was a very important part of the Bob Crosby band," said Max Herman, 90, via telephone from his home in Van Nuys, CA. Herman played lead trumpet in the Crosby band from 1939 until the band broke up in 1942, and was the former president of the musicians' union Local 47 for thirty years. "The band had that driving rhythm that depended upon a good drummer, a good bass player, and a good rhythm guitar player. A good rhythm guitar player made it possible for the great piano players to play certain things. If they had to sit there playing rhythm, they wouldn't be much of a piano player. Nappy was one of the top guys along with Alan Reuss that played good, good rhythm in the band."

"Uncle Nappy was a very happy guy," McAuliife said. "He was always happy. He was one of my favorite uncles. I had a close relationship with him. I only have fond memories of him."

Joseph Hilton "Nappy" Lamare was born on June 14, 1905, on Dumaine Street in New Orleans, the oldest of six children. His mother was of German origin and his father, Joseph, a printer, was of French ancestry.

Many biographies list Lamare as erroneously being born in 1907 or 1908 or even 1910, according to Barry Lamare.

"Dad a had a tendency to lie about his age," said Barry Lamare who with wife, Sally, owns What Knot Works, a creative woodworking business. "I don't why. (laughs) It's ironic, Ginger's father was born in 1907, so it was like he was taking his brother's birth year. My mother, who was born five days after my dad, honestly admitted her age." (laughs)

Also, some biographies list his name as "Hilton Napoleon Lamare," which is also incorrect, according to Barry Lamare.

"I honestly don't know where the idea came about that dad's name was Napoleon," Barry Lamare said. "Perhaps a journalist extrapolated on his knick name, 'Nappy,' and turned it into Napoleon. He was never called Napoleon."

Lamare was christened with the nickname of "Nappy" by his close childhood buddy, Eddie Miller, during the early 1920s.

"Dad liked to sleep in late and plus, he had very tight, curly hair," Barry Lamare explained. "So Eddie used to refer to my dad as being 'nappy-headed.'" That's politically incorrect to talk about, but the name fit him and it worked well for him all of his life."

Lamare's musical odyssey began quite by accident. While he was strolling the streets of New Orleans as a young child, he was bitten by the jazz bug when he first heard a young trumpeter by the name of Louis Armstrong play in a black marching band. That was enough to inspire the youngster to take up the trumpet to try to recreate those joyous sounds he had heard.

But evidentially, Lamare's musical forte was not the trumpet as was so often pointed out by one of his peers: banjoist Emmett Durel. Reportedly, Durel's persistent teasing finally caused the 13-year-old aspiring trumpeter to angrily shoot back, "It would only take me a month to learn to play the banjo better than you do." Durel didn't take Lamare's comment seriously, but Lamare was very serious, abandoning the trumpet for the banjo. He took banjo lessons from Jules Bauduc, Jr., the older brother of drummer Ray Bauduc, and made good on his promise. Within the month he was playing banjo well enough to join a local teen band, The Midnight Serenaders, playing as accompanists for silent movies while getting paid a dollar apiece.

By age 16, Lamare was playing banjo and singing professionally in and around New Orleans in bands led by Sharkey Bonano, Monk Hazel, and Johnny Wiggs, among others. When he wasn't gigging around, Lamare studied with black guitarist Narvin Kimball.

It was during this time that Lamare struck up life-long friendships with Ray Bauduc and Eddie Miller.

In 1925, Bauduc returned to New Orleans after touring with trumpeter Johnny Beyersdorffer's band. Bauduc asked Lamare if he would like to join the band. Lamare eagerly agreed, and toured with Beyersdorffer for a few months in California.

After returning to "The Crescent City," Beyersdorffer teamed up with violinist Billy Lustig to form a new band and headed north to Chicago. Larmare and Bauduc went along. Things for the band in Chicago weren't working out and so Lamore went east to New York looking for work. There he met up with Billy Burton, a violinist from New Orleans, who gave him a job working with his band in Atlantic City, NJ. While working in Atlantic City, Lamare met his future wife, Alice Ryan, who was singing in The Ryan Sisters, a vocal duo.

After the gig with Burton ended, Lamare, who was also an avid photographer, returned to New Orleans and worked with the New Orleans Owls. The nine-piece New Orleans Owls, led by clarinetist-alto saxist Benjie White, played regularly at the Hotel Roosevelt and other hotels in New Orleans between the years of 1922 and 1929. They were one of only a handful of bands that were recorded in the city of New Orleans in the 1920s.

Also in the band during this period were cornetists Bill Pardon and Red Bowman, clarinetist Pinky Vidacovich, tenor saxophonist Lester Smith, trombonist Frank Netto, pianist Sigfre Christiansen, tuba player Dan LeBlanc, and drummer Earl Crumb.

On Oct. 26, 1927, Lamare recorded three tunes with the New Orleans Owls on the Columbia label: Goose Pimples, The New Twister and Throwin' The Horns, with Lamare sharing the vocal duties with Bowman.

All eighteen cuts which the New Orleans Owls waxed from 1925 to 1927, can be heard over the Internet by logging on to The Red Hot Jazz Archive, a website devoted to the history of jazz before 1930, at www.redhotjazz.com

Lamare then worked with trumpeter Tony Fougerat, but jobs were becoming scarcer and scarcer to find in New Orleans. Heeding the advice of bandleader George "Happy" Shilling to "go back up north and stay there," Lamare returned to New York and contacted Ray Bauduc who was working in Ben Pollack's band.

Pollack, a gifted drummer, was one of the more successful white band leaders of the late 1920s. His orchestras featured many future jazz stars such as Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Jack and Charlie Teagarden, Bud Freeman and Jimmy McPartland, plus the nucleus of the future Bob Crosby band - Eddie Miller, Matty Matlock, Yank Lawson, Gil Rodin, Ray Bauduc, Dean Kincaide and Lamare. While his orchestras were basically commercial dance bands, they also gave soloists plenty of freedom in determining the shape of the music. Pollack played in several bands in Chicago before joining the Friar's Society Orchestra in 1921. In 1926 he started his own band which played at the hotels in Chicago and then relocated to California in 1927, and then to New York where it found a home at the Park Central Hotel. Victor signed the band up in 1926 and they recorded with that label until 1929. The band underwent numerous personnel changes until its demise in 1934.

Pollack's guitarist, Dick Morgan, was planning to leave the band. Upon Bauduc's recommendation to Pollack, Lamare was hired.

Nappy Lamare, left, hamming it up with childhood friend, Eddie Miller, in the early 1930s.

Lamare joined the Pollack orchestra in September 1930 after the band finished playing its season in Saratoga, NY. Also joining the band at the time was Eddie Miller.

Alto saxophonist Gil Rodin, a member of Pollack's band, put together a ten-piece group under his own name comprised of Pollack sidemen that cut some sides for the Crown label in September 1930 and January 1931. Lamare was on all five sides that featured vocals by Jack Teagarden and Pollack himself under the name, "Eddie Gale."

Lamare recorded four tunes with cornetist Red Nichols on Dec. 12, 1930. Also on that session were Eddie Miller, Gil Rodin, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.

On January 8, 1931, Lamare married Alice Ryan in New York. By the time time the Pollack orchestra disbanded, the first of Lamare's three sons were born: Hilton, in 1934, in New York.

Lamare waxed his first three sides with Pollack on Jan. 21, 1931, on Banner Records, with Sing-Song Girl and Fall In Love With Me (two with vocals by Ben Pollack) and You Didn't Have To Tell Me (with vocal by Jack Teagarden). In the band at that time were Charlie Spivak and Sterling Bose, trumpets; Jack Teagarden, trombone; Benny Goodman, clarinet; Rodin, alto sax; Miller, tenor sax; Al Beller, violin; Gil Bowers, piano; Harry Goodman, bass; and Bauduc, drums.

It didn't take long for Lamare's out-going and humorous personality to gain him recognition with Pollack. He would often be called on to sing novelty tunes with the band while singing some very compelling vocal duets with Jack Teagarden, such as Bend Down, Sister, which, unfortunately never was recorded. He even was called upon to assist various acts with whom the Pollack band worked, sometimes with somewhat embarrassing results.

One such humorous event occurred in 1933 when the Pollack band was booked at the Casino De Paree in New York. The affair is documented in John Chilton's 1983 book, Stomp Off, Let's Go! The Story Of Bob Crosby's Bob Cats And Big Band:

"An uncharming dancer insisted that he had to have a guitarist on stage with him for his act, one who could play seated at the top of a ladder, whilst wearing a sombrero. Nappy cheerfully obliged, and raised no objection when asked to smoke a cheroot whilst strumming. The stage was dimmed and only Lamare's silhouette was seen by the audience, that was until he began puffing away at his cheroot with a ferocity that turned it into what Eddie Miller described as "a fiery Roman candle." The band became convulsed with laughter, and so too the audience. The only person not amused was the egotistical cabaret artist. From then on he managed without a guitarist up aloft. Lamare was philosophical about the debacle, 'Those damned cheroots were a lousy smoke. Give me my Picayune brand of cigarettes any day.'"

During his four years with Pollack, Lamare helped to record 33 sides on the Banner, Victor and Columbia labels and was featured vocally on three of those sides, including Two Tickets To Georgia (March 19, 1933), Got The Jitters (Dec. 28, 1933), and My Little Grass Shack In Kealakekua, Hawaii (with Ben Pollack and Doris Robbins - Jan. 23, 1934).

By May 29,1934, when the band recorded it's last four sides for Columbia - Night On The Desert and Sleepy Head (vocals by trombonist Joe Harris), Freckle Face, You're Beautiful (vocal by Pollack), and I've Got A Warm Spot For You (vocal by Doris Robbins) - Pollack was losing all his sidemen as the musicians were becoming discouraged due to poor bookings and cuts in salaries. Even Pollack himself grew tired of the band and wanted to devote his time to further the career of his wife, Doris Robbins. So, by late 1934, while in California, Pollack disbanded.

Lamare and Eddie Miller then got a recording date with trumpeter Louis Prima, waxing four sides on the Brunswick label on Dec. 26, 1934, as part of Prima's "New Orleans Gang." That session produced House Rent Party Day, It's The Rhythm In Me, Worry Blues and Bright Eyes (with Prima doing the vocals on four tunes).

But most of Pollack's' now unemployed sidemen, known as "Pollack's Orphans" - trumpeters Yank Lawson and Spivak, clarinetist-arranger Matty Matlock, Bowers, Rodin, Miller, and Lamare - decided to form a new band under the direction of Jack Teagarden, who had left Pollack a little earlier. But Teagarden couldn't get out of his contract with Paul Whiteman.

The Bob Crosby Band in 1935: (l-r) Bob Crosby, leader/vocals; Nappy Lamar, guitar; Eddie Miller, tenor sax; Gil Rodin, alto sax; Matty Matlock, clarinet; Phil Hart,

trumpet; Ray Bauduc, drums; Eddie Bergman, violin; Gil Bowers, piano; Frank Tennille, vocals; Deane Kincaide, tenor sax; Joe Harris, trombone; Bob Haggart, bass;

and Yank Lawson, trumpet.

The members of the band made their various ways to New York where Rodin, who landed a radio job with Benny Goodman, kept the band working by booking occasional one-night stands. They played a radio series, the Kellogg College Prom, with Red Nichols. They also cut ten sides for Brunswick in March 1935, under the name of Clark Randall and his Orchestra. "Randall" was Frank Tennille, a wealthy young Alabamian who sponsored the dates so that he could be feature himself as vocalist. The line up is virtually the same as that of the first Bob Crosby Orchestra, except Glenn Miller was used as an extra trombonist on the recording. He later decided to go off with Ray Noble instead of with the Bob Cats.

However, Tennille did not do all the singing. Lamare was featured vocally on three of those Clark Randall sides with Troublesome Trumpet (March 15), Jitter Bug (March 22), and Here Comes Your Pappy With The Wrong Kind Of Load (March 22).

The loosely-formed outfit of Pollack's Orphans caught the ear of the Rockwell-O'Keefe Agency, then one of the biggest bookers and builders of bands, who suggested that the fledgling aggregation needed a front man. The agency let the band choose three candidates. They settled on crooner Bing Crosby's kid brother, George Robert Crosby, better known as Bob, recently boy singer for the Dorsey Brothers.

Crosby proved to be the perfect choice of the new band. He was good looking, a pleasant singer and had easygoing ways and an unpretentious charm. Plus, he carried the Crosby name. The band started as a "co-op" but professionally was billed as Bob Crosby and his Orchestra.

From 1935 to 1942, the Crosby band had some of the greatest blowers of the age and won fame as a versatile outfit whose repertory included hit ballads and jump tunes, novelty and comedy numbers and even waltzes. But its musicians found their true inspiration in the collective improvisations of the band's "danceable Dixieland." They gave old jazz classics a new lease on life and brought authentic blues to an audience generally unfamiliar with its message.

The Bob Cats, an eight-piece combo made up of the rhythm section plus the strongest sidemen, won additional popularity for the band, on records and in person, by delivering fresh and flowing Dixieland of the highest caliber. The Bob Cat numbers not only made good listening but gave the musicians a chance to improvise in an unfettered small-group context after which they could tackle their parts in the sections with renewed creative vigor.

Bob Cat personnel included in one form or another, Lawson or Billy Butterfield, trumpet; Matty Matlock or Irving Fazola or Hank D'Amico, clarinet; Warren Smith or Floyd O'Brien, trombone; Miller, tenor sax; Joe Sullivan or Bob Zurke or Jess Stacy, piano: Lamare, guitar; Bob Haggart, bass; and Bauduc, drums.

"You don't have to start an investigation to learn where the music of the Crosby band was conceived," Lamare was quoted in a previously published interview. "It's strictly New Orleans in character and not without reason. Back home you are exposed to good jazz when you're still a little shaver, and you grow up absorbing the right kind of music."

The line-up of talent filtering through the Crosby band during that seven-year period is a Who's Who of jazz. The trumpet section included Lawson, Charlie Spivak, Butterfield, Zeke Zarchy, Shorty Sherock, Muggsy Spanier, and Max Herman; the trombone section had Smith, Ward Sillaway, Ray Conniff, Buddy Morrow, and O'Brien; there were the sensational clarinetists of Matlock, Fazola, and D'Amico; the saxophone section boasted Miller, Gil Rodin, Dean Kincaide, Noni Bernardi, Arthur "Doc" Rando, Bill Stegmeyer, and George Koenig; there were piano greats Sullivan, Zurke and Stacy; the talents of bassist-composer-arranger Haggart; and drummer Bauduc and guitarist Lamare. The band's series of girl singers included Doris Day, Liz Tilton, Kay Weber, Gloria DeHaven, Kay Starr, Helen Ward, and Marion Mann.

The Bob Cats also recorded with Bing Crosby, Connie Boswell, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire and Mary Lee.

By 1938, the Crosby band grossed $500,000 (with Lamare making $15,000 per year). They also appeared in seven movies - Let's Make Music, Presenting Lily Mars, Thousands Cheer, See Here, Private Hargrove, Rookies On Parade and Reveille With Beverly - and was voted one of the top three dance bands in a Metronome poll.

Nappy Lamare with his boss, Bob Crosby, from a Feb. 16, 1938 photo.

The Crosby band waxed it's very first sides for Decca in New York on June 1, 1935, with Flowers For Madame and In A Little Gypsy Tea Room (both vocals by Frank Tennille), The Dixieland Band (vocal by Bob Crosby), and Beale Street Blues (vocal by Joe Harris). Personnel for that recording session included Lawson and Andy Ferretti, trumpets; Harris and Artie Foster, trombones; Rodin, Matlock, Miller and Kincaide, saxophones; Gil Bowers, piano; and Lamare, Haggart and Bauduc rounding out the rhythm section; with Crosby and Tennille sharing vocal duties.

During that year, Red McKenzie revived his once famous Mound City Blowers for fourteen recordings on the Vocalion and the Champion labels. He utilized a number of Crosby sidemen for the jobs including Lamare, Eddie Miller, Yank Lawson, Bob Haggart, Ray Bauduc and Gil Bowers. Lamare was featured vocally on of those eight cuts: Red Sails In The Sunset, I'm Sittin' High On A Hill Top, On Treasure Island and Thanks A Million (all on Nov. 8); and Eeney Meeney Miney Mo, A Little Bit Independent, I'm Shootin' High and I've Got My Fingers Crossed (all on Dec. 12).

All the McKenzie Mound City Blowers selections can be heard on the The Red Hot Jazz Archive website at www.redhotjazz.com

Of the 360 tunes commercially waxed by the Crosby band (including recordings by the Bob Cats) from 1935 to 1942, many became hits and have since become jazz classics, including South Rampart Street Parade (Nov. 16, 1937), March Of The Bob Cats (March 14, 1938), Little Rock Getaway (Nov. 5, 1937), Stomp Off And Let's Go (Jan. 23, 1939), What's New? (Oct. 19, 1938), My Inspiration (Oct. 20, 1938), Yancey Special (March 10, 1938), I'm Prayin' Humble (Oct. 19, 1938), Gin Mill Blues (Feb. 8, 1937), and Chain Gang (Feb. 17, 1942).

One of the band's biggest hits, Big Noise From Winnetka (recorded Oct. 14, 1938), featured the duo of Haggart on bass and Bauduc on drums. A "shtick" that the two musicians did on the piece that always drove audience's wild was when Haggart played his bass while Bauduc tapped on the strings of the bass with his drum sticks. That part of the "act" was credited to Lamare and Bauduc when they used to do that as kids.

Lamare was featured vocally on only a dozen cuts that the Crosby band recorded: Do Ye Ken John Peel? and There's A Boy From Harlem (both March 9, 1938), Milk Cow Blues (March 10, 1938) Palesteena (March 14, 1938), Swingin' At The Sugar Bowl (March 19, 1938), Loopin' The Loop (Oct. 21, 1938), Stomp Off And Let's Go and Cherry (Jan. 23, 1939), Between 18th And 19th On Chestnut Street (with Eddie Miller on Dec. 6, 1939), You're Bound To Look Like A Monkey (When You Grow Old) (Sept. 10, 1940), A Zoot Suit (Jan. 20, 1942), and 'Way Down Yonder In New Orleans (with Eddie Miller on Feb. 5, 1942).

But it was Lamare's ability to entertain with a song at theater shows that was his forte. He would often team up with Miller and Haggart to do a celebrated fan dance to the strains of Beautiful Lady.

"Nappy was an outstanding singer when he sang his novelty songs," Herman said. "When he sang novelty songs, he always got a tremendous ovation. For theater dates, big bands had to offer something more for the public than just playing music. That's where Nappy shined. Not only did he play with the Bob Cats, but he was also featured as a performer a few times. When Nappy sang, he was always a big hit."

"I remember a tune Nappy did called Don't Call Me Boy that the crowd loved," recalled Rando. "He also did a funny jitterbug routine with Liz Tilton, who sang with the band at the time, that always was a show-stopper."

"Nappy had a great performing personality," Weber-Sillaway said. "He had a really special charm."

The Crosby band was a happy band with camaraderie amongst its members genuine and tight, according to Barry Lamare.

"All his life Dad talked about what a happy band the Crosby outfit was," Barry Lamare said. "He made such good friends. Many critics had even written about the close camaraderie the musicians had with each other."

Such camaraderie led Lamare to stand up for Crosby trombonist Ward Sillaway as his best man on June 21,1938, when he married Kay Weber, in Chicago.

"Nappy and Ward were very good friends," Weber-Sillaway said. "I also loved Alice, too."

The year 1938 also heralded the birth of Lamare's second son, Barry, in Chicago, while the Crosby band was making it's historic stint at the Windy City's famed Blackhawk Restaurant.

By late-1942, with the world at war and a musicians' union strike going against the record companies, Crosby disbanded.

Lamare and his family headed west to California, settling in North Hollywood, where he worked with Eddie Miller as part of Capitol Records' pool of musicians. Some of the recordings they made under Miller's leadership include The Hour Of Parting, Our Monday Date, Yesterdays, and (I'm Gonna) Stomp, Mr. Henry Lee (vocal by Nappy Lamare - all recorded Feb. 4, 1944) and Everything I Have Is Yours (vocal by Martha Tilton) and Who, Me? (both on Dec. 22, 1944).

Lamare then teamed up once again to record with Wingy Manone's Dixieland Band for a March 7, 1944, Capitol Record session of The Tailgate Ramble (with Johnny Mercer on the vocal). He first recorded with the one-armed trumpeter back in October 1934, January 1935 and in February 1935, cutting twelve sides and assuming the vocal duties on three: Nickel In The Slot (Jan.15, 1935), March Winds And April Showers and House Rent Party Day (Feb. 20, 1935 - both with Manone).

Beginning in 1945, Lamare led his own group, The Louisiana Levee Loungers, that recorded for Capitol and played in and around the Los Angeles area. Personnel over the years consisted of Matty Matlock; Eddie Miller; Stan Wrightsman, piano; Budd Hatch and Artie Shapiro, bass; Irvin Verret and Lou McGarity trombones; Doc Rando; and John Best, trumpet; and Ray Bauduc and Zutty Singleton, drums.

"I was too young to remember Dad's days with the Crosby band, but I do remember the times when he settled in California," Barry Lamare said. "Our family was really close with two other families from the Crosby band: Eddie Miller's and Matty Matlock's. We lived within a mile from one another. Since I had very little to do with any of my cousins, these musical people who were friends of my dad were my 'family.' They were the ones who I grew up with."

"Ray was nice, but really uptight," Barry Lamare said. "He was always concerned about his appearance. He didn't like kids climbing on him with their grubby hands."

And when the Lamare's, the Miller's and the Matlock's did get together, it was usually for social and recreational purposes.

"When our fathers got together it was a time to get away from music," Barry Lamare said. "The big thing I remember from our lives was when we all got together and rented a house in Balboa Beach during the summer. Our fathers would come and go while we would be there because they'd be working. But sometimes they did get together to play music. Those were delightful times. We'd sit around in the living room or den and they would talk a little about music and play. There were no microphones or spotlights. It was quite enjoyable hearing them play along."

While Lamare encouraged his sons to be musical, their interest in that area waned, according to Barry Lamare.

"Unfortunately, none of his sons really took up music," Barry Lamare said. "It didn't work. Dad was too demanding and he wasn't an easy teacher. My older brother took up music and went to the University of Southern California to play music. He eventually gave up on it. I played the guitar and I still play at it. Music came easy to my dad. As soon I'd master a chord, he didn't praise me much for it, but he'd insist that I'd learn the next, more difficult one."

Although there was stability to their lives, it wasn't easy growing up as children of musicians, as professional musicians tended to be away from home a good deal of the time.

"Dad was gone a lot, and that was difficult at times," Barry Lamare said. "After the Crosby band broke up and Dad had to make it on his own, he formed a few bands and he toured everywhere. There are photos of me graduating from high school or going through confirmation with Dad not there. It was hard not having him around."

"Dad's fame got in the way sometimes, but it was also fun," Barry Lamare said. "He'd take me with him to the musicians' union or to the bank and people would recognize him. It would be two hours as people would reminisce with him about certain performances. There was a fun part, too, where I got some recognition as a teenager whose father was well-recognized on television."

Of course, since Lamare rubbed shoulders with many musical giants of the era, his family would also.

"We met other Crosby alumni, of course, as well as Bob and Bing," Barry Lamare said. "Crosby's band would play these benefit concerts and we'd meet them. I remember attending this affair at the musicians' union with my family. I was quite young and I ran into this guy and he accidentally poured two containers of beer on my head. I started crying and he felt so sorry. He asked me where my parents were at. He led me back to where they were. And Dad recognized him and he said, 'Oh, Johnny..." It turned out to be Johnny Mercer! Dad and Johnny were friends going back to the Camel Caravan radio show days in 1939 when Crosby's band was on it and Johnny was the co-host. He, Dad, and Matty Matlock wrote a song together called I Got To Be On My Way. I don't think it was ever recorded."

Ginger Lamare McAuliffe also comes from a musical family. Her father, James Lamare, played alto and baritone sax in Charlie Barnet's band from 1938 to 1942. She remembers that as a little girl her family and her Uncle Nappy's family would often live together for brief periods of time.

"Whenever the two bands (Barnet's and Crosby's) were in town together, our families got an apartment to save money," McAuliffe said.

Nappy Lamare's Straw Hat Stutters. Pictured are Nappy Lamare, center, Joe Graves, trumpet; Brad Gowans, trombone; Johnny Costello,

clarinet;, Pud Brown, tenor sax; Jack Peoples, piano, Budd Hatch, bass and tuba; and Roy Harte, drums.

In early 1947, Lamare formed a business partnership with two other ex-Crosby sidemen, saxophonists Doc Rando and Noni Bernardi. The trio purchased a night club on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, CA, renovated it, and called it "Club 47," in honor of the musicians' union of Los Angeles, Local 47. The three partners helped to provide the music playing with pianist Marvin Ash and drummer Zutty Singleton. Sitters were welcome and at times, all-star jam sessions would be assembled. Many famous musicians graced the small bandstand including Benny Goodman, Harry James, Ray Anthony and as well as actors such as Robert Mitchum, who would sing the blues with his croaky voice.

"Club 47 was a hot spot for musicians," Rando said. "Our clientele were entirely musicians. There wasn't a night when we didn't have fun. It was a fun place. It was five years of pure fun. Some of the older musicians who are still around still comment that there was never such a place as Club 47. You could always sit in and play and hear some of the best music."

"It was something off the side," Bernardi said. "It was a great place to hear music. We never had any problems."

Lamare worked briefly with Jimmy Dorsey in 1948, and by the following year, he reorganized a new Dixieland band called "Nappy Lamare's Straw Hat Stutters." With Lamare playing banjo, guitar and doing the vocals, band personnel included Joe Graves, trumpet, who later went on to lead the Harry James Orchestra after James died in 1983; Brad Gowans, trombone; Johnny Costello, clarinet;, Pud Brown, tenor sax; Jack Peoples, piano, Budd Hatch, bass and tuba; and Roy Harte, drums.

The group recorded for Capitol Records, appeared in the film, Hollywood Rhythm, and played many of the top spots in Los Angeles. The band was also hired to provide the music on a weekly television variety show on KTLA called Dixie Showboat, which ran for three years and was seen on forty-two stations across the nation. Starting out as a 30-minute program, it quickly grew into an hour-long show. Regulars on the show included singer Jackie Fontaine and the comedy act of "Peanuts & Popcorn."

The show consisted of traditional jazz favorites and songs that featured Lamare's novelty singing and his banjo playing.

It was at the television station working as an "extra" where Barry Lamare had his most vivid recollections of his father as a musician.

"I would sit on the bales of straw that were on the set pretending to be one of the kids on the dock as the steamboat came in," Barry Lamare said. "I had to clap and laugh at the jokes. I remember Dick Lane was the MC on the show and Scatman Crothers was a guest."

The Dixie Showboat was done live, mistakes and all. One such "mistake" caused the NAACP to intervene.

"My dad and the musicians appeared for the first two shows in black faces," Barry Lamare said. "The NAACP just jumped in there and raised living hell about it. They removed the black faces on the remaining shows."

Since this was before the advent of video, having animal acts on live television were often unpredictable.

"I remember this monkey act during one studio rehearsal," recalled Barry Lamare. "The monkey was supposed to walk across this tight rope carrying a Coke bottle and a banana. The monkey got irritated with somebody and threw the Coke bottle and banana at him. Then it pissed all over everyone! (laughs) The director canned that act right away."

After Dixie Showboat went national, Lamare's Straw Hat Strutters were offered work all over the States, touring regularly until 1954.

By 1951, Lamare's career was taking off and he couldn't devote the time and energy into maintaining Club 47. His other two partners were also spreading themselves a bit thin with other interests. The trio decided that running a club was too much of a headache, and they put it up for sale.

By 1955, most of the band's dates were centered in Los Angeles, which gave Lamare a chance to do more free lance work and to be a part of a several Bob Crosby Bob Cat reunions.

Nappy Lamare with Ray Bauduc as The Riverboat Dandies from 1956.

During one of these Crosby reunions, Lamare and Bauduc decided to form a band of their own called the "Riverboat Dandies." The band worked consistently throughout the remainder of the 1950s, recording two albums for Capitol, Riverboat Dandies and Two Beat Generation. It was during his stint with the Riverboat Dandies that Lamare began playing a four-string Fender bass instead of the banjo, due to an injury to his left pinky.

"When Dad owned Club 47, he broken his left pinky in an accident," Barry Lamare said. "After the doctor set it, he told Dad that he would never be able to move that finger again. The finger curved like a 'C.' He couldn't make the chord changes on the guitar and banjo anymore. He had to look for something else. At that time, the electric Fender bass was coming out. It was a four-string bass he could play like a guitar."

When the 1960s rolled around, both Lamare and Bauduc decided to take the band off the road. Both men stayed in Los Angeles for the next few years, but eventually Bauduc moved to Texas to live in comfortable retirement after his wife, Edna, inherited a fortune.

Lamare regained the use of his left pinky and was able to play guitar and banjo again and continued to lead various aggregations in the Los Angeles area.

In 1971, Alice, his wife of 40 years, suddenly died of a heart attack at age 66.

"I know Aunt Alice's death took a toll on Uncle Nappy's spirit," said McAuliffe, who sang with sax man Sam Donahue in the late 1940s and with Claude Thornhill's band. (It was while singing in Thornhill's band that she met and wed sax man Bob McAuliffe.) "I remember he and Aunt Alice came to visit me just before she died. We all drove out to the beach and Uncle Nappy was amazed that he could drive on the beach and drink beer. I made lasagna and heated it up and took it out there to eat and we just had a ball. They were always so much fun to be with. The next time Uncle Nappy came to visit was after Aunt Alice died. The energy he had just wasn't there. While I was cooking, he'd play his banjo. He'd practice every day."

In the ensuing years, Lamare appeared at Disneyland, at various jazz festivals, toured with The World’s Greatest Jazz Band, went to Europe with a show called A Night In New Orleans, and played with the Crosby band at re-unions all across the country, and in 1981 played with the Bob Cats in Nice, France. He also played with Crosby on a cruise ship which took them through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean. When he wasn’t traveling, he loved getting together with his old friend, Joe Darensbourg, a clarinetist originally from Louisiana, and playing at jazz societies in the Los Angeles area.

In 1975, Lamare was involved in a serious auto accident. It affected him psychologically that he couldn't play. After receiving a few acupuncture treatments, he was able to play string instruments again, according to Barry Lamare.

In 1982, Lamare and Eddie Miller were paid a great tribute by Jazz Forum for their life-time achievements. The pair received awards from Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, City Councilman Noni Bernardi, and Max Herman, president of Musicians' Union Local 47.

"On July 18, 1982, it was proclaimed as 'Nappy Lamare and Eddie Miller Day' in Los Angeles," Barry Lamare said. "Dad was very appreciative of that."

In his later years, Lamare, also traveled extensively to visit family, his brothers and sister in New Jersey and New Orleans, his son Barry and his family in Canada, his son Jim and his family in New Zealand, and with Hilton and his family at their beachfront cottage in Rosarito, Mexico. Wherever he went, Lamare always took his banjo, even though he suffered from arthritis.

"After we left the U.S. and moved to Canada in the mid-1970s, that's when we all got close," Barry Lamare said. "Whatever stuff that went down earlier between us was forgotten about. He made it a point of coming up here as often as he could. He'd get in his car and drive the 1,500 miles to get up here. He'd spend a week or month with us. My oldest son, Joey, was 16 when we moved to Canada. When he turned 18, he went back to L.A. and lived with my father for two years. So he got real close to Dad."

During Lamare's visits to Canada, son Barry would often get his father together with the local musicians to play.

"The local musicians here were all into folk and bluegrass, but Dad sat in and played," Barry Lamare said. "He'd even sing. He loved it and they loved him."

During the last two years of his life, Lamare lived in a retirement community in Newhall, CA, near the home of his son Hilton, and his wife, Anne. He would occasionally go to the nearby Santa Clarita Jazz Club and perform a number or two for the traditional jazz enthusiasts who met there monthly.

"The retirement community where Dad lived had a band," Barry Lamare said. "Dad couldn't decide if he wanted to play in it because he hadn't played in about a year because of depression. He eventually got involved. He didn't like them too much because they weren't too good. Plus, the band had violin players and he didn't like playing with violin players. He said they couldn't keep time. (laughs)"

Lamare sang and played banjo with this band on the evening of May 7, 1988. He went to bed that evening and never woke up. He died of a heart attack in his sleep on May 8, at age 82.

Lamare was survived by his three sons, Hilton, Barry, and James; eight grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren. He was buried alongside Alice at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, San Fernando, CA. Eighteen months after Lamare died, son Hilton passed away.

Nappy's great-grandson, Jake Lamare, (Barry's oldest grandson), now 13, has taken up playing the guitar, and is interested in his great-grandfather's career and legacy, according to Barry Lamare.

Throughout his life, Lamare was devoted to keeping the Dixieland sound alive even during the times when there was little interest in it.

"Dad was true to that sound and he was true to the people who created that sound, his friends," Barry Lamare said. "To him, it was happy music. He liked the mood it generated. He was a happy man himself. I often read that he sang novelty songs or that he sang with a novelty voice. I listened to his voice on those two albums he did with Ray Bauduc and the Riverboat Dandies and his voice really matured. It's a different voice from his earlier years, but it's a good voice."

With the preservation of that Dixieland sound, Lamare added his own distinctive style to the mix of playing banjo and guitar.

"Dad considered himself a really good player," Barry Lamare said. "He was a humble man but at the same time he was competitive musically. He would often say, 'I can cut that guy.' One time Dad was playing with other banjo players at Disneyland. He'd come home and say, 'This guy can't play by ear, he has to read everything.' Although he read music, everything was done by ear with Dad. It all came spontaneously."

The creative genius of Nappy Lamare still lives in the many recordings he did with early jazz greats, with the Crosby band, and with his own Dixieland groups, as well as in the hearts of his family members, friends, fellow musicians and fans. May his legacy in music remain lasting!

Jazz Connection Magazine . June - July 2005 . www.jazzconnectionmag.com