Red Kelly RIP

[SGUD missile]

I have some bad news to pass on ..

I just got a call from Bill Ramsay to tell me that the great

Kenton /Herman bassist Red Kelly died last evening in a Tacoma WA nursing facility after a short battle with cancer.

There are as yet no plans for any actual memorial service, however, a benefit to start a jazz scholarship in Reds name is tentatively going to be held at JazzBones in TAcoma WA on Sunday , August 1 ..from 3 to nine PM ..I'm sure many of Reds' friends will show up to send him off musically in great style.

Red was a great guy, and a great storyteller ..I'm just glad I got to meet him before he got terribly ill.

RIP, Red ..you'll be missed

Phil Kelly

[JSngry]

I have a video from the mid-60s of the Harry James band w/Red Kelley on bass and Buddy Rich on drums (as well as some guy playing electric piano on one tune). The looks on the faces of those two during the perfomance, both individually and exchanged, is worth the cost of admission alone.

Red kinda looks like Uncle Fester here, so his feature on "Walk On The Wild Side" is a real treat, especially w/Buddy playing triangle behind him.

RIP

[Guest ariceffron]

WHAT!?!? RED KELLY IS DEAD??? WHAT THE HELL??? THAT SUCKS. LAST YEAR IN SEPT. RED KELLYS JAZZ CLUB CLOSED FOREVER. IT WAS SAD. RED PLAYED HIS LAST GIG THERE WHEN THEY HAD THE CLOSING PARTY. HE ALSO TOLD JOKES. IT WAS SAD THAT IT HAD TO CLOSE AFTER SO LONG. 30 OR 35 YEARS OR SOMETHING. AFTER THAT, I HEARD HE WAS GIGGING AT A LOCAL HOTEL IN THE LOUNGE BUT I NEVER MADE IT OVER TO SEE HIM AGAIN THERE. THAT SUCKS. RED KELLY KEPT JAZZ ALIVE HERE IN TACOMA. HE WAS A GOOD GUY.

[brownie]

Sad to hear this.

And from reading the posts, I am sorry I never had a chance to listen to his stories.

Didn't Red Kelly also played in an early version of the Red Norvo trio (before the Tal Farlow/Charles Mingus one)? Wonder if the third man was also a Red!

[Free For All]

Woody Herman used to delight in telling a rather morbid but affectionate story about Red.

It seems the band was invited to a wealthy patron's house for a post-concert hang.

Red, who was apparently well-oiled at the time, sat down on a couch on what he thought was a pillow. He heard a muffled "yip" and realized he had just sat on the patron's small dog, who did not survive the encounter. Red just put a pillow over the expired canine and split.

Yes, it is a sad tale (especially to us dog lovers), yet Woody told it with great aplomb and it was hard not to laugh.

Edited June 10, 2004 by Free For All

[brownie]

Red Kelly Obit.

From AP:

Thomas "Red" Kelly

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) _ Thomas "Red" Kelly, a well-traveled jazz bassist who scored a direct hit on the funnybone of Washington state politics with a mock campaign for governor, has died. He was 76.

Kelly, who played with stars ranging from Frank Sinatra to Charlie "Yardbird" Parker and Billie Holiday, died Wednesday of complications from cancer and other ailments, friends and relatives said.

He made his biggest offstage stir by accident in 1976, when he owned and performed at the Tumwater Conservatory, an Olympia-area watering hole frequented by state legislators, lobbyists and reporters.

One night Kelly was joking with a group at the bar after closing time about running for office and was overheard by John White, state Capitol correspondent for The Associated Press.

White's report the next day struck a nationwide chord. Interviewed on national television, Kelly was off and running with the OWL party, based on the combined slogans of "Out With Logic" and "On With Lunacy."

He got 8 percent of the vote.

Born in Shelby, Mont., Kelly grew up in Seattle and spent three decades on the road with Tony Bennett, Count Basie, Harry James, Buddy Rich, Duke Ellington and others.