Louis Prima

Louis Prima. , Panel 2 , Trumpeter Louis Prima can best be described as an American music original. In a career spanning fifty years, he was one of the very few jazz musicians to keep abreast of stylistic changes in popular music, going from jazz, to swing, to rhythm and blues, and into the rock and roll era. Like every young musician of his generation, Prima was influenced by Louis Armstrong. His big break came in 1934 when he was offered a contract for a steady engagement at the Famous Door in New York. Perhaps not surprisingly, Prima was a popular attraction at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, playing there five times in the 1940's (the most for any white bandleader). With the decline of the big bands after World War II, Louis Prima began looking for a new approach and found it when he met Keely Smith (his fourth wife) and built an exciting Las Vegas act around her and tenor saxophonist Sam Butera in the early 1950's. The combination of Prima's humor and manic stage antics, Smith's deadpan poker face and jazz vocals, and Butera's boisterous sax on a driving shuffle beat proved irresistible, and by the end of the 1950's they were the hottest lounge act in show business. When the marriage failed in 1961, however, the act broke up. In 1969 Prima contributed vocal tracks as "King Louis" the orangutan for Disney's animated film, "The Jungle Book," once again proving his comeback ability. Like so many New Orleans artists, Louis Prima always remembered to keep the fun in the music, and he remains a favorite among young audiences today for that very reason. , Panel 3 , During the 1940;s Prima maintained a big band out of New York and had a string of hit recordings, including "Angelina"/"Oh, Marie," "Robin Hood," "Bell Bottom Trousers," Civilization," and "Just a Gigolo." He also introduced a number of novelty songs delivered in a quasi-Neapolitan dialect, such as "Baciagaloop (Makes Love on the Stoop)" and "Felicia No Capicia," making him one of the only artists of his day to put a positive emphasis on ethnicity. , Panel 4 , In Hollywood, Louis Prima became the talk of the town, and appeared in Several films in 1936-1938. His composition. "Sing, Sing, Sing," became a hit for Benny Goodman and an anthem for the swing era. With new hits such as the reprise of "I Ain't Got Nobody"/Just a Gigolo," "That Old Black Magic," and "I've Got You Under My Skin," Prima and Smith won a new generation of fans.