Jazz trumpeter Roy Eldridge was born this day in 1911. It might seem remarkable had he been an ancestor of mine (especially since he was black and I'm white.) But the fact that we share a name is a mere coincidence.
But I did briefly know by telephone a man who said Roy was one of his best friends. I work customer service for a company that sells hearing aids by mail-order. (Yeah, that's what I said when I was hired there ten years ago.)
Perhaps my most memorable customer interaction came when I took a call from an old man named Leon Merian. (I googled the guy that night and everything he told me was true.) Leon had been a professional big band trumpeter from the time he was sixteen years old in the late 30's. Not long afterward he was making more money than his old man.
He played with everybody – Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich and Diana Ross are just a few of the names I remember. He played on Broadway and on the soundtracks of films such as “Ben-Hur” and “The Godfather.” (Sadly, he wasn't the guy who played the enigmatic cornet solo on the latter. Now THAT would have been a true brush with greatness.) And also with a galaxy of stars as a performer on all the major television networks. He blamed his hearing loss on Buddy Rich, having spent a decade standing ten feet from Rich's drum kit.
He was also perhaps the first white man in America to play with an otherwise all-black touring band. He shared with me the story of his first exposure to obscene racial prejudice when the band toured the deep south. “They wouldn't let me stay with the rest of the band in their colored-only motel. I was told, 'You'll have to go to an all-white motel down the street.' I went there and – naïve as I was; I was just a teenager -- I told the manager there, 'You wouldn't believe it. I play trumpet with an all-Negro band and I can't stay in their motel cuz I'm white. Ain't that a thing?'
“The hotel manager just looked at me and said, 'Get the hell outta here, nigger-lover!'”
“I spent that whole part of the tour sleeping in the bus, but it was worth it to play with those cats!”
I'm no musician, but apparently one of Leon's outstanding qualities as a player was that he could play in some ridiculous range of octaves – like six or something – which I guess is really incredible. He said the key to it is that he had this tremendous capacity to blow really hard. I don't understand this kind of thing, but if you're a trumpet player, I guess your mind should be blown.
He also taught music at the university level and created a line of trumpet mouthpieces which were reputed to be very good.
I must have talked to him for close to an hour that first day he called. The moment in that conversation I remember most was when Leon set the telephone down and played a killer, jazzy version of “When You Wish Upon a Star” for me. It was sublime. I talked to him a couple of times after that first call and he was the coolest guy. Friendly, funny and just in love with people. What a gift it was for me to share his friendship for a short while.
Sadly, our hearing aid got stuck in his ear and he had to go to the ER to have it removed. As always in those rare instances, the company paid to cover his hospital visit but I never heard from him again. How I wish it had helped him so I might have occasionally talked to him over the following years. But he left an indelible imprint on me and reminded me of the many friendly oldsters I get to talk to in the course of my job. I wish it paid more but I love my job and sometimes it astonishes me that I get paid for what I do. And don't even get me started on Mrs. Vaccariello, God bless her.
One day a few years ago, out of curiosity, I googled him again only to find his obituary. He died in 2007.
You may never have become a household name, Leon, but I know you had the respect of your peers and became much more than anyone might have expected out of a poor kid from Boston. Keep blowing, trumpet man. I'm certain the music is endless where you are now.
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